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INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL
Peter Porter
AMERICAN STORIES
A History of the United States (Combined Volume)
SECOND EDITION
H.W.
- Brands
- Breen
- Hal Williams
T.H.
Ariela J. Gross 1 / 4
1 Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER 1
New World Encounters, Preconquest–1608
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Diverse Cultures: De V
aca’s Journey Through Native America Native Americans Before the Conquest
The Environmental Challenge: Food, Climate, and Culture
Aztec Dominance Eastern Woodland Cultures Conditions of Conquest Cultural Negotiations
Threats to Survival: Columbian Exchange
West Africa: Ancient and Complex Societies
Europe on the Eve of Conquest Spanish Expansion The Strange Career of Christopher Columbus Spain in the Americas
The Conquistadores: Fa
ith and Greed From Plunder to Settlement The French Claim Canada The English Take up the Challenge Birth of English Protestantism Religion, War, and Nationalism
Conclusion: Campaign to Sell America 2 / 4
2 Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
TOWARD DISCUSSION: THE “OTHER”
It is argued that we make sense of important experiences by constructing stories that give them coherence and meaning. The unexpected meeting of Indians, Europeans, and Africans in the Western Hemisphere after 1492 was interpreted differently by each of the parties involved.The Europeans explained it as the triumph of Christianity and progress over ignorance and idolatry. But the European interpretation was only one of the ways in which the events of 1492 were understood. Indians and Africans constructed very different stories.Literary critics have recently turned their attention to the vast literature that accompanied the first contacts between Europeans and Indians in America. Two aspects of the stories told by both sides seem especially interesting. The first is the conscious construction of histories by the Spanish explorers and conquistadores to explain or justify actions that may not have been premeditated. Columbus, for example, was probably not as visionary before 1492 as he later believed himself to be. In the contract he made with Queen Isabella before starting out on his famous voyage, he seems to have expected that he would most likely find, not Asia, but islands like the Canaries and Azores. He may have expected to sail into the Ocean Sea, not across it.Similarly, the Spanish tale of the conquest of Mexico as a great Christian crusade probably disguises an original intention to establish peaceful trade. Ironically, the conquest narratives may make the Spanish seem more bloodthirsty in intention than they really were.The second interesting aspect of contact literature is how the Europeans, Indians, and Africans reacted to the “Other.” The concept of the “Other” derives mainly from structuralist theory, which argues that we shape the world through language by use of such polar opposites as “high and low,” “sacred and profane,” “raw and cooked,” “male and female.” One of the most potent of these pairs is “self and other.” It is argued that we construct a sense of self by differentiating ourselves from others, and that we construct a sense of otherness by differentiating others from ourselves. Since we usually impart values to the distinctions we make, the “Other” is never an equal. The “Other” is either vastly superior or grossly inferior, a god or a devil.Scholars working with such theories have produced interesting analyses of the First Contact period. Tzvetan Todorov, for example, argues that the Spanish victory over the Aztecs was more a triumph of language than of military technology. The Aztecs, in his opinion, used language primarily to communicate with the gods, with the result that their language, and the mental universe formed by language, was highly ritualistic, repetitive, and predictable. Europeans, on the other hand, used language in a more practical way to persuade and manipulate other humans.In their mental universe, the “Other” was unpredictable but manageable. Upon First Contact, the Aztecs were dumbfounded by an “Other” they found impossible to explain. Montezuma begged the gods to tell him what to do as the Spanish approached, but the gods fell silent. Cortés, however, was able to make false promises, to disguise his intentions, to distort the truth, and even to make seemingly supernatural omens conform to his own intentions. The Spanish defeated the Aztecs because they were more adept at manipulating the signs and symbols that make up a system of communication. 3 / 4
3 Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.The subject of the “Other” is especially interesting at a time when the possibility of contact with life beyond our planet is the subject of so much speculation. Students should be encouraged to make comparisons between 1492 and that unknowable time when we first encounter extraterrestrials. Much will depend upon whether we first meet a big-eyed, sad-faced ET or a slimy creature baring a full set of razor-sharp teeth, because we too, like the Europeans, Africans, and Indians of 1492, have already met our “Other.”
RELIVING THE PAST
Columbus recorded his first encounter with the Taíno people on the island they called Guanahani when he first made landfall in the Western Hemisphere. This meeting of two worlds and two cultures proceeded rather peacefully but for a strange incident. Columbus took out his sword to show it to one of the natives who apparently thought he was being offered a gift. He took it and cut his hand. What did a Stone Age people think when they first saw the power of metal? And why had Columbus unsheathed his sword? See the translation of The Log of Christopher Columbus by Robert Fuson (Camden, Maine: International Marine Publishing Company, 1987).The log itself is fascinating, and Fuson fully discusses the controversy over which island in the Bahamas was the one the Indians called Guanahani and Columbus called San Salvador.One of the most dramatic encounters in American history was the meeting between Hernan Cortés and Montezuma. Both men behaved with solemn courtesy until Cortés attempted to embrace the emperor in the friendly Spanish abrazo. Montezuma’s bodyguards grabbed Cortés by the arm and stopped him, explaining that an embrace would greatly insult the emperor. That small episode epitomizes the difficulties Europeans and Indians had in cross-cultural communication (Bernal Diaz, The Conquest of New Spain. New York: Penguin Paperback,
1967).
CHAPTER SUMMARY
DIVERSE CULTURES: DE VACA’S JOURNEY THROUGH NATIVE AMERICA
The author views some of the first contacts between Europeans and Native Americans in terms of narratives. Each side brought preconceptions molded by their long histories into their contacts with other peoples, and each side was molded by contact with the other.The narrative of the voyages of Christopher Columbus, on the other hand, was told in terms of adventure. This one-sided story can be nuanced by considering contacts as creative adaptations to encompass the entire range of experiences on both sides.
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