The 1500s (the 16th Century)
1500s. When Jacques Cartier arrived in the early 1500's,
the Iroquois occupied the St Lawrence river valley, and were the natives
that he met at Stadacona and Hochelaga. When Champlain returned in 1608 the Algonquin
had replace the Iroquois along the St Lawrence river. 1500 AD. Shockingly,
Columbus supervised the selling of native girls into sexual slavery. Young
girls of the ages 9 to 10 were the most desired by his men. In 1500,
Columbus casually wrote about it in his log. In 1500 AD, Christopher
Columber jotted in passing one day in his journal: “A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a
woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who
go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand.” He
forced these peaceful natives to work in his gold mines until they died of
exhaustion. If an “Indian” worker did not deliver his full quota of gold dust
by Columbus' deadline, soldiers would cut off the man's hands, and tie them
around his neck to send a message. Slavery was so intolerable for these
sweet, gentle island people that at one point, 100 of them committed mass
suicide. Catholic law forbade the enslavement of Christians, but Columbus
solved this problem. He simply refused to baptize the native people of
Hispaniola. On his second trip to the New World, Columbus brought cannons
and attack dogs. If a native resisted slavery, he would cut off a nose or an
ear. If slaves tried to escape, Columbus had them burned alive. Other
times, he sent attack dogs to hunt them down, and the dogs would tear off the
arms and legs of the screaming natives while they were still alive. If the
Spaniards ran short of meat to feed the dogs, Arawak babies were killed for
dog food. Columbus' acts of cruelty were so unspeakable and so legendary—even
in his own day—that Governor Francisco De Bobadilla arrested Columbus and his
two brothers, slapped them into chains, and shipped them off to Spain to answer
for their crimes against the Arawaks. But the King and Queen of Spain,
their treasury filling up with gold, pardoned Columbus, and let him go free.One
of Columbus' men, Bartolome De Las Casas, was so mortified by Columbus'
brutal atrocities against the native peoples, that he quit working for Columbus
and became a Catholic priest. He described how the Spaniards under Columbus'
command cut off the legs of children who ran from them, to test the sharpness
of their blades. According to De Las Casas, the men made bets as to who,
with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. He says that Columbus'
men poured people full of boiling soap. In a single day, De Las Casas was an
eye witness as the Spanish soldiers dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3,000
(THREE THOUSAND) native peoples. “Such inhumanities and barbarisms were
committed in my sight as no age can parallel,” De Las Casas wrote. “My eyes
have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write.”
1500 AD. Later, the Delaware migration legend says of their origins: “when
White Horn was chief, they were in the region of the Talega Mountains and
there also were the Illinois, the Shawnee, and the Conoy.” The very next verse
mentions a landlocked lake, suggesting that's the region occupied was the area
from the Alleghenies or upper Ohio River to Lake Erie. The estimated time
for this occupation is about 1500 AD.”
1500s. There were more indigenous fighting with the
Spanish conquisadors than with the Aztecs on the final battle for
TENOCHTITLAN Tenochtitlan. After being inspired by Cortez's burning of the
Aztec Empire, Pizzaro goes after the INCAN Empire (Manchu Picchu): “This time
he landed at the coastal town of Tumbez with 106 foot soldiers and 62 horsemen.
There he received news of a civil war in the great Inca Empire as two half
brothers, ATAHUALPA in the north, and HUASCAR in the south, quarrelled over the
inheritance of their father, the Great Inca Huana-Cupac. Pizarro was quick to
make contact with representatives of ATAHUALPA, assuring him of his
friendship, and received an invitation to meet him at the town of Cajamarca in
the Andes. The journey inland and up into the mountains would have been
virtually impossible for the Spanish contingent without Inca guides to direct
them along a road which had well provisioned rest places at the end of each
day's march.” At Cajamarca, the Spaniards stationed themselves within the
walls of the town, most hiding with their guns and horses. ATAHUALPA left most
of a huge Inca army behind and entered the town in ceremonial fashion with
5,000 or 6,000 men, in no way prepared for fighting. Pizarro's brother Hernando
later recounted: “He arrived in a litter, preceded by 3 or 4 hundred liveried
Indians, who swept the dirt off the road and sang. Then came ATAHUALPA,
surrounded by his leaders and chieftains, the most important of whom were
carried on the shoulders of underlings.” “A Dominican monk with the Spaniards
began speaking to ATAHUALPA, trying to persuade him to convert to the Christian
religion and pay tribute to the Spanish king—on the grounds that the pope had
allocated this part of Latin America to Spain. The Inca is said to have
replied: “I will be no man's tributary... As to the pope of which you speak, he
must be crazy to talk of giving away countries that do not belong to him. As
for my faith, I will not change it. Your own god, you say, was put to
death by the very men whom he created.
But my god still lives in heaven and looks down on his children.” Atahualpa
threw the Bible that had been handed to him on the ground. The Dominican
monk said to illiterate PIZARRO, “Do you not see that while we stand here
wasting our breath or talking with this dog, the field is filling with Indians.
Set on them at once. I absolve you”. PIZARRO waved a white scarf, the hidden
Spanish troops opened fired and, as the cavalry charged at them. There was
nowhere for the Incas to flee. According to Spanish estimates, 2,000 Incas
died. According to Incan accounts, 10,000. PIZARRO!
“ATAHUALPA
was now a prisoner of the Spanish, forced to act as their front man while they
took over the core of his empire. He assumed he could buy them off, given their
strange obsession with gold, and collected a huge pile of it. He was sorely
mistaken. Pizarro took the gold and executed the Inca after a mockery of a
trial at which he was charged among other things with 'adultery and
plurality of wives', 'idolatry' and 'exciting insurrection against the
Spanish'. He was taken to the city square to be burnt at the stake, where
he said he wanted to convert to Christianity—believing the Spanish would not burn
a baptised Christian. He was right. After his Baptism, Pizarro ordered that
Atahualpa should be strangled instead.”
1501AD. African Slaves in the New World. Spanish settlers
bring slaves from Africa to Santo
Domingo (now the capital of the Dominican Republic).
1501. The Spanish Inquisition intensified after the royal decrees issued in
1492 and 1501, ordering Jews and Muslims to convert or leave.
1505AD. Columbus was the first slave trader in the
Americas. As the native slaves died off, they were replaced with black slaves.
Columbus' son, Diego, became the first African slave trader in 1505, in Haiti.
1508AD. When he arrived on Hispaniola in 1508, De Las Casas
says, “there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the
Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from
war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I
myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it... “What
Columbus did to the Arawaks of the Bahamas, Cortes did to the Aztecs of Mexico,
Pizarro to the Incas of Peru, and the English settlers of Virginia and
Massachusetts to the Powhatans and the Pequots.The Aztec civilization of Mexico
came out of the heritage of Mayan, Zapotec, and Toltec cultures. It built
enormous constructions from stone tools and human labor, developed a
writing system and a priesthood. It also engaged in (let us not overlook this)
the ritual killing of thousands of people as sacrifices to the gods.
