hi I'm John Green and this is crash course in you ask history notes and
that's not gonna work actually
I mean we're talking about the 16th century today win vs was neither United
nor states by the way
this globe reflects the fact that I believe that Alaskan statehood is
ever jim DeMint that we're gonna call this whole show US history but
inevitably it's going to involve
other parts of the world and also not to brag a small part of the Moon
sorry we can be a little bit self-aggrandizing sometimes here in
America
set to begin US history we're not going to talk about the United States are this
guy we're going to talk about the people who lived here before any European
showed up
p North America was on to a great variety of people so it's difficult to
generalize but here's what we can say
one when the Europeans arrived there were no classical style civilizations
with monumental
architecture and empires like the Aztec or the Inc sent to native north
americans had no metal work no gunpowder no wheels no
written languages and no domesticated animals however they did have forming
complex social and political structures and widespread trade networks mystery
mystery
so they were pretty backward thought well I mean early is premature Freeman
is a funny word me from the past because it implies a romanticism
Asian the simple people who never use more than they needed it had no use for
guns
it also implies infantilism Asian it's like you believe that just because you
have a beeper and they didn't they were somehow West involved human
so you can see the human story is one that goes from primitive to symbolize
that's not just eurocentric thats contemporaries
centric the idea that we're moving forward as a species implies a win your
progression that just does not reflect the reality of life on this planet
I get that you like to imagine yourself as the result of millennia advancement
in very pinnacle love humanness
but from where I'm sitting that worldview is a lot more backwards than
women without the wheel to no one knows exactly how many people lived in North
America before the Europeans got
some estimates are as high as $75 million but in the present US borders
the guesses are between two and ten million and like other Native Americans
their populations were decimated by diseases such as smallpox and influenza
actually it was much worse the decimation
as many have you have pointed out decimation means one in ten this was
much worse than that it was closer maybe two
8 in 10 which would be on Oct deformation so there had been
civilizations in North America but they peaked before the Europeans arrived is
union hopi civilization roundabout
here peaked about 1200 CE they had a large multiple family dwellings in
canyons which they probably left because of drought
trash course world history fans will remember that environmental degradation
often causes the decline of civilizations I'm looking at you
in this valley and also you entire future
earth but complex civilizations weren't the rule in North America and now we're
about to begin generalizing a bad habit historians have partly because there's a
limited historical record but also because eurocentric historians have a
bad habit a primitive Ising in simplifying
other so I want to underscore that there was huge diverse city in the
pre-columbian
American experience in the talking about someone who lived here in 1000 BCE and
talking about someone who lived here two thousand years later is just inherently
problematic
that said let's go to the thought bubble most native groups in most places
organized as tribes and their lives were dominated by the natural resources
available where they lived so west coast indians primarily
by fishing gathering in hunting see mammals Great Plains Indians were often
buffalo hunters
the struggle fans of the united in the woods Confederacy's or weeds the best
known of which was probably the Iroquois Confederacy also called the great leader
peace this was kinda like it upstate New York version if nato but we have nuclear
weapons are
the incessant international meddling or latvians okay it was nothing like 80
actually
religion usually involve the vibrant spirit for world with ceremonies geared
toward five
lifestyle hunting tried focused on animals agricultural
51 good harvests and most Indian group believed in a single Creator God who
stood above all the other day at ease but they weren't monotheistic in the way
that Christians who came to the new world
were American Indians also saw property very differently from europeans
to first people's land was a common resource the Good Witch leaders could
assign families to use but not too
own and most land was seen as comment everyone
as black of the leader of the sock tribe said the Great Spirit gave it to his
children to live upon and cultivate as far as necessary for their subsistence
and so long as they occupy and cultivated they have a right to the soul
thanks thought bubble so many as 10 to romanticize American Indians as being
immune from greed in class but in fact there were class distinctions in Indian
tribes rulers tended to come from the same families for instance that said
wealth was much more evenly distributed than it was in Europe and while most
tribal leaders were men many tribes for Matrimonial meaning the children became
members have their mother's family
also women were often important religious leaders women also often don't
Wellings and tools although not land because again that idea did not exist
also in many tribes women engaging in premarital school improving wasn't taboo
in general they were just much less obsessed with the male chastity than
Europeans were I mean I will remind you the first
English settlement in america was called Virginia the idea that Native Americans
were noble savages somehow purer than Europeans and
untouched by their biases is not a new one like summer the earliest European
saw the Indians as Paragon's a physical beauty
and InnoCentive europeans worst characteristic but for most europeans
there was little noble about what they saw as pure
Indian savagery I mean Indians didn't have a writing they suffered from the
terrible character flaw love being able to have sex without feeling ashamed and
most importantly they were Christians
