US History/Contents/European History
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The peoples of Europe have had a tremendous impact on the development of the United States throughout the course of U.S. history. Europeans "discovered" and colonized the North American continent and, even after they lost political control over its territory, their influence has predominated due to a common language, social ideals, and culture. Therefore, when endeavoring to understand the history of the United States, it is helpful to briefly describe their European origin.
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[edit] Greece and Rome
- See also: Ancient History/Greece and Ancient History/Rome
The first significant civilizations of Europe formed in the second millennium BC. By 800 BC, the Greek city-states began to gain dominance over European civilization. By about 500 BC, the state of Athens had created a democracy, but one that differs from today's democracies in certain respects. The city-states of Greece became a province of the Roman Empire in 27 BC.
Meanwhile, the city of Rome was founded (traditionally in the year 753 BC). Slowly, Rome grew and built its empire, which at various points included most of present-day Britain (a large part of Scotland never belonged to the empire), France (then known as Gaul), Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Iraq, Palestine (including the territory claimed today by the modern state of Israel), Northern Arabia, Egypt, the Balkans, and the entire north coast of Africa.
By 180 AD, the Roman Empire began to disintegrate. The Emperors were overthrown and anarchy resulted. But Diocletian (243 - 316), reinstated the Empire by 284. The Empire was restored and continued to regain territory until 395, when the Empire was so large that it had to be divided into two parts, each with a separate ruler. The Eastern Empire survived until 1453, but the Western Empire fell quickly. In 476, Germanic tribes rebelled against Rome and deposed the Western Roman Emperor, resulting in a long period of decline known as the "Dark Ages."
[edit] The Roman Empire to the Holy Roman Empire
After Rome's fall c.476, the remnants of the Western Roman Empire fell into the hands of several of Germanic tribes, such as the Visigoths, Anglo-Saxons, Vandals, and Franks. Among these, the Franks quickly rose to prominence.
Charlemagne (742 - 814), the King of the Franks, took power over great portions of Europe. He eventually took control of Rome, reestablishing the Western Roman Empire, which became known as the Holy Roman Empire due to its close association with the Roman Catholic Church. But "Holy Roman Empire" was a misnomer, famously neither Holy, Roman, or an Empire, because the Empire was actually a confederation of what was formerly known as Gaul with the early German states. Also, it was not exactly an Empire. Though the Emperor held great power, he could not control the Church, even in his own domain. This allowed the popes of the Church to exert great influence both in religious and political matters.
At the end of the eleventh century, prompted by Pope Urban II and calls for aid from the crumbling Eastern Roman Empire, some European kings and great nobles launched a century and a half of Crusades of hordes of Christians, first to reconquer, and then to hold, part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from the Saracens (Arabs). The Crusaders ultimately failed in the face of powerful, resurgent, Muslim forces, but were recurrent disturbers of the Arab Empire. The Arabs were repeatedly torn by internal dynastic struggles such as Abbasides versus Fatimids, Shi'a versus Sunni, and numerous wars with the Turks (who succeeded them), Persians, and Mongols. The wars between Christian and Muslim empires lasted intermittently from the seventh century until World War I, and, to a degree, continue to the present in the Balkans, East Africa, Caucasus, East Indies, and Middle East.
[edit] Viking Exploration of North America
In the eighth century, pushed from their homes in Scandinavia by war and population expansion, Norsemen, or Vikings, began settling parts of the Faeroe, Shetland, and Orkney Islands in the North Atlantic. Then they began exploration of the west, moving first to Iceland in approximately 874 and, later, led by Erik the Red, to Greenland. Leif Erikson, son of Erik the Red, and other members of the family began exploration of the North American coast in 986. There was at least one camp founded by Vikings in the latter region, now named Newfoundland, and in the 1960's archaeologists discovered Viking remains at L'Anse aux Meadows dating back to about 1000 AD. For whatever reason, the Viking settlement of Newfoundland failed, perhaps because of violent encounters with native peoples and, by the thirteenth century, Iceland and Greenland had also entered a period of decline, resulting from the "Little Ice Age" and bringing the Viking exploration of the west to a standstill. Expansion of Scandinavian traders and warriors into Russia, France, Italy, the British Isles, and Sicily had a profound effect on politics and the ruling classes of Europe.
[edit] The Renaissance
- See also: European History
Despite the Christian losses of the Crusades, the soldiers who participated had realized one major fact: Eastern civilization was far more advanced than its Western counterpart. Its technology and culture outstripped feudal life west of the Byzantine Empire. With this in mind, Europeans began to import these concepts into their own native lands. Thus, it was not long before the continent began to enter a period of revival.
Roman and Greek art and culture were rediscovered during a period called the Renaissance. The Renaissance started in the Italian city-states and spread throughout most of Europe. The Italian city of Florence was the birthplace of this intellectual movement.
Although Western Christians failed to conquer the Holy Land, they were able to use their new-found experience and knowledge of the Mediterranean, a region whose technology was at a time superior to that of western Europe. Chinese technology such as gunpowder, silk, and printing filtered in from traders, adventurers, and scholars. In the Mediterranean, Europeans encountered writings of the ancient world that had been lost in Europe, and acquired a taste for new foods and flavors.
