Confrontation Of Cultures Class 11 Notes

Confrontation of Cultures reflects the encounters between European and the people of the America between fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. The fifteenth century was the age of geographical discoveries mainly influenced by new scientific inventions, travellers’ accounts, political and religious motives, etc.

Reasons

• In 1942, a Spanish sailor Christopher Columbus discovered America. Later on, Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci came to South America in 1499 and called it a New World.
• Economic motives spurred the European voyages and discoveries.
• The invention of compass in 1380 helped the sailors to sail independently in different directions.
• Astrolabe was invented which helped the sailors to look beyond the normal vision and helped them to avoid the marine danger.
• The Americas are home to many native tribes; the world’s largest river – the Amazon flows here. There were communities of the natives such as the Arawakian Lucayos and the Caribs.

Pattern of People Living In North And South America

• People have been living in North and South America and nearby islands for thousands of years, and many migrations from Asia and from the South Sea Islands have taken place over time.
• South America was densely forested and mountainous, and the Amazon, the world’s largest river, flows through miles of dense forest.

Geographical extend of Mexico

• Mexico, in central America, there were densely settled areas of habitation along the coast and in the plains, while elsewhere villages were scattered over forested areas.

Brazil-The name Brazil is derived from the brazil wood tree.
Mexico-The name after their god Mexitli

Native American Culture

(a) Small Subsistence Economies

(i) Arawaks (Bahamas)

(b) Developed Culture

(i) Aztecs (Mexico)

(ii) Mayas (Central America)

(iii) Incas (West Coast & South America)

Animists 

Animists believe that even objects regarded by modern science as ‘inanimate’ may have life or a soul.

THE ARAWAKS (BAHAMAS)

The Arawakian Lucayos lived on a cluster of hundreds of small islands in the Caribbean Sea, today known as the Bahamas, and the Greater Antilles.

Economic activities of Arawaks (Bahamas)

•  They produced food collectively to feed everyone in the community.
• They had self-sufficient economy.
• They were skilled boat-buildiers, they sailed the o.pen sea in dugout canoes (canoes made from hollow tree trunks).
• They lived by hunting, fishing and agriculture
• They grew food products like- corn, sweet potatoes, tubers and cassava.

Religious & social life of Arawaks (Bahamas)

• Polygamy was common in their society.
• They were animist (they believe that even objects regarded by modern science as ‘inanimate’ may have life or a soul).
• Shamans played an important role as healers and intermediaries between this world and that of the supernatural
• They were superstitions.

Cultural & Features of Arawaks (Bahamas)

• They preferred negotiations to conflict.
• They were very generous host.
• The art of weaving was highly developed – the hammock was one of their specialties.

Tupinamba

 People called the Tupinamba lived on the east coast of South America, and in villages in the forests (the name ‘Brazil’ is derived from the brazilwood tree).

Political Features of Arawaks (Bahamas)

• They were governed by oligarchy as they were organised under clan elders.
• They had no army.
• There existed no religious institution.

THE AZTECS (of Mexico)

In the twelfth century, the Aztecs had migrated from the north into the central valley of Mexico (named after their god Mexitli).

Social life of Aztecs

• They had hierarchical society.
• Nobility was dominant as the nobles chose from among them a supreme leader who ruled until his death.
• The king was regarded as the representative of the sun on earth.
• Warriors, priests and nobles were the most respected groups, but traders also enjoyed many privileges and often served the government as ambassadors and spies.
•  They engaged in war.
• Aztec women were given special status in the society.

 Economic Activities of Aztecs

• The Aztecs undertook reclamations. They made chinampas, artificial islands, in Lake Mexico.
• They made canals between fertile lands.
• They cultivated food products like – Corns, beans, pumpkin, potatoes, etc.
• They had agrarian economy. Land was owned not by individuals but by clans.
• Peasants, like European serfs, were attached to lands owned by the nobility and cultivated them in exchange for part of the harvest.
• The poor would sometimes sell their children as slaves, but this was usually only for a limited period, and slaves could buy back their freedom.

Cultural Activities of Aztecs 

• They gave special attention the schooling of their children.
• Children of the nobility attended the calmecac and were trained to become military and religious leaders.
• Others went to the tepochcalli in their neighbourhood, which was the center of learning.
• Boys received military training as well as training in agriculture and the trades. Girls were trained in domestic skills.