1509AD. November 10-1513. Francisco Pizarro sailed from
Spain to the New World with Alonzo de Ojeda on an expedition to Urabí. He
sailed to Cartagena, and joined the fleet of Martín Fernández de Enciso, and,
in 1513, accompanied Balboa to the Pacific.
PIZARRO!
1516AD. Spanish historian Peter Martyr wrote: “... a ship
without compass, chart, or guide, but only following the trail of dead
Indians who had been thrown from the ships could find its way from the Bahamas
to Hispaniola.” Christopher Columbus derived most of his income from slavery,
De Las Casas noted.
1519AD. Tenochtitlan (Aztec Mexico) had a population
estimated at 150,000, making it one of the world's major cities. It boasted
huge temples, palaces of rulers and nobles, an enormous daily market, and a
dense artisan and warrior population. Long-distance and local trade, with both
permanent and periodic markets, was already well established, and Tenochtitlan
became a major hub. The Aztecs built on the achievements of prior
civilizations, which were highly complex.
1519-1523AD. Pizarro is Mayor of Panama City. In 1514,
Pizarro found a supporter in Pedrarias Dávila, the Governor of Castilla de
Oro, and was rewarded for his role in the arrest of Balboa with the
positions of Mayor and Magistrate in Panama City, serving from 1519 to 1523.
1520. May 20. AD. The massacre in the Main Temple of the
Aztec capital Tenochtitlan was an episode in the Spanish conquest of Mexico
which occurred on May 20, 1520. Hernando Cortez. The cruelty of the Aztecs,
however, did not erase a certain innocence, and when a Spanish armada appeared
at Vera Cruz, and a bearded white man came ashore, with strange beasts
(horses), clad in iron, it was thought that he was the legendary Aztec man-god
who had died three hundred years before, with the promise to return-the mysterious
Quetzalcoatl. And so they welcomed him, with munificent hospitality. That was
Hernando Cortes CORTEZ!, come from Spain with an expedition financed by
merchants and landowners and blessed by the deputies of God, with one obsessive
goal: to find gold. In the mind of Montezuma, the king of the Aztecs, there
must have been a certain doubt about whether Cortes was indeed Quetzalcoatl,
because he sent a hundred runners to Cortes, bearing enormous treasures, gold
and silver wrought into objects of fantastic beauty, but at the same time
begging him to go back. (The painter Durer a few years later described what he
saw just arrived in Spain from that expedition-a sun of gold, a moon of silver,
worth a fortune.) Cortes then began his march of death from town to town, using
deception, turning Aztec against Aztec, killing with the kind of deliberateness
that accompanies a strategy-to paralyze the will of the population by a
sudden frightful deed. And so, in Cholulu, he invited the headmen of
the Cholula nation to the square. And when they came, with thousands of unarmed
retainers, Cortes's small army of Spaniards, posted around the square with
cannon, armed with crossbows, mounted on horses, massacred them, down to the
last man. Then they looted the city and moved on. When their cavalcade of
murder was over, they were in Mexico City, Montezuma was dead, and the Aztec
civilization, shattered, was in the hands of the Spaniards. All this is told in
the Spaniards' own accounts. While Hernán Cortés was in Tenochtitlan, he heard
about other Spaniards arriving on the coast – Pánfilo de Narváez had come
from Cuba with orders to arrest him – and Cortés was forced to leave the city
to fight them. During his absence, Moctezuma asked deputy governor Pedro de
Alvarado for permission to celebrate Toxcatl (an Aztec festivity in honor of
Tezcatlipoca, one of their main gods). But after the festivities had started,
Alvarado interrupted the celebration, killing the most prominent people of the
Aztec upper classes.The Spanish version of the incident says the conquistadors
interrupted a human sacrifice in the Templo Mayor; the Aztec version says the
Spaniards were enticed into action by the gold the Aztecs were wearing. This
prompted an Aztec rebellion against the orders of Moctezuma. Here it is told
how the Spaniards killed, they murdered the Mexicans who were celebrating
the Fiesta of Huitzilopochtli in the place they called The Patio of the
Gods. At this time, when everyone was enjoying the fiesta, when everyone
was already dancing, when everyone was already singing, when song was linked to
song and the songs roared like waves, in that precise moment the Spaniards
determined to kill people. They came into the patio, armed for battle. They
came to close the exits, the steps, the entrances [to the patio]: The Gate of
the Eagle in the smallest palace, The Gate of the Canestalk and the Gate of the
Snake of Mirrors. And when they had closed them, no one could get out anywhere.
Once they had done this, they entered the Sacred Patio to kill people. They
came on foot, carrying swords and wooden and metal shields. Immediately, they
surrounded those who danced, then rushed to the place where the drums were
played. They attacked the man who was drumming and cut off both his arms.
Then they cut off his head [with such a force] that it flew off, falling far
away. At that moment, they then attacked all the people, stabbing them,
spearing them, wounding them with their swords. They struck some from behind,
who fell instantly to the ground with their entrails hanging out [of their
bodies]. They cut off the heads of some and smashed the heads of others into
little pieces. They struck others in the shoulders and tore their arms from
their bodies. They struck some in the thighs and some in the calves. They
slashed others in the abdomen and their entrails fell to the earth. There
were some who even ran in vain, but their bowels spilled as they ran; they
seemed to get their feet entangled with their own entrails. Eager to flee,
they found nowhere to go. Some tried to escape, but the Spaniards murdered them
at the gates while they laughed. Others climbed the walls, but they could not
save themselves. Others entered the communal house, where they were safe
for a while. Others lay down among the victims and pretended to be dead. But
if they stood up again they [the Spaniards] would see them and kill them. The
blood of the warriors ran like water as they ran, forming pools, which widened,
as the smell of blood and entrails fouled the air. And the Spaniards walked
everywhere, searching the communal houses to kill those who were hiding. They
ran everywhere, they searched every place. When [people] outside [the Sacred
Patio learned of the massacre], shouting began, “Captains, Mexicas, come here
quickly! Come here with all arms, spears, and shields! Our captains have
been murdered! Our warriors have been slain! Oh Mexica captains, [our warriors]
have been annihilated!” Then a roar was heard, screams, people wailed, as they
beat their palms against their lips. Quickly the captains assembled, as if planned
in advance, and carried their spears and shields. Then the battle began. [The
Mexicas] attacked them with arrows and even javelins, including small javelins
used for hunting birds. They furiously hurled their javelins [at the
Spaniards]. It was as if a layer of yellow canes spread over the Spaniards.”
—Visión de los Vencidos. The Aztecs were genocided, and their books,
language, history, culture destroyed by Cortez, a Spanish conquistador. The
Aztecs were the last major civilization to control central Mexico before their
defeat by the Spaniards.
1521AD. Spanish Conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon
was unable to mount a second expedition until 1521, when an attempt was
made to colonize Florida. However, the natives no longer passively accepted
Spanish domination, and Ponce de León was mortally wounded during an Indian
attack. He discovered neither great wealth nor the Fountain of Youth, and
failed to establish a permanent settlement in Florida.