In the fifteenth century, the Mediterranean was a vigorous trading area. Europe used this water highway to import goods of many sorts. Grains and salts for preserving fish, Chinese silks, Indian cotton, precious stones, and above all, spices. Yes, Europe obsessed over these new spices. New spices meant new drugs, new cosmetics, dyes, perfumes, even glue and sugar. Peppers, cinnamon, cloves and other condiments used for flavoring and preserving food, proved a welcome addition to the bland diets of Europe.
[edit] The Rise of Portugal
Italy dominated trade. Genoa and Venice in particular ballooned into massive trading cities, and Italy used its monopoly to raise the price of goods, which would have been expensive in any case, because they were often brought overland from Asia to ports on the eastern Mediterranean. The mad prices, in turn, increased the desire of purchasers to find other suppliers, and of potential suppliers to find new, cheaper, routes to Asia.
Portugal was just one of many potential suppliers, and its location was well positioned to extend its influence into the Atlantic and down, south and east, to Africa. Prince Henry, son of King John I (r. 1385 – 1433), led the way of exploring new routes to the east and, in 1415, supported Portugal's capture of Ceuta in Muslim North Africa. He also sponsored voyages that pushed even farther down the West African coast, all the way south to Sierra Leone by the time of his death in 1460.
Under Portugal's King John II, who ruled from 1481 to 1495, Bartolomeu Dias finally sailed around the southernmost point of Africa to the Cape of Good Hope (1487-|88). Then, in 1497-99, Vasco da Gama of Portugal, sailed up the east coast of Africa to India.
Africa supplied Portugal with many profitable by-products. The Portuguese colonized and settled many islands in the Atlantic, such as the Madeira, Cape Verde, The Azores, and Sao Tome. These islands supplied them with sugar, and gave them territorial control of the Atlantic. West Africa was even more promising, not only unearthing a valuable trade route to India, but also providing the Portuguese with ivory, fur, oils, black pepper, gold dust, and a supply of “black gold” -- i.e., dark skinned slaves who were used as domestic servants, artisans, and market or transportation workers in Lisbon. Later, they were used as laborers on sugar plantations in the Atlantic.
[edit] The New World
In Europe, the doctrines of the powerful Roman Catholic Church were timidly questioned by scientists such as Nicolaus Copernicus 1473 - 1543) and Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642), who suggested by way of careful observation that the earth revolved around the sun. At the time, the church supported the Ptolemaic planetary system, which placed Earth at the center of the universe.
Many Europeans dreamed of exploration. One, the Italian Christopher Columbus 1451 - 1506), born Christofo Colombo, decided to sail around the globe to reach India by way of the Atlantic, rather than to travel overland through Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
Contrary to popular myth, it was largely accepted in Europe during Columbus' time that the world was round, which was also central to either the prevailing Copernican or Ptolemaic models of the solar system. In fact, sailors feared sailing west due to the unknown distance and uncharted winds of the West Atlantic, not because they feared sailing off the "edge of the world." Columbus' inspiration for exploring westward was his 30 percent underestimation of the circumference of the earth.
First, Columbus needed to fund his voyage. He approached King John II of Portugal (1455 - 1495) for aid, but the King's Council of Scientific Advisers rejected Columbus' proposals mostly on financial grounds, but also because of his lack of academic knowledge. After all, Columbus didn't know where he was going when he set out, didn't know where he was when he got there, and didn't know where he had been when he got back. Columbus then looked to Portugal's rival on the seas, Spain. King Ferdinand V of Aragon (1452 - 1516), and his wife Queen Isabella of Castile (1451 - 1504), rejected Columbus's plan in 1491. The Spanish rulers felt that Columbus demanded too many benefits and powers in the lands he was proposing to explore, including a percentage of the riches found in these lands, as well as certain titles such as Viceroy and Admiral. But after much negotiation, Columbus received the support of the Queen and funding to sail in April 1492. In that same year, the last Muslims were forced out of Granada by the Christian army. With the reunification of Spain complete, attention and funding became available for exploration to form the basis for the Age of Exploration and the Spanish Empire of the Americas.
[edit] Religious Tensions
Despite the failure of the Crusades, militant Western Christianity persisted in Spain in an effort known as the Reconquista (the "reconquest"), which purged the land of Muslims who had arrived there in 711. By the fifteenth century, the Muslims were confined to the kingdom of Granada, which bordered the Mediterranean Sea in the southern side of the Iberian Peninsula. Granada finally fell in 1492 to the Spanish Christians, ending the reconquista.
Elsewhere in Europe, the Pope's powers continued to grow, and in protest to the Roman Catholic Church, several Protestant churches were founded in Germany and France under reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin. In England, King Henry VIII founded the Anglican Church. This division of Western Christianity caused much religious strife, and religious minorities were persecuted throughout Europe. This persecution created large amounts of people looking for a better life. Many of these people set out to create new homes in the Americas. One of the most notable of these groups were the Pilgrims.