 Political Activity of Aztecs 

• In 1325 the capital city Tenochtitlan was built.
• The king was their sole leader.
• The made conquests and reclaimed territories as land was limited.
• They conquered people.
• In the early sixteenth century, the Aztec empire was showing signs of strain due to discontent among recently conquered peoples.
• Its palaces and pyramids rose dramatically out of the lake. Because the Aztecs were frequently engaged in war, the most impressive temples were dedicated to the gods of war and the sun.

THE MAYAS (of Central America)

The Mayan culture of Mexico developed remarkably between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, but in the sixteenth century they had less political power than the Aztecs. The important Mayan civilisation were Mexico, Honduras, EI-Slavador and Guatemala.

Social life of Mayas 

• Their religious ceremonies were based on agriculture.
• Their social relation was based on agrarian system.

Economic Activities of Mayas 

• They were engaged in corn cultivation.
• Efficient agricultural production generated surplus, which helped the ruling classes, priests and chiefs to invest in architecture and in the development of astronomy and mathematics
• This surplus helped ruling classes priests and chiefs to invest in architecture and in the development of astronomy and mathematics.

Cultural Activities of Mayas

• Made significant development of architecture.
• They progressed of astronomy and mathematics.
• They devised a pictographic form of writing.
• They made Maya Calendar

 Political Activity of Mayas

• They had less political power.
• Their ruling class was strong.

The Incas were also known as the Quechuas. The capital city – Cuzco was established by the first Inca emperor, Manco Capac in the twelfth century. They spoke Quechan language. The Aztecs and the Incas shared some common feature, e.g, hierarchical societies with no private ownership of resources, and were very different from European culture.

Civilisation In South America ( The Incas Of Peru)

• The largest of the indigenous civilisations in South America was that of the Quechuas or Incas in Peru.
• First Inca, Manco Capac, established his capital at Cuzco.

Political And Social Organisation

• Newly conquered tribes were absorbed effectively; every subject was required to speak Quechua, the language
  of the court.
• The local rulers were rewarded for their military co-operation.The Inca empire resembled a confederacy, with
  the Incas in control.
• The Incas were magnificent builders. They built roads through mountains from Ecuador to Chile.
• Their forts were built of stone slabs that were so perfectly cut that they did not require mortar.
• They used labour -intensive technology to carve and move stones from nearby rock falls.

Economic Organisation

• The Inca civilisation was agriculture.
• To cope with the infertile soil conditions, they terraced hillsides and developed systems of drainage and
  irrigation.
• The Incas grew corn and potatoes, and reared llamas for food and labour.
• Their weaving and pottery were of a high quality.
• They did not develop a system of writing.
• There was an accounting system in place – the quipu, or cords upon which knots were made to indicate specific
  mathematical units.

Culture

• Society was hierarchical, but there was no private ownership of resources by a few people, as in Europe.
• Though priests and shamans were accorded an exalted status, and large temples were built, in which gold was
  used ritually, there was no great value placed on gold or silver.
• Thiswas also in marked contrast to contemporary European society.

Motives of Voyages of Exploration by Europeans (Voyages Of Exploration by Europeans)

• The magnetic compass helped to identify the cardinal points accurately, had been known only in the fifteenth century did people use it when they ventured on voyages into unknown areas.
• Ptolemy  had suggested that the world was spherical, but he underestimated the width of the oceans.
• Europeans had no idea of the distance they would have to travel in the Atlantic before they reached land.
• The Portuguese and the Spanish – were the pioneers in the fifteenth-century voyages of exploration.
• For a long time these were called ‘voyages of discovery’.
• Historians, argued that these were not the first voyages that people of the “Old World” made to lands unknown to them.
• The Vikings of Norway had reached North America in the eleventh century.

Why were Spanish and Portuguese rulers in particular so receptive to the idea of funding a maritime quest?

Economic

• The European economy went through a decline from the mid fourteenth to the mid-fifteenth centuries
• Plague and wars led to depopulation in many parts of Europe, trade grew slack, and there was a shortage of gold and silver, used for making European coins.
• Preceding period to the mid-fourteenth centuries when growing trade had supported Italian city-states and led to the accumulation of capital.
• In fourteenth century, long-distance trade declined, and then became difficult after the Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453. Italians managed to do business with Turks, but were now required to pay higher taxes on trade.

Relious

• The possibility that many more people could be brought into the fold of Christianity made many devout Christian Europeans ready to face adventure.