1521. Christmas Day. AD. Haitian Slaves Revolt. Precisely
220 years to the day before Simon Girty would be born, in the Spanish colony of
Santo Domingo, the first recorded slave revolt in the Americas occurred. A
group of African, likely WOLOF Wolof, slaves came together with native Indians
led by the Taíno cacique Enriquillo to assert their independence. Beyond
being the first slave revolt in the Americas, it was also one of the most
important moments in Colonial American history because it was the first known
instance when Africans and Indians united against their Spanish overlords in
the Americas.
1522AD. The Haitian (and Dominican Republican) Slave
Revolt of 1522. The Caribbean Slaves rebel on the Caribbean island of
Hispaniola, which now comprises Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
1524AD. The French king commissioned Italian explorer
Giovanni da Verrazano VERRAZANO! to search for a passageway through
Amerika, to the Pacific Ocean. Verrazano spotted the coast of South Carolina,
and sailed north as far as Nova Scotia, but found no such water route or
valuable treasure. As the French colonized New France, the French established
forts and settlements that would become such cities as Quebec and Montreal
in Canada; Detroit, Green Bay, St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, Mobile, Biloxi, Baton
Rouge and New Orleans in the United States; and Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haïtien
(founded as Cap-Français) in Haiti, Cayenne in French Guiana and São Luís
(founded as Saint Louis) in Brazil. Major French exploration of North
America began under the rule of Francis I, King of France. In 1524, Francis
sent Italian-born Giovanni da Verrazano to explore the region between Florida
and Newfoundland for a route to the Pacific Ocean. Verrazzano gave the names
Francesca and Nova Gallia to that land between New Spain and English
Newfoundland, thus promoting French interests.
1524AD. Two Times Pizarro's attempt to Conquer the Incas
Failed. Reports of Peru's riches and Cortés's success in Mexico tantalized
Pizarro, and he undertook two expeditions to conquer the Incan Empire in
1524 and in 1526. Both failed as a result of native hostilities, bad
weather, and lack of provisions. Pedro de los Ríos, the Governor of Panama, made
an effort to recall Pizarro, but the conquistador resisted and remained in the
south. PIZARRO!
1,524 AD. November 14. Hernando De Soto the Butcher, aka
a Child of the Sun, teams up with Pizzaro the Butcher in
conquering/genociding Nicauragua, just as Ronald Reagan will do in the same
country, as well as Guatemala, and her native Mayans, and El Salvador, over 4
centuries later!
1525 AD. The Fort Ancient people (the Adena, and
Shawnee). Most likely their society, like the Mississippian culture to the
south, was severely disrupted by waves of epidemics from new infectious
diseases carried by the very first Spanish explorers in the 16th century. After 1525 at Madisonville, the
type site, the village's house sizes became smaller and fewer, with evidence
showing they became “a less horticulture-centered, sedentary way of life”. The Shawnee traditionally considered the Lenape
(or Delaware) of the East Coast mid-Atlantic region, who were also Algonquian
speaking, as their “grandfathers.” The Algonquian nations of present-day
Canada regarded the Shawnee as their southernmost branch. Along the East Coast,
the Algonquian-speaking tribes were mostly located in coastal areas, from
Quebec to the Carolinas. Algonquian languages have words similar to the archaic
shawano (now: shaawanwa) meaning “south”. However, the stem shaawa-does not
mean “south” in Shawnee, but “moderate, warm (of weather)”. In one Shawnee
tale, Shaawaki is the deity of the south.
A list
of Famous Shawnee I compiled: 1) Cornstalk (assassinated); 2) Blue Jacket; 3)
Black Hoof; 4) Blackfish; 5) Tecumseh-Panther-in-the-Sky; 6)
Tenskwatawa-Prophet, 7) Puckshinwah, Tecumseh's father; 8) Moluntha
(assassinated);
1526AD. The first enslaved Africans arrived in what is
now the United States as part of the SAN MIGUEL DE GUALDAPE San Miguel de
Gualdape colony (most likely located in the Winyah Bay area of present-day
South Carolina), founded by Spanish explorer LUCAS VAZQUEZ de AYLLON Lucas
Vásquez de Ayllón in 1526. On October 18, 1526, Ayllón died and the colony
was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves
revolted, and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. Many of the colonists died
shortly afterwards of an epidemic, and the colony was abandoned, leaving the
escaped enslaved Africans behind in what is now South Carolina. The two
longest lasting legacies of Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon in is that this colony was
the first instance of enslaved Africans in the United States, and San Miguel de
Guadalpe was also the first documented slave rebellion on North American soil.
1526. Two Times Pizarro's attempt to Conquer the Incas
Failed. Reports of Peru's riches and Cortés's success in Mexico tantalized
Pizarro, and he undertook two expeditions to conquer the Incan Empire in 1524
and in 1526. Both failed as a result of native hostilities, bad weather, and
lack of provisions. Pedro de los Ríos, the Governor of Panama, made an
effort to recall Pizarro, but the conquistador resisted and remained in the
south. PIZARRO!!!
1526. Mid-July. Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon. San Miguel de
Guadalupe. “History records the first slave revolt in 1526 at de Ayllon's settlement
San Miguel de Guadalupe somewhere in the vicinity of Winyah Bay and the Pedee
River.” (most likely located in the Winyah Bay area of present-day South
Carolina). Jamestown would be established 1609, 83 years later. There are
several versions of just exactly who and how many colonists accompanied de
Ayllon. Some report there were 500 men, women and children, and 100 slaves
while others report between 500 and 600 colonists, and while the extent of
the revolt has not been recorded it is known that of the Spaniards and slaves
with de Ayllon only 150 returned, and there indeed was a slave revolt.” A
Spanish colonizer Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, founded, in the summer of 1526,
a community whose probable location was at or near the mouth of the Pedee River
in what is now South Carolina. The settlement consisted of about five hundred
Spaniards and one hundred Negro slaves. founded by Spanish explorer Lucas
Vásquez de Ayllón in 1526. The ill-fated colony was almost immediately
disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled
the colony. 1526. Trouble soon beset it. Illness caused numerous deaths,
carrying off in October, Ayllon himself. Internal dissension arose, and the
Indians grew increasingly suspicious and hostile. Finally, probably in
November, several of the slaves rebelled and fled to the Indians. The next
month what was left of the adventurers, some one hundred and fifty souls,
returned to Haiti, leaving the rebel Negroes with their Indian friends. some
remained behind to mix with the native tribes, perhaps captured, perhaps by
choice. to seek refuge among local
Native Americans. De'Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly
afterwards of an epidemic, and the colony was abandoned, leaving the escaped
slaves behind on North American soil. When there was a crisis over leadership,
the colony fell into disarray. In the midst of this crisis, a slave revolt
further ripped the settlement apart. With the colony in shambles, many of the
African slaves fled to live among the nearby native people. According to De
Soto, these refugees must have lived among the Cofitachiqui and taught them the
craftwork of the Europeans. 1526. It was to last only three months of winter
before being abandoned in early 1527. 1526. Mid-July. By mid-July 1526, Ayllón
was ready to establish a colony with 600 settlers and 100 horses. He lost
one of his three ships at a river he named the Jordan, probably the Santee.
