Seeking the Main point 3In Central and South America, where Spanish and Portuguese colonies
ruled after Hernán Cortés’s destruction of the Aztec empire between 1519 and
1521, native populations were reduced to a subservient class and converted to
Christianity. Although Europeans believed in their own superiority to native
populations and often used this belief to justify their conquests, some Europe
ans protested against the oppression of Southern American Indians. Largely
grounded in theological arguments, these debates revolved around whether
native peoples were capable of religious conversion and salvation and, if so,
whether they deserved European benevolence and perhaps, on conversion,
equality with fellow Christians.
Native Americans often proved ambivalent or hostile to attempts to change
their beliefs, cultural mores, and economic and social practices. To capture the
spirit of this vast and often unrecorded resistance, this chapter offers a docu
ment from the revolt of a single native town in what is now modern New Mexico
(Doc. 1.9). This revolt was one of many forms of resistance to European conquest
that took place across the continent and throughout this era.
Europeans also supplemented a need for labor in the Western Hemisphere by
opening a transatlantic trade economy in slaves from West Africa. Many enslaved
Africans resisted the horrors of slavery by maintaining belief systems and languages
that they brought from West Africa to the Western Hemisphere. These traditions
often mixed easily with those of Europeans and Native Americans, beginning a her
itage of cultural blending and exchange throughout the region.Seeking the Main Point
As you read the documents that follow, keep these broad questions in mind. These
questions will help you understand the relationship between the documents in
this chapter and the historical changes that they represent. As you reflect on these
questions, determine which themes and which documents best address them.•
Why did Europeans travel to the Western Hemisphere? How did first contact
between Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans affect each group of
people?•
What environmental factors shaped Native American and European contact?•
After first contact, what factors—economic, religious, political, environmental—
most shaped European actions in the Western Hemisphere?•
Why do historians rely on artifacts in analyzing the native cultures of the
Americas? What are the strengths and limitations of these kinds of sources?•
Consider the costs and benefits of the Columbian exchange to both Euro
peans and Native Americans. How did each group perceive the other and
themselves in light of first contact?•
To what extent did an increasingly global society broaden the Europeans’
and native peoples’ worldview?2 ChApTEr 1 | firSt ContaCtS | period one 1491–1607
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