Module 2: Colonial Foundation to 1793 The year 1492 marks a watershed in modern

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Module 2: Colonial Foundation to 1793 The year 1492 marks a watershed in modern world history. Columbus’s voyage of discovery inaugurated a series of developments that would have vast consequences for both the Old World and the New. It transformed the diets of both the eastern and western hemispheres, helped initiate the Atlantic slave trade, spread diseases that had a devastating impact on Indian populations, and led to the establishment of European colonies across the Western Hemisphere. Between 1660 and 1760, England sought to centralize control over its New World Empire and began to impose a series of imperial laws upon its American colonies. From time to time, when the imperial laws became too restrictive, the colonists resisted these impositions, and Britain responded with a system of accommodation known as “salutary neglect.” During the late 17th and early and mid-18th centuries, the colonists became embroiled in a series of contests for power between Britain, France and Spain. By the 1760s–after Britain had decisively defeated the French–the colonists were in a position to challenge their subordinate position within the British Empire. This module explores the settlement and colonization of North America by Britain, France and other Europeans countries and the development of the British colonies in America through the French and Indian War and the beginnings of colonial discontent. Module 1 review Indigenous Settlement of the Americas to First Encounters with Europeans Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (1490-1556) was part of the Panfilio de Narvaez expedition that explored the Gulf coast in 1528. Out of several hundred men only 4 of Narvaez’s expedition survived after 7 years. The troops had made rafts and floated from Florida to Texas, losing contact with Narvaez near the mouth of the Mississippi River. Cabeza de Vaca suggested in his account that they had been abandoned by their leader so that he could save himself. Shipwrecked and abandoned, their numbers dwindled. The survivors were enslaved by Native Americans and held for several years, during which many died. Cabeza de Vaca and 3 others survied by acculturating to the point where they were allowed to move freely among the tribes. They traveled in search of Spanish settlements through the present-day Southwest into northwestern Mexico The development of indigenous civilizations in North America varied from those of the Aztecs and Incas in Central and South America. The cultural diversity of the native peoples of North America shaped the “New World” that Europeans would discover and the interactions between the explorers and Native Americans. Tentative relationships developed between European explorers and the indigenous people of the American Southeast. These cultural exchanges altered the lives of Native Americans and also those of Europeans in North America and abroad. Although many indigenous people would eventually be subdued or forced from their land by European explorers and settlers, the failure of many expeditions and settlements in North America suggests the challenges faced by the newcomers.

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