1526. September 29. AD. Ayllon and Co. landed in Winyah
Bay, near present day Georgetown, South Carolina, on September 29 (the
Feast of Archangels), and Francisco de Chicora abandoned him here.
1526. October 8. AD. The San Miguel de Gualdape Colony. They
then proceeded '40 or 45 leagues', partly overland and partly by boat, visiting
the king of Duahe KING OF DUAHE! en route as related by Peter Martyr, and
finally arrived at another river, the Gualdape, where they built San Miguel de
Gualdape on October 8. The location of this colony has been disputed over a wide
area, since it is never related in which direction from the Jordan (Santee)
they travelled. Some have asserted that he went north to the Chesapeake;
Francisco Fernández de Écija, chief pilot of Spaniards searching the Chesapeake
Bay for English activities in 1609, claimed that Ayllón in 1526 had landed on
the James somewhere near Jamestown. Ecija also claimed the natives at the
Santee had told him Daxe (Duahe) was a town 4 days to the north. Swanton, on
the other hand, suggested Ayllón may have gone '45 leagues' to the southwest,
that the Gualdape was in fact the Savannah River in Georgia, and that his
interactions there had been with the Guale tribe. More recent scholars concur
that it was probably at or near present-day Georgia's Sapelo Island and
consider attempts to locate the San Miguel settlement (Tierra de Ayllón)
any farther to the north to be unsubstantiated conjecture. This colony was a
failure and Ayllón himself died, purportedly in the arms of a Dominican
friar. Ayllón's rough-hewn town withstood only about a total of three
months, enduring a severe winter, scarcity of supplies, hunger, disease, and
troubles with the local natives. 1526, a large expedition left the Spanish
settlement of Santo Domingo on the island of Hispanola, and landed in
coastal South Carolina along the Pee Dee River. Within a short time, however,
the few Spaniards not felled by disease and infighting, sailed back to Santo
Domingo leaving the enslaved Africans they had brought with them. These had no
problem living, and eventually blending in, with the Native Americans.
Inspired by these stories, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón led 600 people to establish
a colony that would exploit the supposed riches of Datha. At Winyah Bay, one of
his ships were wrecked and Chicora and other Indians escaped from the Spanish.
Ayllon established a settlement near Sapelo Sound in present day Georgia, but he
died and the colony was abandoned after three months, the 150 survivors
returning to the Caribbean. Ayllón's colony was
probably the source of items of European manufacture later discovered by De
Soto DE SOTO in Cofitachequi.
1527AD. Spring. Francis Gomez returned the 150 survivors
to Hispaniola on two of the vessels, one of which sank, leaving only one
ship of the three to return. The first group of African's were brought by Ayllón
to erect the settlement. The employment of African slaves in the 1526 colony is
the first instance of African slave labor used by Spaniards on the North
American continent. Upon political disputes within the settlers, there was
an uprising among the slaves, who fled to the interior and presumably settled
with the native people of North America. This incident is the first documented
slave rebellion in North America.
1528 April - 1530AD. PIZARRO Pizarro reached northern
Peru and found the natives rich with precious metals. Pizarro's mother dropped
him off at a Catholic Church. This discovery gave Pizarro the motivation to
plan a third expedition to conquer Peru, and he returned to Panama to make
arrangements, but the Governor refused to grant permission for the project.
Illiterate Pizarro returned to Spain to appeal directly to King Charles I. His
plea was successful, and he received not only a license for the proposed
expedition but considerable authority over any lands conquered during the
venture. He was joined by family and friends, and the expedition left Panama in
1530. In Peru, that other Spanish conquistador Pizarro, used the same
tactics, and for the same reasons- the frenzy in the early capitalist states of
Europe for gold, for slaves, for products of the soil, to pay the bondholders
and stockholders of the expeditions, to finance the monarchical bureaucracies
rising in Western Europe, to spur the growth of the new money economy
rising out of feudalism, to participate in what Karl Marx would later call “the
primitive accumulation of capital.” These were the violent beginnings of an
intricate system of technology, business, politics, and culture that would
dominate the world for the next five centuries. In the North American
English colonies, the pattern was set early, as Columbus had set it in the
islands of the Bahamas.
1,532AD. November 16. The Battle of Cajamarca. Explorer
Francisco PIZARRO, an illiterate soldier and religious imperialist, made
Hernando DE SOTO second in command on Pizarro’s expedition to explore,
massacre, rape, pillage, and conquer Peru in 1532. Pizarro, with 168
Spaniard’s, and the Imperial Army of the Incas in the highlands of Peru, and
had massacred 7,000 Incans. Not a single Spaniard’s life was lost in the
process. When hostile natives along the coast threatened the expedition,
PIZARRO Pizarro moved inland and founded the first Spanish settlement in
PERU Peru, San Miguel de Piura, SAN MIGUEL DE PIURA. Inca Atahualpa refused
to tolerate a Spanish presence in his lands, but was captured by Pizarro during
the Battle of Cajamarca on 16 November 1532. The Battle of Cajamarca was the
ambush and capture of the Inca ruler Atahualpa by Francisco Pizarro and a
small Spanish force on November 16, 1532. The Spanish killed thousands of
Atahualpa's counsellors, commanders and unarmed attendants in the great
plaza of Cajamarca, and caused his armed host outside the town to flee. The
seizure of Atahualpa marked the opening stage of the conquest of the
pre-Columbian Inca civilisation of Peru … Titu Cusi Yupanqui, son of Manco II
and a nephew of Atahualpa, dictated the only Inca eyewitness accounts of the
events leading up to the battle which have been generally discounted by
historians because they are racist white supremacist apologists. According to
Titu Cusi, Atahualpa had received Pizarro and de Soto on November 15, offering
them cups containing ceremonial chicha; Pizarro was given a gold cup while
de Soto was offered a silver cup. Pizarro was reportedly insulted, telling the
ruler that de Soto was of equal rank and both should have been given gold cups,
at which point both men poured their chicha out on the ground without drinking
any. The Spaniards then gave ATAHUALPA Atahualpa a letter (or book) which they
said was quilca (image-writing) of God and the Spanish king. Offended by the
spilling of the chicha, Atahualpa threw the “letter or whatever it was” on the
ground, telling them to leave. On November 16, Atahualpa arrived at
Cajamarca “not with weapons to fight or armour to defend themselves,” although
they did carry tumis (ceremonial knives to kill llamas) and some carried ayllus
(possibly bolas). The Spanish approached, and told Atahualpa that Virococha had
ordered them to tell the Inca who they were. Atahualpa listened then gave
one (possibly de Valverde) a gold cup of chicha which was not drunk and given
no attention at all. Furious, Atahualpa stood and yelled “Since you pay no
importance to me, I wish nothing to do with you”, at which the Spanish
attacked. Titu Cusi's only mention of a Bible being presented, and then tossed
to the ground is restricted to the day before the battle, an omission that has
been explained as due either to its relative insignificance to the Inca or to
confusion between the events of the two days.