Political Title

• As it happened, the ‘Crusades’ against the Turks began as a religious war, but they increased Europe’s trade with Asia and created a taste for the products of Asia, especially spices.
• If trade could be followed by political control, with European countries establishing ‘colonies’ in regions with a warmer climate, they would benefit further.
• New regions where gold and spices might be found, one possibility was West Africa, where Europeans had not traded directly so far.
• Portugal, a small country which had gained independence fromSpain since 1139, and which had developed fishing and sailing skills, took the lead.
• Prince Henry of Portugal organised the coasting of West Africa and attacked Ceuta in 1415.
• The memory of the Crusades and the success of the Reconquista fanned private ambitions and gave rise to contracts known as capitulaciones.
• The Spanish ruler claimed rights of sovereignty over newly conquered territories and gave rewards to leaders of expeditions in the form of titles and the right to govern the conquered lands.

Reconquista

Reconquista was the military reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula by Christian kings from the Arabs in 1492.

The Atlantic Crossing

• Christopher Columbus, an Italian was fond of adventure and glory.
• Sponsored by the Spanish rulers, he set sail from the port of Palos in 1492.
• His fleet was consisted of a small nao(large ship)called Santa Maria and two small ships named Pinta and Nina along with 40 sailors.
• They reached the island of Guanahani in the Bahamas.
• They were welcomed by the Arawaks and they provided food
• Columbus planted a Spanish flag in Guananani (renamed San Salvador) and proclaimed himself as viceroy.
• Then he moved further to the islands of Cubanascan. (Cuba, which he thought that Japan) and  iskeya(renamed Hispaniola)
• They had to face accidents and hostility of the fierce Carib tribes.
• Their ships were worm eaten and the sailors tired and homesick.
• So they returned back to home and it took 32 weeks.

The achievements of Columbus

• He demonstrates that five weeks sailing with trade wind took one to the other side of the globe.
• He discovered the boundaries of infinite seas.
• It is strange that Columbus is commemorated only in a small district in the USA and in Columbia.
• The two continents were named after Amerigo Vespucci, a Geographer and described them as the ‘New World’.
• The name ‘America’ was first used by a German Publisher in 1507.

Process of the Colonization of America by Spain (Spain Establishes an Empire in America)

• Spanish expansion was based on a display of military strength with the use of gunpowder and of horses.
• The local people were compelled either to pay tribute or to work in gold and silver mines.
• Small settlement, peopled by a few Spaniards who supervised the labour of the local inhabitants.
• Local chieftains were enlisted to explore new lands and, hopefully, more sources of gold. The greed for gold led to violent incidents provoking local resistance.
• Military repression and forced labour was added the ravages of disease.
• Smallpox wreaked havoc on the Arawaks whose lack of immunity resulted in large-scale deaths.
• The local people imagined these diseases were caused by ‘invisible bullets’ with which the Spaniards attacked them.
• The extinction of the Arawaks and all traces of their way of life is a silent reminder of their tragic encounter with Spaniards.
• The expeditions of Columbus were followed by a sustained and successful exploration of Central and South America.
• Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro their explorations were financed by members of the landed gentry in Spain, officials of municipal councils and noblemen.

Cortes and the Aztecs

• Hernan Cortes was the conqueror of Mexico
• In 1519, he set sail from Cuba to Mexico.
• He made friends with the Totonacs, a dissent group of Aztecs.
• Montezuma, the Aztec king afraid of gun powder and horses thought Cortes to be the incarnation of exile god to take the revenge.
•  Tenochtitlan, the capital subdued on 8 November 1519
• Montezuma became captive in his own palace and Cortes ruled through him for months.
• Cortes installed Christian images in the Aztec temple.
• Cortes returned to Cuba and left the charge to Alvarado.
• Incessant demands for gold by Spanish provoked uprising.
• He ordered a massacre which precipitated rebellion by the people.
• Mysterious death of Montezuma led to suspicion.
• Cuatemoc became the newly elected king.
• The Aztecs believed in omens and them predicting that their fall was imminent and the emperor chose to give up his life.
•  The fall of the Aztec Empire was the key event in the formation of New Spain, which would later be known as Mexico.
• Cortes became Captain General of New Spain in Mexico