the Spanish were the first Europeans to explore this part of the world Juan
Ponce de Leon arrived in what is now Florida in 1513 looking for gold in the
fabled fountain view
in 1521 he encountered a Colusa breeds poison tipped
a row and died before discovering that the fountain of youth is of course
delicious diet doctor pepper
mmm are i cant a stock 23 flavors
there were many more Spanish explorers in the first after the 16th century
including one Albar Newnes cabeza Divakar who wandered through the
American Southwest looking for gold which I mention entirely because I think
that guy's last name means cow head
of course none of these people found any goal but they did make later european
colonization
easier by bringing over the microbes that wiped out most native population so
this parish want to colonize for data set at military bases to thwart the
Pirates who preyed on silver laden Spanish galleons coming out of mexico
but Spanish missionaries also came over hoping to convert local native
populations is a course work out magnificently just getting it went
terribly and many of the missions were destroyed by an uprising and go all
Indians in 1597 and I will remind you mispronouncing things is Mike being in
general colonizing for to suck because it was hot in Mesquite we spain was much
more successful at colonizing the American Southwest in 1610 Spain
established its first permanent settlement in the southwest at Santa Fe
New Mexico and you couldn't really say that
flourished in Santa Fe's population never got much about 3,000 but it had a
great small town feel
any mexico is really important because if the site of the first word scale
uprising by Native Americans against European I mean the native people who
the Spanish called pueblos had seen their fortunes declined significantly
since the arrival of Europeans how much to climb will between 1600 and 1680
their population went from about sixty thousand to about 17,000
also the Franciscan friars who came to convert the indigenous people became
increasingly militant about stamping out
all native religion the Spanish Inquisition just wasn't very keen on the
kind of cultural blending that made early conversion effort successful so
what is better so all the pueblos as one people they also knew they were tribal
differences that made it difficult for the Indians to unite
and rise up against the Spanish nothing unites like a common enemy and in 1680
religious leader named Pope a
organized and uprising to drive the Spaniard out okay organized about two
thousand warriors who killed four hundred Spanish colonists enforce the
rest to leave Santa Fe
so the Spanish colony in New Mexico was effectively destroyed the pueblos tore
down all the Christian churches and replace them with key buzz their places
of worship well like most awesome uprisings it didn't last
after the revolt the Spanish were much more tolerant of indigenous religion and
they also abandoned the forced labor practice called in comiendo it's time
for the new crash course teacher the mystery document
how mysterious
the rules here are simple I read an attempt to identify
the mystery document if I am right I do not get shocked by the shock band and if
I am wrong
I do okay where do we have here the Indians were totally deprived of their
freedom and were put in the harshest
fiercest most horrible servitude in captivity which no one who has not seen
it can understand
even beasts enjoy more freedom when they are allowed to graze in the fields but
our spaniards gave no such opportunity to indians
and truly considered them perpetual Slade's
I sometimes came upon dead bodies on my way
and upon others who were grasping and moaning in their death agony repeating
hungry hungry and this was the freedom
the good treatment and the Christianity the Indians received
well that's nice okay so the mystery document is always a primary source in
since the writer refers to
our spaniards I'm gonna guess that he or she probably he is european and a
Spaniard sympathetic to the Indians which narrows the West suspects
considerably so but wasn't as a popular for instance who argued that the Indians
might not even be human okay
and actually pretty common here I believe it is from a short account of
destruction of the Indies by Bartolo made a life casa
call not playing yet arstan just told me I have the author right but the book
wrong it's a history of the Indies
I hate shocks both literal and metaphorical
naw so we focused a lot on the brutality of the Spanish toward the Indians but at
least one Spaniard de las Casas recognize that his countrymen were
terrible this realization is a good thing obviously but it leads us to one
of the big problems when it comes to studying this time in place the black
legend is the tale that the Spanish
unleashed unspeakable cruelty on the Indians now that tail
is true but that idea was used by later settlers especially the English to
justify their own settlements like part of the reason they needed to expand
their empire was to save the Indians from the
of all Spanish but where the English so much better
yeah probably not as we mentioned at the beginning at today's episode American
Indians didn't have writing so we don't have
records their perspective now some europeans like de las Casas were
critical of the Spaniards but most considered the Indians heathens and
implied or even outright
said that they deserve whatever horrible things befell them so its beginning in
our series I want to point out something that we need to remember through apt one
of the great things about american history is that we have a lot
written sources this is the advantage at the US coming onto the scene so wat in
the game historically speaking but every story we here comes from a certain point
of view and we always need to remember
who is speaking why they are speaking and especially
which Boyce's go on heard and why
thanks for watching I'll see you next week crash course produced and directed
by Stan Miller a script supervisor is married Danko the associate producers
Jennifer Johnson the show is written by my high school history teacher role
fire and myself better graphics team his bottle if your questions about today's
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