1,533AD. While exploring the country's highlands in 1533,
DE SOTO de Soto came upon a road leading to Cuzco, the capital of Peru’s
Incan Imperial Empire. De Soto played a fundamental role in organizing the
conquest of Peru, and engaged in a successful battle to capture Cuzco. Best
buddies Pizzaro and De Soto exterminated the Incan Empire, keeping Manchu
Picchu, an intricate stairway wrapping themselves all around the Andes
Mountains in South America, all for themselves.
1533. July 26. AD. Pizarro Executes ATAHUALPA Atahualpa,
the Incan Imperial Monarque. A ransom for the Emperor's release was
demanded and Atahualpa filled a room with gold, but Pizarro charged him with
various crimes and executed Atahualpa on 26 July 1533, much to the opposition
of his associates who thought the conquistador was overstepping his authority.
The same year, Pizarro entered the Incan capital of Cuzco, and the conquest
of Peru was complete.
1534. April 20. AD. Jacques Cartier Sails to America.
When King Francis I of France decided in 1534 to send an expedition to
explore the northern lands in the hope of discovering gold, spices, and a
passage to Asia, Jacques Cartier received the commission. He sailed from
Saint-Malo on April 20, 1534, with two ships and 61 men. Reaching North
America a few weeks later, Jacques Jacques Cartier traveled along the west
coast of Newfoundland, discovered Prince Edward Island, and explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence as far as Anticosti Island. Having seized
two Indians at the Gaspé Peninsula, he sailed back to France.His report piqued
the curiosity of Francis I sufficiently for him to send Jacques Cartier back
the following year, with three ships and 110 men, to explore further. Guided by
the two Indians he had brought back, he sailed up the St. Lawrence as far as Quebec and established a base near an Iroquois village.
1534. AD. The Crown’s (Spanish King Charles 1) division
of Peru was vague, and the wealthy city of Cuzco fell under Almagro’s
jurisdiction, but the powerful Pizarro and his brothers held it. Almagro went
north and participated in the conquest of Quito, but the north was not as
rich and Almagro seethed at what he saw as Pizarro schemes to cut him out of
the New World loot. He met with Pizarro, and it was decided in 1534 that
Almagro would take a large force south into present-day Chile, following rumors
of vast wealth. His issues with Pizarro were left unsettled, however. Chile:
The rumors turned out to be false. First the conquistadors had to cross the
mighty Andes: the harsh crossing took the lives of several Spaniards and
countless African slaves and native allies. Once they arrived, they found
Chile to be a harsh land, full of tough-as-nails MAPUCHE Mapuche natives who
fought Diego de Almagro and his men on several occasions. After two years of
exploring and finding no rich empires like the Aztecs or Incas, Almagro’s men
prevailed upon him to return to Peru, and claim Cuzco as his own.
1535. September. AD. Jacques Cartier proceeded with a
small party as far as the island of Montreal, where
navigation was barred by rapids. He was warmly welcomed by the resident Iroquois, but he spent only a few hours among them
before returning to winter at his base. He had, however, learned from the
Indians that two rivers led farther west to lands where gold, silver,
copper, and spices abounded. The severity of the winter came as a terrible
shock; no Europeans since the Vikings had wintered that far north on the
American continent, and a mild winter was expected because Quebec lay at a
lower latitude than Paris. Scurvy claimed 25 of Jacques Cartier’s men. To
make matters worse, the explorers earned the enmity of the Iroquois.
1535AD. A decade later, French navigator Jacque Jacques
Cartier led the first European expedition into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
During his second voyage in 1535, Jacques Cartier traveled as far as
present-day Montreal, wintering at the site of Quebec. The Huron Indians
were friendly, but when disease broke out among them, Jacques Cartier isolated
his men who then developed scurvy.
1535. January. AD. In January 1535, Francisco Pizarro
founded the city of LIMA Lima, a project he considered his greatest achievement.
Quarrels between Pizarro and his longtime comrade-in-arms Diego Almagro
culminated in the Battle of Las Salinas.
1536AD. DE SOTO. Hernando de Soto returned to Spain a
wealthy man. His share of the Incan Empire's fortune amounted to no less than 18,000
ounces of gold. 1536AD. May. Thus, in May, as soon as the river was free of
ice, they treacherously seized some of the Iroquois chiefs and sailed for
France. Jacques Cartier, the Frenchman whose the Founder of Canada, was able
to report only that great riches lay farther in the interior and that a
great river, said to be 800 leagues (about 2,000 miles [3,200 km]) long,
possibly led to Asia.
1537AD. Return to Peru and Civil War: Almagro returned to
Peru in 1537 to find Manco Inca in open revolt and the forces of Pizarro on
the defensive in the highlands and in the city of Lima on the coast. Almagro's
force was weary and tattered but still formidable, and he was able to drive
Manco off. He saw the Inca's revolt as an opportunity to seize Cuzco for
himself and quickly engaged the Spaniards loyal to Pizarro.
1538AD. He had the upper hand at first, but Francisco
Pizarro sent another force of loyal Spaniards up from Lima in early 1538
and they soundly defeated Diego de Almagro and his men at the battle of Las
Salinas in April. Charles I was the Spanish King that issued these conquisadors
into the “New World”.
1538. April 6. AD. On the morning of April 6, 1538 (not
April 26, as some historians have written), the two forces engaged.
Almagro's smaller army, weakened by desertion and abandoned by the Inca
supporter Paullu, succumbed after two hours of fighting. Only 50 or so
Spaniards died during the battle, but reprisals afterward claimed many more.
Orgóñez was wounded and executed on the field. The Pizarrists captured
Almagro, tried him for treason, and executed him. Although minor in terms
of its military importance and the number of casualties, the Battle of Las
Salinas was a chief factor in Charles I's decision to send a viceroy to Peru
to take power from the conquistadores and establish order in the colony.
1538. Fought near the city of Cuzco in 1538, the Battle of Las Salinas pitted
Spaniard against Spaniard, as the forces of Diego de Almagro and those of the
Pizarro brothers fought to dominate Peru. Francisco Pizarro and Almagro had
formed a partnership to undertake the conquest of Peru. Following the capture
and execution of the Inca ruler Atahualpa and the Spanish occupation of the
Inca capital at Cuzco, however, Pizarro claimed much of the territory for
himself (see Incas). A disgruntled Almagro led a fruitless expedition into
the deserts of northern Chile, returning in 1537 to find Cuzco under siege in
Manco Inca's Great Rebellion. Almagro relieved the siege but arrested Gonzalo
Pizarro and Hernando Pizarro, who opposed his occupation of Cuzco. Meanwhile, Francisco
Pizarro was in Lima on the coast. As a result of his negotiations with the
Pizarro faction, Almagro freed the Pizarro brothers. The two sides, however,
were unable to resolve their contention. Seeking revenge, Hernando Pizarro
led an army of 700 Spaniards from Lima to Cuzco. Almagro rejected his Inca ally
Paullu's suggestion that they ambush Pizarro's force in a narrow mountain
valley. Reluctant to make war on his fellow Spaniards, Almagro decided instead
to defend Cuzco. With Almagro incapacitated by syphilis, Rodrigo Orgóñez led
the Almagro army. He chose a site a few miles south of Cuzco near some salt
leaches (salinas) to fight the Pizarrists.
