From the Native American perspective, the sixteenth century marked the beginning of the European invasion. The first Europeans to contact the Native nations were explorers, adventurers, soldiers, and missionaries who were seeking personal glory, gold, and souls for their god. Later, the European myth of the Americas, often written in the form of histories, would describe the continent as a wilderness waiting to be conquered. In reality, there was no wilderness: the Americas were settled lands, populated by people who had been developing it for thousands of years.
European Colonization
The European conquest of the Americas involved two closely related processes: colonialization and colonization. Colonialization involves the superimposition of governmental and economic control over indigenous people. It is the way in which the traditional European empires were formed. In an article in American Antiquity, Stephen Silliman writes:
“Colonialism is generally defined as the process by which a city- or nation-state exerts control over people—termed indigenous—and territories outside of its geographical boundaries. This exertion of sovereignty is frequently but not always accomplished through colonization, which involves the establishment of colonies that administer state control, manage interactions, and extract labor, raw materials, and surplus.”
In the Americas colonialization began with the so-called “voyages of discovery” in which Europeans would visit new areas and claim them for their god and their king. As a part of the empire, the colonialized lands were to supply raw materials for the economy of the imperial core while acting as a market for materials produced by the core.
Colonization involves the settling of Europeans in the Americas. In most instances, these colonies attempted to replicate the lifestyle of the home country. Not all of the attempts to establish colonies were successful.
The Portuguese, under the leadership of Joao Albares Fagundes, established a fishing colony on Cape Breton Island in 1520. The colony did not succeed and nothing more was heard from them.
Explorers and Slavery
Europeans exploited the resources of the Americas. Among these resources were slaves. In 1520, the Spanish explorer Pedro de Quxós landed at Winyah Bay, South Carolina. He called this “land of Chicora”. He explored the area and exchanged gifts with the Guale Indians. Then, in order to make the voyage profitable, he captured 60 Guales to be sold as slaves in the European markets.
Native Populations and Disease
There were an estimated 18 million Native Americans living north of Mexico at the beginning of the sixteenth century. With regard to the health of this native population, sociologist Russell Thornton, in his book American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492, reports:
“There are overwhelming indications that the peoples of North America and the entire Western Hemisphere were remarkably free of serious diseases before the Europeans and Africans arrived.”
In his book Their Numbers Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America, Henry Dobyns puts it this way:
“The near-absence of lethal pathogens in the aboriginal New World allowed the native people to live in almost a paradise of well-being that contrasted with their historic purgatory of disease. People simply did not very often die from illnesses prior to the Columbian Exchange.”
In 1520, the population of the western Pueblos in Arizona and New Mexico has been estimated at nearly 67,000: 29,000 in the Hopi villages in Arizona, 25,000 in the Zuni villages in New Mexico, and 13,000 in the New Mexico Pueblo of Acoma.
Henry Dobyns reports:
“When the first smallpox pandemic struck the New World peoples in 1520, Native Americans lacked any cultural pattern for dealing with contagious disease that had evolved in the Old World. They lacked any cultural behavior identifiable as nursing.”
In the southwest, smallpox struck several tribes. In their work on the Hopi (A Hopi Social History: Anthropological Perspectives on Sociocultural Persistence and Change), Scott Rushforth and Steadman Upham state:
“epidemic smallpox spread to native southwestern populations before direct contact with the Spanish.”
Indians 101
Twice each week, Indians 101 explores different American Indian topics. Also from this series:
Indians 101: 500 Years Ago, 1519
Indians 101: Disease and Indians in the 16th Century
Indians 101: Acoma Pueblo and the Spanish, 1539-1599
Indians 101: Sixteenth-Century Books About Indians
Indians 101: The Zuni and the Spanish in the 16th Century
Indians 101: Early French Encounters With Indians
Indians 101: Sixteenth Century European Laws About Indians
Indians 101: The Spanish and Indians in Forida, 1513 to 1527