owned French products obtained from eastern tribes in
exchange for Huron corn.
Europeans and Indians became interdependent.
The colonists relied on Indian labor and products.
Indians relied on European guns and metal tools.
Some Indians became so enamored of European
knives and metal tools that they forgot the stone-
working skills of their Paleo-Indian ancestors. They
now depended on Europeans for those products,
much as the colonists themselves depended on Indian
corn, potatoes, and other crops.
Although the colonists learned much from the
Indians and adopted certain elements of Indian cul-
ture and technology eagerly, their objective was not
to be like the Indians, whom they considered the
epitome of savagery and barbarism. The constant
conflicts with Indians forced the colonists to band
together and in time gave them a sense of having
shared a common history. Later, when colonists
broke away from Great Britain, they used the image
of the Indian to symbolize the freedom and indepen-
dence they sought for themselves.
In sum, during the first 200-odd years that followed
Columbus’s first landfall in the Caribbean, a complex
development had taken place in the Americas.
Sometimes these alien encounters were amiable, as
Indians and colonists exchanged ideas, skills, and goods;
while sometimes the encounters were hostile and
bloody, with unimaginable cruelties inflicted by and on
both sides. But the coming together of Indians and
European settlers was mostly characterized by ambiguity
and confusion, as markedly different peoples drew from
their own traditions to make sense of a new world that
little resembled what they knew. In time, their world
would become our own.
Christopher Columbus’s fateful voyage brought
alien worlds together, an encounter characterized by
mutual incomprehension. In consequence, millions of
American Indians perished, millions of Europeans
immigrated to the Americas, and millions of Africans
were sent there as slaves. The cultures of all peoples—
food and diet, religious beliefs and practices, and
modes of sustenance and social organization—
changed in fundamental ways. During that fateful first
century, American Indians, Europeans, and Africans
interacted continuously—negotiating, fighting, trad-
ing, and intermarrying—without really understanding
one another.Chapter Review 49EXPLORATION
c. 1000 Leif Eriksson reaches Newfoundland
1445– Portuguese sailors explore west coast of Africa
1488
1492 First voyage of Christopher Columbus
1497 John Cabot explores east coast of North America
1498 Vasco da Gama sails around Africa to India
1513 Ponce de Leon explores Florida
1519– Hernán Cortés conquers Mexico
1521
1519– Ferdinand Magellan’s crew circumnavigates globe
1522
1539– Hernando de Soto explores lower Mississippi
1542 River Valley
1540– Francisco Vasquez de Coronado explores
1542 Southwest
1579 Francis Drake explores coast of California
1609 Henry Hudson discovers Hudson River
SETTLEMENT
1493 Columbus founds La Navidad, Hispaniola
1494 Treaty of Tordesillas divides New World
between Spain and Portugal1576 Spanish settle St. Augustine
1587 English found “Lost Colony” of Roanoke Island
1607 English settle Jamestown
1608 French found Québec
1612 John Rolfe introduces tobacco cultivation
inVirginia
1620 Pilgrims settle Plymouth, sign Mayflower Compact
1624 Dutch settle New Amsterdam
1630 English puritans settle Massachusetts Bay
1630– Waves of English come to America during the
1640 Great Migration
1634 George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, founds Maryland
as Catholic haven
1636 Roger Williams founds Rhode Island
General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony
banishes Anne Hutchinson
1639 Thomas Hooker founds Connecticut
1642 French found Montréal
1664 English conquer Dutch New Amsterdam
1670 First settlers arrive in Carolina
1680 Charles Town (now Charleston, South Carolina)
is settled
1682 William Penn founds PhiladelphiaMilestones
Chapter Review