1538AD. PIZARRO. Pizarro took Atahualpa's wife for
himself, and bore himself Juan and Francisco, using her as an cum
dumpster/incubator for his illiterate progeny. Atahualpa's wife, 10-year-old
Cuxirimay Ocllo, was with the army and stayed with Atahualpa while he was
imprisoned. Following Atahualpa's execution she was taken to Cuzco, and took
the name Dona Angelina. By 1538 she was Pizarro's mistress, bearing him two
sons, Juan and Francisco.
1538. July 8. AD. Diego de Almagro Executed. Diego de
Almagro fled to safety in Cuzco, but men loyal to the Pizarro brothers
pursued and captured him within the city limits. Almagro was sentenced to be
executed, a move which stunned most of the Spanish in Peru, as he had been
elevated to nobleman status by King Charles I some years before. He was garrotted
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/garrotted
on July 8, 1538 and his body was put on public display for a time. Pizarro
would burn the eyes of Incan chiefs, or cut off noses, and ears, to get their
gold. Pizarro was brutal, without any humanity. Diego de Almagro was brutal
too, but not as brutal as the Pizarros. De Almagro was a part of Francisco
Pizarro's extermination, and submission of the Incan Empire in the 1520s and
1530s; sent to capture the Incan city of Quito, Almagro found it razed by its
defenders, and he sycophantically re-founded it as San Francisco de Quito.†
(† He pulled a similar trick with Trujillo, naming it after Francisco
Pizarro’s birthplace.) Almagro actually had the lesser Pizarros — Gonzalo and
Hernando — prisoner for a while, but he bartered them away to Francisco for a
hill of beans (that is, a promise not to attack), and the Pizarros took their
city back by routing Almagro at the Battle of Las Salinas. The sentence of
death against as august a personage as the appointed ruler of Nueva Toledo
shocked many, and it was carried out against Almagro’s own entreaties for an
appeal to the crown.
1,539. July 28. DE SOTO. With 100 slaves and 600 mighty
strong conquistadors, Hernando De Soto begins his journey into the
southeastern portion of pre-United States of America. In late May 1539, de Soto
landed on the west coast of Florida with 600 troops, servants, and staff, 200
horses, and a pack of bloodhounds. From there, the army set about subduing the
natives, seizing any valuables they stumbled upon, and preparing the region
for eventual Spanish colonization. Traveling through Florida, Georgia, South
Carolina, across the Appalachians, Kentucky, and Alabama, de Soto failed to
find the gold and silver he desired, but he did seize a valuable collection of
PEARLS! pearls at Cofitachequi, COFITACHEQUI! in present-day Georgia. Decisive
conquest also eluded the Spaniards, as what would become the United States
lacked the large, centralized civilizations of Mexico and Peru.
1540AD. Yupaha and the Lady of Cofitachiqui. While among
the Apalachee Indians in Florida, a captured boy called Perico told him of
a province named “Yupaha” ruled by a woman and rich in gold. De Soto decided to
strike out for Yupaha—which turned out to be an alternative name of
Cofitachequi. In the Spring of 1540, de Soto and his army traveled north
through central Georgia to the Oconee River town of Colfaqui in present day
Greene County, Georgia, in the chiefdom of Ocute. The people of Calfaqui were
aware of Cofitachequi but did not know its exact location. De Soto impressed
700 Indians from Colfaqui, and struck off eastward into a large uninhabited
wilderness separating the chiefdoms of Ocute and Cofitachequi. He reached
Coafitachequi only after two weeks of hard travel and near starvation. De Soto
was met by a woman the chroniclers call the Lady of Cofitachequi who was
carried from the town to the river's edge on a litter that was covered with a
delicate white cloth. After spending several weeks in the village, the
Spaniards took the “Lady” as a captive and hostage and headed to the next
chiefdom to the northwest, Joara. She eventually escaped. The Spaniards
found no gold in Cofitachequi, nor anywhere in its vicinity.
1540. De Soto Kidnaps The Lady of Cofitachiqui, a
gracious and friendly Indian's girl, niece of the chieftainess of
Cofitachiqui, in a town of the MUSKOGEE! Muskogee Indians, on the Savannah River,
in what is now Georgia. When De Soto visited this place in 1540, he was
welcomed by the “Lady of Cofitachiqui” on behalf of her aunt, and she
presented him with a valuable string of pearls. This friendship was ill
returned by De Soto DE SOTO, who carried her away as a hostage to protect
his party from attacks of Indians under her influence. After two weeks of
captivity the “Lady” managed to escape in the mountainous region of northeast
Georgia, and in leaving carried away a box of pearls De Soto had seized, much
to the Spaniard's chagrin. 1540. DeSoto & Cofitachiqui. Matters of the
Heart. As she approached the bank of the river, their eyes met for the first
time. She, the Queen of Cofitachiqui, was borne on a royal vessel, seated upon
pillows and accompanied in other canoes by her beloved men. He, a slave of
Andre de Vasconcelos, was a follower of Hernando de Soto and the expedition
to explore and exploit the natural resources of the American Southeast. The
queen “was a young girl of fine bearing...and she spoke to the governor quite
gracefully and at her ease” (Bourne, 1904, p. 100). She placed pearls upon the
neck of de Soto and said, “With sincerest and purest goodwill, I tender you
my person, my lands, my people, and make you these small gifts” (Jameson, 1907,
p.172). Without a doubt, the Queen understood the import of de Soto's
coming. When neighboring villagers refused to show him to her village, he
had them burned alive. When a native warrior challenged de Soto in the traditional
way to a manly duel of skill, de Soto set his dogs upon him and had him torn to
pieces. However, as much as de Soto had attracted the Lady's
attention...her eyes continued to fall upon the African slave. There is little
doubt that this was not the first time that she had encountered an African, but
this one was somehow different. Over the next couple of days, it was an
attraction she could not resist. It was one of those chance encounters that is
the stuff of which romance novels are made. On the third day, the Queen
disappeared; de Soto sent his guards to find her but she was not to be found
(Bourne, 1904, p. 110). Taking advantage of her absence, De Soto entered one
of the ancient temple mounds that were scattered about the town of TALEMICO
Talemico, the religious and political center of the people of Cofitachiqui
(Georgia, or South Carolina). The temple mound was one hundred feet long and
forty feet wide with massive doors. As he entered through the doors, he
encountered paired rows of massive wooden statues with diamond-shaped heads
bearing first batons, then broadswords, and then bows and arrows (Hudson, 1976,
p. 111). Like the ancient pyramids of Egypt, these temple mounds contained
statues of notable persons of antiquity and chests filled with the remains
of the elders. Scattered about the temples were bundles of fur, breastplates,
and weapons—tools for the next life—covered with pearls, colored leather, and
“something green like an emerald” (Bourne, p. 100). De Soto and his men
plundered the ancient temple. Among the booty were items of a European
make, “Biscayan axes or iron and rosaries with their crosses” (Bourne, 1904, p.
