Talk:European colonization of the Americas

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    Contents

    [edit] 1

    i thought that norse colonization was not "generally accepted" 204.95.67.49 03:21, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

    Is it just me, or is the "History of" prepended to all the pages linked from here completely redundant and unnecessary? French colonization of the Americas would make a lot more sense than History of French colonization of the Americas. Brion VIBBER, Sunday, May 19, 2002

    I agree - it is far more likely that somebody would make a natural link to X's colonization of the Americas the the History of X's colonization of the Americas.

    For example, one could say that sugar cane production was an integral part of X's colonization of the Americas. But having "History of" before that is just too wordy and a bit redundent: Of course colonization is the "history of", you really can't give a physical description of it like you can for a nation or area ("history of" is appropriate when talking at length about just the history of an area. Colonization is inherently a part of history and it is redundant to have "history of" as part of the title), --maveric149, Sunday, May 19, 2002

    Okay, done. --Brion VIBBER

    Does anyone know wjy the vikings abandoned their colonization? I heard the Native Americans chased them away. But I think its a myth, as I can't imagine big bulky Vikings being chased by Native Americans. -fonzy

    this is a stupid question. Native American Indians were as bulky and probably more selvatic.


    Perhaps the majority of the people of most of the SPanish speaking nations are Native American and/or part Native American, but those countries are dominated by whites, and Native peoples are still massacred (Chiapas, Guatemala, Colombia). Its sort of a "leyenda rosa" that the Spanish were more benevolent to the Indians than those dirty "Sajones".

    I can't find my references for this, Fonzy, so bear with me while I do this from memory. The Viking colonisation of the Americas was small-scale and not backed by any great resolve or wealth. It took place at a time when unusually warm climatic conditions in the North Atlantic were giving way to a period of relative cold: they had colonised Iceland some time previously, then Greenland, in both cases, using the new-found lands for things that would soon be quite out of the question - in particular, running cattle. In the first few years of the Greenland settlement, the summmers were warm and the colony prospered. As time went by, however, life became more and more difficult. In addition, the Vikings had a lifesyle that they were firmly wedded to: no self-respecting Viking would lower himself by learning from the "wretches" or "rascals" (as they called the native Greenlanders), let alone give up his beloved cattle in order to eat seals.
    In the case of the American colony, there were just a few ships sent, and as private ventures. The settlement of America wasn't a determined plan, it was just a few Viking warlords and a handful of their followers cruising around looking for the easiest place to make a living (and, if I remember correctly, looking for a place to escape from their enemies - in today's terms, you would probably call them "fugitives from justice"). So they stuck it out for a short while, but on discovering that the native Americans were no pushover, that the climate was still far from ideal, and doubtless also because they felt that the heat had gone out of the murder charges (murder was not so bad a crime in those days), they wrote it off as a bad idea and pushed off for home. Tannin 10:17 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

    ok thankyou, never known much about the vikings in America. -fonzy

    It would be nice if someone covered the reasons of the colonization. - CaptainWoodman

    Since Christopher Columbus is believed to be Italian, shouldn't he be called with his original name like the other people in the same article? - Straficchio

    Since you want a technicality applied to the name, it should be further noted that Columbus was not Italian (Unified in 1861) He was from Genoa (Genova in Italian, Zena in Genoese, which is a Ligurian language). I only mention this because it seems non-sensical to write His name in 'Italian' this is after all an English language wikipedia. There is also "Columbus: Secrets from the Grave", Discovery Channel documentary, about a possible Catalan origin of Columbus. It is in the end splitting hairs. Will any Spanish people or Latin-Americans complain of the 'italianization' of Columbus, He was under the employ of the Castillians at the time. See what I mean? The artice is also about the 'European colonization of the Americas' not CC, why dwell on his name when there is so much to focus on in this article. Omar

    [edit] Legality

    Some discussion of the legal mechanisms surrounding the invasion of America by Europeans, and their rationalization of dispossessing the inhabitants, would surely be helpful to readers.

    The ingines couldn't do anything about it. Finders keepers. There's your legal background.

    -G —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.231.32.127 (talk) 20:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

    [edit] Spanish colonization

    Christopher Columbus voyage was not an attempt to "copy the Spanish Empire" in the Americas. First of all, prior to the "discovery" of the New World there was no such thing called "Spanish Empire"; but a "Spanish Kingdom", limited to the Iberian peninsula. Secondly, the purpose of Columbus's voyage was to create a new route to India and China, never to "create an Empire"; the creation of the Empire came as a result of the "discovery" of "new" land, but was never the intention of Columbus trips. --J.Alonso 00:10, 27 August 2005 (UTC) This is no help:(


    [edit] Discoverers

    Well I think that if you mention Columbus, Cabot and all the others in the first paragraph I think Pedro Alvares Cabral (Brazil) and Corte-Real (Newfoundland) as well as João Lavrador (Labrador) are worth mentioning

    sorry, nevermind

    [edit] For Consideration

    "Slavery existed in America, prior to the presence of Europeans, as the Natives often captured and held other tribe members as captives. Some of these captives were even forced to under go human sacrifices under some tibes like the Aztecs. The Spanish followed by the enslavement of local aborigines in the Caribbean. As the native populations declined through disease, they were often replaced by Africans imported through a large slave trade. By the 18th century, the overwhelming number of black slaves was such that Native American slavery was less common. In the case of the Africans who were taken aboard slave ships to the Americas, they were primarily obtained from their African homelands by coastal tribes who captured them. The high incidence of nearly always fatal disease, to Europenas, kept nearly all slave capture activities confined to native tribes."

