1492? Says Who?

Welcome to Civics & Coffee. My name is Alycia and I am a self-professed history nerd. Each week, I'm going to chat about a topic on U.S History and give you both the highlights and occasionally break down some of the complexities in history and share stories you may not remember learning in high school. All in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of coffee.

INTRO MUSIC

Hey everybody - welcome to the first episode! I thought I would kick off this podcast by chatting about the start of America as it is commonly taught in schools - with Columbus’ discovery in 1492. 

And while I am going to talk about Columbus - the explorer who gets the credit for the discovery - I am also going to dive into the indigenous people who inhabited north america prior to european contact and share a little of their history as well. I am going to use the term discovery throughout this episode as it relates to the europeans exploration; as I will highlight - the europeans who reached America encountered a country with numerous settlements and various political constructs. And so while it may have been news to the europeans, North America was already a fully populated nation.  

So - grab your cup of coffee peeps - let's do this. 

I don't know about you, but I remember learning in grade school the infamous poem about Columbus. In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. I don't know why I had a manly voice. But it seemed to fit. Columbus’ story is one of failing upwards in a massive way - originally trying to find an expedited route to China, Columbus instead accidentally washed up on the shores of the Bahamas. And though Columbus exploration is important for many reasons, to give him the distinction of being first to discover America would be incorrect. 

Not counting the millions of indigenous people who populated the continent before his arrival in 1492, there is evidence of discovery some 500 years prior - but I am going to dive into that a little later. 

And so what about the people who lived here upon European contact? Who were they? How did they get here? 

Well, carbon dating shows evidence of settlements going back thirty to forty thousand years. When looking at how they arrived, the common theory is our ancestors were following a food source - the wholly mammoth - from Siberia to modern day Alaska via a thin land strip known as the Bering Straight. From Alaska, they spread throughout both the northern and southern American continents. 

There is also reason to believe there were maritime settlers coming via a North Atlantic route, with evidence pointing to settlements in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia between ten and sixteen thousand years ago. Part of the trouble in documenting the history of our Indigenous Americans is the lack of a written language. Many tribes practiced history through oral traditions - passing their origin stories from generation to generation and recorded very little in what historians call primary source material - such as journals or notebooks. 

Some Native Americans memorialized their story via petroglyphs - or drawings - carved into rocks and the sides mountains. The earliest known petroglyph is from the Fremont Culture, known to occupy the Great Basin some ten to fourteen thousand years ago. 

And while lacking primary sources, there is scientific evidence to suggest many tribes made advancements in things like agriculture, mathematics and architecture. 

One of the coolest examples of the indigenous peoples’ architectural ability is the city of Cahokia, founded around 1100AD. The city was located at the convergence of the Missouri, Mississippi and Illinois rivers, along the Mississippi floodplains and was known as a major trade and transportation hub. What makes this city so fascinating was its construction of plazas surrounding the area - there were over one hundred and fifty mounds - all made out of earth. Like literally; the members of the tribe dug up dirt and used it to make massive mounds. That sounds like the worse gardening project ever. 

The tallest of these mounds, known as Monks Mound, was over one hundred fifty feet tall and was built over several centuries. Not only was it the tallest structure for miles but is considered the tallest man made structure north of Mexico at the time.

Cahokia was also a densely populated city - containing over fifteen thousand people at its peak, making is comparable in size at the time to the city of London and the largest concentration of people north of the Rio Grande until about the eighteenth century. 

And while Cahokia is great for its tangible evidence, historians and anthropologists have struggled for years to try to account for the total population size of the north and south American continents. Estimates have varied widely throughout the years from as little as eight million to well over a hundred. And despite the disagreements over actual population size, what everyone has agreed on is that by 1492 there were hundreds of tribes already in place in North America, speaking well over two hundred distinct languages. And these tribes were as varied as the landscape of north america - some were nomadic, following their food source down through valleys and mountains - and some more permanent, focused on cultivating local crop harvests.

An example of one of these permanent tribal nations is the Iroquois Confederacy, established around 1100 AD. The confederacy was made up of five nations and controlled territory throughout New York and Pennsylvania. There was no concept of private or personal property as the Iroquois gathered and lived together - sharing wigwams for homes and splitting crops and game amongst tribal members.

Another pretty awesome trait of the Iroquois was their power structure - which was distinctly female. Men married into the woman’s family and she could seek a divorce with ease. Women determined who held tribal leadership roles and passed their social status to their children - something unheard of in much of Europe. And though they may have lacked what outsiders considered an established book of laws, the Iroquois followed a code and those who violated the code were shunned as punishment. 

So having said all that - when Columbus washed up on the shores of the Bahamas in 1492 - he did not find a people without culture or knowledge or God, as he saw it. But instead encountered a series of indigenous people who had managed to exist for millennia prior to European contact. Upon his arrival in the Bahamas, Columbus was met by the Taino and Arawak tribes who were interested in the long shiny metal sticks hanging from the sailor’s hips. And Columbus? He saw gold immediately; no, literally. The tribal members were adorned with gold ear pieces, making Columbus believe he was within striking distance of getting rich. 

But how did Columbus get to the Bahamas? As I mentioned earlier, Columbus was trying to find an expedited route to China as a result of losing the land route known as the Silk Road. Columbus lobbied four governments - Portugal, France, England and Spain before finally convincing the Spanish Monarchy to give him the cheddar he needed to set sail. Upon approval from the Spanish Crown, Columbus set sail on one of the three infamous ships - the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria and hit the Bahamas some thirty-five days later on October 12, 1492. 

And after his initial success in the Bahamas, Columbus would go on to explore Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, barely missing the huge land mass just to his north. So if he missed one of the largest pieces of the puzzle, why does he get so much credit? 

Columbus’ initial exploration - though not the expedited route to Asia he had hoped for - proved successful in finding natural resources and led other European countries to believe there was something to be had in this newly discovered world. This led to a large push in exploration and would forever alter both the North American landscape and the history of its indigenous people.

And like I mentioned before, Columbus wasn’t the first European to reach North America. That prize goes to Norse Explorer Leif Erikson; Erikson, a Viking explorer - was on his way to Norway from Greenland when he was blown off coarse and landed in Newfoundland on the coast of Canada. And it would be the Spaniards, not the English, who would first survey and colonize the United States as we know them today - with Juan Ponce de Leon exploring Florida in 1513.

The Spanish were very active through out the Americas - mainly focusing on Central and South America between 1499 and 1605. However there are a handful of explorations of North America by the Spanish including Florida by Hernando de Soto in 1539, who returned in 1541 to expand his survey, traveling up the Mississippi River and taking in parts of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas.

Lastly in 1565, the city of St. Augustine was established by Pedro Menendez de Aviles. Upon his arrival, Aviles encountered the local tribe of the region known as the Timucua, a heavily populated nation of some two hundred thousand individuals who also had an established political hierarchy, utilizing chiefs to dole out work assignments. Aviles and his fellow settlers were outnumbered and, in perhaps a spoiler alert for what was to come - exploited the political structure and used the tribe’s chiefs to extract the labor needed for their survival. 

And while more permanent settlements by the English would take another hundred years or so, the process of colonization - and the destruction of the indigenous people - had begun. Numbering in the millions before European contact, the Native Americans would be decimated as a result of the combination of disease, slavery and war. 

And while he failed in his stated intent, Columbus’ accidental discovery paved the way for Europe to expand explorations and fight for control in the New World that would become America.

Thanks for tuning in and I hoped you enjoyed this episode of Civics & Coffee. If you want to hear more small snippets from American history, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining me and I look forward to our next cup of coffee together.

OUTRO MUSIC