100) De Soto and his men determined that these materials were the remnants of
an earlier expedition led by Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon. He and his men had
settled on the coast of the Carolinas near on the Peedee River in 1526. African
slaves were members of Ayllon's colony; when there was a crisis over
leadership, the colony fell into disarray. In this crisis, there was a slave revolt.
When the colony crumbled, many of the African slaves fled to live among the
nearby Native Americans (Wright, 1902, pp. 217-228). According to de Soto, the
items found in the temple bore the marks of European craftsmanship; these
refugees must have lived among the Cofitachiqui and taught them the ways of the
Europeans (Bourne, p. 101). When the Queen of Cofitachiqui finally returned
from her absence, de Soto seized her and questioned her as to where there was
more wealth to be gained. She said that there were riches further inland. When
de Soto and his men set about to find this land, they carried with them the
“woman chief of Cofitachiqui” (Bourne, 1904, p. 105). After seven days of
travel, the party traversed lofty ridges and arrived at the “province of
Chalaque” near the Oconnaluftee river in western North Carolina (Jameson, 1907,
p. 176). After staying a few days in
Xualla, the party set out for Guaxule where “there were more indications that
there were gold mines” (Bourne, p. 104). As they were on their journey, the
Lady of Cofitachiqui “left the road, with the excuse of going in the thicket,
where, deceiving them, she so concealed herself that for all their search she
could not be found. De Soto, frustrated in his quest to find her, moved on to Guaxule”
(Jameson, 1907, p. 176). It seems that the Lady had arranged a rendezvous
with others in de Soto's party. These included an “Indian slave boy from Cuba,”
a “slave belonging to Don Carlos, a Berber, well versed in Spanish,' and
“Gomez, a negro belonging to Vasco Goncalvez who spoke good Spanish” (Bourne,
1904, p. 104). A short time later, Alimamos, a horseman of de Soto who
"got lost," somehow wandered upon the refugee slaves. He “labored
with the slaves to make leave of their evil designs” but only two of the
refugees returned to de Soto. When Alimamos ALIMAMOS arrived back at the camp
with the refugees who had decided to return, “the Governor wished to hang them”
(Jameson, p. 177). However, the horseman also made another report. He stated
that “The Cacica remained in Xualla, with a slave of Andre de Vasconcelas, who
would not come with him (Alimamos), and that it was very sure that they lived
together as man and wife, and were to go together to Cutafichiqui” (Jameson, p.
177). In an effort that would be repeated countless times over the next three
hundred years, refugee slaves who fled from their masters to the sanctuary of
neighboring Native Americans were thus given shelter and protection. Equally
as important to our collective history, the “queen of Cofitichiqui” and the
“slave of Andre de Vasconcelas” returned to their “village of the dogwoods” on
the banks of the Savannah River. It would be in Silver Bluff, South Carolina
where they would begin their life together as “Aframerindians” (Porter, 1933, p.
321). Cofitachequi was a paramount chiefdom founded about 1300 AD and
encountered by the Hernando de Soto expedition in South Carolina in April 1540.
Cofitachequi was later visited by Juan Pardo during his two expeditions
(1566-1568) and by Henry Woodward in 1670. Cofitachequi ceased to exist as a
political entity prior to 1701. The town
and ceremonial center of Cofitachequi was located near the present-day city of
Camden, South Carolina. Cofitachequi ruled a large number of towns in an area
of several thousand square miles in the northeastern part of South Carolina. It
was the easternmost extension of the Mississippian culture that extended over
much of the southern part of the future United States. Cofitachequi may have
come to the attention of the Spanish as early as 1521 when two Spanish slave
ships explored the South Carolina coast. At present day Winyah Bay, near the
city of Georgetown, they captured about sixty Indians who said they were
subjects of a ruler called Datha or Duhare. Datha may have been the ruler of
Cofitachequi, some 90 miles inland from Georgetown. One of the captives,
called Francisco Chicora, learned Spanish and visited Spain. He described Datha
to Peter Martyr as “white”, tall, carried on the shoulders of his subjects, and
ruling a large area of towns featuring earthen mounds upon which religious
ceremonies were held. Large quantities of pearls and jewels, Chicora said,
could be found at Xapira, a town or chiefdom near Datha.
1540AD. In 1540, another Spanish explorer, Francisco Vásquez
de Coronado, began a trek through what is now the southwestern United
States in search of the fabled treasures of the Seven Cities of Cibola. The
expedition consisted of several hundred Spaniards, some African slaves, and
about a thousand Indian allies. They discovered the Grand Canyon and the
adobe pueblos of the Zuñi in New Mexico, which were later determined to be the
source of the Cibola legend. Coronado pushed as far north as the plains of
Kansas where vast herds of buffalo roamed, but he never found gold, silver, or
other riches, and returned to Mexico City. Although his journeys familiarized
the Spanish with the Pueblo people and the geography of the American southwest,
Coronado was considered a failure because he did not bring back the fabled riches
of Cibola. During the same period that Coronado ventured through the
Southwest, Hernando de Soto landed in Florida and explored the southeastern
portion of the present-day United States.
1,540. Hernando De Soto's 6 hundred conquistadores
brought war and disease with them to the Eastern United States natives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPmpzTN5CDQ.
The first strains of disease arrived “after 1539, brought from infected
stragglers fleeing Hernando de Soto's fifty-month, four-thousand-mile death
march, which took him from Tampa Bay to the Father of Waters, almost to the
Ohio's mouth, and back to the Mississippi's fall into the Gulf, de Soto's
Spanish knights raping, torturing, enslaving, and killing countless Indians
along the way, de Soto's swelling (and escaping) swine herd infecting deer and
turkey and forests with zoonotic issues of anthrax, brucellosis, trichinosis,
and tuberculosis.” (Belue, pg. 9).
1,540AD. The Chickasaw also controlled western
Tennessee and Kentucky (the Kentucky Chickasaw Lands is the western most
region in Kentucky) west of the divide between the Cumberland and
Tennessee Rivers including the Chickasaw Bluffs which overlook the Mississippi
River at Memphis. Of the two, the Choctaw were by far the larger by a
factor of four to five times, but the Chickasaw were still sizeable,
numbering as many as 15,000 before their contact with Europeans in 1540.
1,540AD. Tuskaloosa (Tuskalusa, Tastaluca, Tuskaluza) (died 1540) was a
paramount chief of a Mississippian chiefdom in what is now the U.S. State
of Alabama. His people were possibly ancestors to the several southern Native
American confederacies (the Choctaw and Creek peoples) who later emerged
in the region. The modern city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama is named for him.