    This entire paragraph needs to be re-written. There are both spelling and factual errors. The forms of slavery that existed in Africa and the pre-colonial Americas were extremely different from the system of slavery employed by the Europeans. Centuries of contact between Arabs and sub-Saharan Africans due to the Islamic Slave trade and expansive African Empires such as the Kanem-Bornu and Mali, gave Africans immunity against the fatal European diseases that killed off most of the Amerindian population. It seems that the author wrote this paragraph with the intent of lessening the role of Europeans in the slave trade.

    Exactly!!!! That's what I was thinking as soon as I read the first line of that paragraph..... T_T This one is one of my reasons for not trusting Wikipedia so much anymore....--71.36.176.174 20:03, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Is there any way we could use this material that was deleted from Immigration to the United States?

    Everything under the heading of "Colonization of North America" was deleted from Immigration to the United States... see the old version [1]. Can we use any of that in this article? It cites a source, "The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy by Kory L. Meyerink and Loretto Dennis Szucs", which is better than the complete lack of sources for our current page here.

    [edit] Discovered to Rediscovered

    Am I the only one who has noticed that Columbus did not discover the Americas! They were already inhabited by Native American tribes who in some cases had fixated permanent settlements along with in certain areas. I quote from your own article "Native Americans in the United States" which states "Columbus did not discover a "New World" or new peoples. The place and people already existed and the people already had names for the place, themselves, and each other." This is also true for many islands in the Caribbean that were REDISCOVERED during this time period. I find it rather insulting that an encyclopedia would propogate such a eurocentric myth given the fact that I was taught the truth about Columbus' "discovery" in secondary school. How do you disclaim the discoveries made by the Native Americans? You can't discover something that was never lost just pointing out a common sense fact.

    --Mandar_Pips. 10th May 2006. 12:14am

    Sounds reasonable, but without an indigenous written language there is no primary source to support the conclusion that the Native Americans "discovered" America. Linguistic and genetic experts have been unable to source a common origin, suggesting--or at least not contradicting--waves of migrations. Possibly the first were supplanted by later invasions. Maybe they arrived concurrent with the dawn of homo sapiens, denying them the opportunity to discover what--to humanity--always was. If a wiki editor were to unilaterally ascribe the feat of discovery to the natives, they would be committing original research. Tafinucane 08:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

    Columbus did discover America because HE didn't know anything about it before. Plus he made Europeans discover America because they didn't know anythig about it either. It WAS a discovery. It doesn't mean others hadn't discovered America before.--200.125.49.75 17:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

    I don't think that saying rediscovery is sensible at all (Also, Maya's wrote Maya_script. The term 'discovery' is subjective to who is making the discovery. See post below, it makes sense. And the one above as well. Omar

    I agree. I've heard this nonsensical criticism before from people who seem to have some kind of chip on their shoulder. How would they feel if NASA announced that they has discovered intelligent life on some other planet? Would these people insist that NASA had discovered nothing, since the aliens knew that they and their planet already existed?

    Technically, the initial comment is correct, but not in the way the writer intended. Columbus thought he'd reached Asia, not a new continent, so he really didn't discover the New World. But someone else (Amerigo Vespucci?) discovered it for Europe. Funnyhat 21:36, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] European colonization of Africa

    It would be interesting if a similar set up was made for European colonization of Africa, and similar articles to the ones in this, like English colonization of Africa, Brandenburg colonization of Africa, etc. --Andrelvis 13:54, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Spanish Empire Map

    I like the map of the Spanish Empire, but I think we need a date on it. Does anyone know what date to put on it?

    On another note, I've heard rumor that the Chinese "discovered" America well before the Europeans as well (possibly predating the Viking's even). Can someone confirm this? Should it be mentioned here?

    --Mr Minchin Canada 17:07, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

    I believe you are referring to the 1421 hypothesis by Gavin Menzies. However, it is still a subject of controversey, and is not widely accepted as historical fact by historians b/c of the lack of solid evidence. I do not know of any possible large scale expeditions by the Chinese Empire that pre-dates the Vikings though. 24630 04:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

    th== Subjective Tone ==

    This article should be written objectively, and not toss subtle hints of moral or ethical opinions.