Pizarro and the Incas

Pizarro, in contrast to Cortes, was uneducated and poor when he
joined the army and found his way to the Caribbean Islands in 1502.
He had heard stories about the Inca kingdom as a land of silver and
gold (El-dor-ado). He made repeated attempts to reach it from the
Pacific. On one of his journeys back home, he was able to meet the
Spanish king and show him beautifully designed gold jars of Inca
workmanship. The king’s greed was aroused, and he promised Pizarro
the governorship of the Inca lands if he conquered it. Pizarro planned
to follow Cortes’ method, but was disconcerted to find that the
situation in the Inca empire was different.
In 1532, Atahualpa secured the throne of the Inca empire after a
civil war. Pizarro arrived on the scene and captured the king
after setting a trap for him. The king offered a roomful of gold as
ransom for his release – the most extravagant ransom recorded in
history – but Pizarro did not honour his promise. He had the king
executed, and his followers went on a looting spree. This was followed
by the occupation of the country. The cruelty of the conquerors
provoked an uprising in 1534 that continued for two years, during
which time thousands died in war and due to epidemics.
In another five years, the Spanish had located the vast silver mines
in Potosi (in Upper Peru, modern Bolivia) and to work these they
made the Inca people into slaves.

Cabral and Brazil

Cabral reach Brazil and explore the resources

• The Portuguese occupation of Brazil occurred by accident.
• A grand procession of ships set out from Portugal for India, headed by Pedro Alvares Cabral.
• To avoid stormy seas, he made a wide loop around West Africa, and found to his surprise that he had reached the coast of present-day Brazil.
• As it happened, this eastern part of South America was within the section assigned on the map to Portugal by the Pope, so they regarded it as indisputably theirs.

Portuguese interest in Marvels

• The Portuguese were more eager to increase their trade with western India than with Brazil, which did not promise any gold.
• But there was one natural resource there which they exploited: timber.
• The brazil wood tree, after which the Europeans named the region, produced a beautiful red dye.
• The natives readily agreed to cut the trees and carry the logs to the ships in exchange for iron knives and saws, which they regarded as marvels.

Causes of Battles between Portuguese and French Trader

• This trade in timber led to fierce battles between Portuguese and French traders.
• The Portuguese won because they decided to ‘settle’ in/colonise the coast.
• The king of Portugal divided the coast of Brazil into fourteen hereditary ‘captaincies’.
• The Portuguese who wanted to live there he gave landownership rights, and the right to make the local people
  into slaves.
• Many Portuguese settlers were veterans of the wars in Goa, in India, and were brutal to the local people.
• The Portuguese began to grow sugarcane on large plantations and built mills to extract sugar, which was then sold in Europe.
• In this very hot and humid climate they depended on the natives to work the sugar mills.
• When the natives refused to do this exhausting and dreary work, the mill-owners resorted to kidnapping them to work as slaves.

Reaction Of Brazil People towards Cabral

• The natives kept retreating into the forests to escape the ‘slavers’ and, as time went on, there were hardly any native villages on the coast; instead, there were large, well-laid-out European towns.
• Plantation owners were then forced to turn to another source for slaves: West Africa.
• This was a contrast to the Spanish colonies.
• A large part of the population in the Aztec and Inca empires had been used to labouring in mines and fields, so
  the Spanish did not need to formally enslave them or to look elsewhere for slaves.

Conquest, Colonies and the Slave Trade

• What had begun as uncertain voyages came to have lasting consequences for Europe, the Americas and Africa.
• Fifteenth century  maritime projects produced  of continuous sea passages from ocean to ocean.
• Many passages had been unknown to Europeans.
• No ship had penetrated the Caribbean or the Americas.
• The South Atlantic was wholly unexplored; no sea-going ship had ever entered its waters.
• late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, all these feats were accomplished.
• the ‘discovery’ of the Americas had consequences for others besides the initial voyagers.
• The influx of gold and silver helped further expansion of international trade and industrialisation.
• a hundred ships each year carried silver from South American mines to Spain, Spain and Portugal that benefited.
• countries bordering the Atlantic, that took advantage of the ‘discoveries’ merchants formed jointstock
  companies and sent out trading expeditions, established colonies and introduced Europeans to the products of the New World, including tobacco, potatoes, canesugar, cacao and rubber
• new crops from America, notably potatoes and chillies.
• the native people of the Americas, the immediate consequences were the physical decimation of local populations, the destruction of their way of life

destruction of the two major civilisations