    I agree under "Religious Immigration you find the following header "Major religious groups immigrating to the New World included:" The list is obviously American (USA) biased and secondly I hardly would quantify the Quakers as a 'Major religious group'. Omar

    Quaker's are a fairly modest religious group today, but were much more widespread during the colonial period. Land in what is today Pennsylvania and parts of the Ohio valley was granted to the Quakers by the British crown, and people of Quaker affiliation were a significant component in the Continental Congress. I vote the Quakers stay. But I don't refute that the list is US based -- how about adding material on Canada and Central and South America? WBardwin 22:05, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


    I don't think that the greatest imigration wave of Catholics to Americas was in the 19th century. Catholic religion has been far more spread than Protestantism in Americas since the 16th century.

    [edit] Map request: Greenland

    Could someone please tweak the map to reflect that Denmark-Norway had claimed Greenland and was resettling it at the beginning of the 18th century? See Danish colonization of the Americas for details. And yes, Greenland is part of the Americas, and no, it should not have been cut off on the original map. My copy of Gimp is a bit crashy at the moment. Grrr... samwaltz 20:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Color Scheme

    This might just be a technical issue on my end, but the vast majority of the links in this article are coming up a kind of orange- not the "you've been here" color or the "dead wikilink" color. I can't suss out why. --mordicai. 15:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Guianas

    I love the map, but I notice that the Guianas are strangely gray. That region had been colonized by 1750. British Guyana had not been established yet, but French Guiana and Dutch Suriname were in existence. Funnyhat 23:18, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

    Me 2! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.244.31.15 (talk) 19:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Collapse of Norse Greenland Colony

    ClovisPt has amended the sentence on the collapse of the Greenland colony to read "By the mid-15th century, the Norse Greenland settlements had collapsed". As you can see in the History of Greenland article, one respectable scholar, Kirsten Seaver, disagrees. She thinks it was not as weak as Diamond suggests (and I have seen a lot of criticisms of Diamond, in particular his claim of a taboo against fish eating). In her book Maps, Myths, and Men: The Story of the Vínland Map (which holds that the map is a hoax) she suggests that English sailors were exploiting the cod in the Newfound-Labrador banks. She further suggests (and admits it is speculation) that either the English or a joint Anglo-Portuguese enterprise offered the Norse Greenlanders the chance to "to relocate as skilled fishermen-farmers in a sheltered area along the Newfoundland/Labrador coast, far enough north and east to avoid clashes with the Spanish over the 1494 Tordesillas line..." and that they accepted. In any case, there seems to be a good chance that the last Norse in Greenland were there in the late 15th century and hadn't disappeared in the middle of the century.--Dougweller (talk) 08:06, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

    As far as I know, there's no archaeological or historical evidence to support the existence of culturally-Norse (i.e., non-Inuit) populations extant in Greenland past the early 1400s. The exploits of English/Portuguese/Basque fishermen sound exciting, but I feel are lacking in supporting evidence. ClovisPt (talk) 22:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
    Sorry, I've restored my edit with a reference now. Although there is no hard evidence, Kirsten does (let's ignore the relocation business) tell a convincing story indicating that the Norse Greenlanders may have held on until around the end of the century. I don't think we can categorically say they collapsed around 1450.--Dougweller (talk) 21:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
    The Wikipedia article on Greenland says "The Greenland colony survived for some 450-500 years (985 to 1450-1500 AD)", so my edit brings this article into line with it I believe.--Dougweller (talk) 21:21, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] African rediscovery

    The trans atlantic voyage is shorter and more temperate in the lesser latitudes and a number of people claim to have uncovered arhceological evidence that Africans had sailed to the Western Hemisphere long before any Europeans did (by hundreds of years).

    Some books on the subject:

    • The Lost Treasure of King Juba: The Evidence of Africans in America before Columbus by Frank Joseph [2]
    • A History of the African-Olmecs: Black Civilizations of America from Prehistoric Times to the Present Era by Paul Alfred Barton [3]
    • Africa and the Discovery of America by Leo Weiner with an introduction by Dr. John Henrik Clarke [4]

    See also:

    Wiener's 1920 book was reviewed in the 1922 New York Times:

    Ancient (350 to 320 B.C) numismatic evidence uncovered by Geologist Mark McMenamin from Mount Holyoke College:

    Perhaps such material should form the basis of a separate article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.73.252 (talk) 16:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

    There is one: Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories But -- Frank Joseph is unpopular even among those that think everyone discovered America and is a terrible source. Burrows Cave is also considered to be a hoax even by those who would love to believe in it. As for the coin, you can see in it almost anything you want to see. One person called it a geographic Rorschach test. Barton's stuff is self-published, which is probably a statement about its quality and disqualifies it as a source.--Dougweller (talk) 19:15, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] Economic immigrants

    The "Economic Immigrants" part of this article has no real sources. The only citation is #19 ("Many immigrants to the American colonies came for economic reasons.19"), which only details the health around that era. Since the whole of this section is entirely without sources, it's wise they be added.

    Granted, it might be common sense to most Americans, but not everyone reading this is American. 71.215.214.8 (talk) 11:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)