Tuskaloosa is notable for leading the Battle of Mabila at his fortified
village against the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto. After being
taken hostage by the Spanish as they passed through his territory, Tuskaloosa
organized a surprise attack on his captors at Mabila, but was ultimately
defeated. Contemporary records describe the paramount chief as being very
tall and well built, with some of the chroniclers saying Tuaskaloosa stood a
foot and a half taller than the Spaniards. His name, derived from the
western Muskogean language elements taska and losa, means "Black
Warrior". “[Tuskaloosa]'s appearance was full of dignity he was tall
of person, muscular, lean, and symmetrical. He was the suzerain of many territories,
and of numerous people, being equally feared by his vassals and the
neighbouring nations.” —Gentleman of Elvas. 1540AD. A party of Cherokee
warriors successfully defended the northwestern border of the Cherokee country
against the advances of Hernando DeSoto and his Spanish soldiers. The
Spanish were forced to retreat to the north side of the Ohio River at
present-day Fort Massac, Illinois. 1540. “The Village of Chalaque on the
Savannah River near present-day Augusta, Georgia. In 1540, De Soto's party
visited this community where he found a group of hunters and gatherers. Most
historians have identified these people as Cherokee, but the Muskogee term
“Chilokee” means “the people of a different speech” and may have been applied
to non-Cherokee people as well. Chalaque might also suggest a form of
Chillicothe, a division of the Shawnee, and supports the tradition of a
southeastern origin for this division.” 1540s. Later attempts in the 1540s
by Jacques Cartier to establish a colony in North America failed, and France
was soon engulfed in a religious civil war that pitted Catholics against Huguenots—as
French Protestants were called. Faced with severe persecution, French Huguenots
moved to the New World and established villages in South Carolina and Florida.
1540. The Cherokee were the first people to come in contact with Europeans. The
earliest known contact with Europeans occurred in 1540, when a party of
Cherokee warriors successfully defended their northwestern border against the
advances of Hernando DeSoto and his Spanish soldiers. They forced the Spanish
to retreat from Kentucky to the north side of the Ohio River at present-day
Fort Massac, Illinois.
1,540. October 18. AD. The Battle of Mabila. De Soto vs.
Tuskaloosa. Hernando de Soto and his slaves and warriors expedition arrived at
Mabila, Alabama, which was a heavily fortified village situated on a plain.
The native American village had a wooden palisade encircling it, with bastions
every so often for archers to shoot their longbows. Upon arriving at Mabila,
the Spaniards knew something was amiss. The population of the town was almost
exclusively male, young warriors and men of status. There were several women,
but no children. The Spaniards also noticed the palisade had been recently
strengthened, and that all trees, bushes and even weeds, had been cleared from
outside the settlement for the length of a crossbow shot. Outside the palisade,
in the field an older warrior had been seen haranguing younger warriors, and
leading them in mock skirmishes and military exercises. When the Spaniards
reached the town of Mabila, ruled by one of Tuskaloosa's vassals, the Chief
asked de Soto to allow him to remain there. When de Soto refused, Tuskaloosa
warned him to leave the town, then withdrew to another room, and refused to
talk further. A lesser chief was asked to intercede, but he would not. One of
the Spaniards, according to Elvas, “seized him by the cloak of marten-skins
that he had on, drew it off over his head, and left it in his hands;
whereupon, the Indians all beginning to rise, he gave him a stroke with a
cutlass, that laid open his back, when they, with loud yells, came out of the
houses, discharging their bows.” The Spaniards barely escaped from the
well-fortified town. The Indians closed the gates and “beating their drums,
they raised flags, with great shouting.” De Soto determined to attack the
town, and in the battle that followed, Elvas records: “The Indians fought
with so great spirit that they, many times, drove our people back out of the
town. The struggle lasted so long that many Christians, weary and very thirsty,
went to drink at a pond near by, tinged with the blood of the killed, and
returned to the combat.” Hernando De Soto had his men set fire to the town,
then by Elvas's account, “breaking in upon the Indians and beating them
down, they fled out of the place, the cavalry and infantry driving them back
through the gates, where losing the hope of escape, they fought valiantly; and
the Christians getting among them with cutlasses, they found themselves met on
all sides by their strokes, when many, dashing headlong into the flaming
houses, were smothered, and, heaped one upon another, burned to death. They
who perished there were in all two thousand five hundred, a few more or less:
of the Christians there fell two hundred... Of the living, one hundred and
fifty (150) Christians had received seven hundred wounds...” Elvas noted later
that four hundred hogs died in the conflagration. The exact count of the dead
is not known, but Spanish accounts at the time put the number of Indian dead at
between 2,500 and 3,000. This range would make the battle one of the bloodiest
in recorded North American history. All the Indians were killed, along with
20 -200 of de Soto's men. Several hundred Spaniards were wounded. In addition,
the Indian conscripts they had come to depend on to bear their supplies had all
fled with baggage. Later on... still healing the wounds from their victory
over the Mobile in southern Alabama, the Spanish were discouraged by the ferocity
of the battle and their failure to find gold. Rumors of mutiny had forced
De Soto to turn northward to find winter quarters rather than risk wholesale
desertions if he proceeded to the supply ships waiting on the coast. As
one-sided as their victory had been, the Spanish were no longer viewed as invincible
by the region's tribes, and the reception they received from the Chickasaw
at a river crossing in northern Alabama was a shower of arrows from warriors on
the other side. The Spanish finally forced their way across and, after
capturing several hostages, demanded that the Chickasaw supply them with
food. The Chickasaw minko reluctantly agreed, and with snow already on the
ground, the Spanish established their winter camp. An uneasy truce prevailed
throughout the winter with neither side entirely trusting the other. The
Chickasaw supplied the Spanish with corn but were still trying to find a way
way to rid themselves of their “guests”. To this end, they asked the
Spanish to help them crush a revolt by a tributary tribe to the west, the
Chakchiuma. Hernando De Soto agreed to send 30 horsemen and 80 infantry but,
realizing the danger of dividing his army, put the remainder on alert. The
Spanish-Chickasaw expedition found the Chakchiuma town abandoned, and suspecting
a trap, the Spanish returned to their camp. The remainder of the winter
passed quietly with the Spanish becoming increasingly complacent. De Soto
offered some roast pork to visiting Chickasaw (his army kept a large herd of
pigs as emergency rations), and they loved it. Since the Chickasaw were
sharing their food with De Soto, they saw nothing wrong with appropriating a
few of the Spanish pigs. Three "hog thieves" were caught, and De
Soto dealt with them in the usual high-handed manner of the conquistador. Two
executed by a crossbow firing squad, and the third was sent to his chief minus
his hands. Spanish soldiers also plundered one of the nearby Chickasaw
towns. Expecting that the Spanish would leave soon, the minko chose to ignore
the abuse, but as the time for departure approached in March, De Soto made one
demand too many … Now Hernando De Soto demanded of the Chickasaw, 200 of their
Chickasaw women to serve as tamemes (bearers) and "other
purposes." The Chickasaw minko said that he would "have to think
about this" but that De Soto would receive his answer in the near future.
His answer was in keeping with the Chickasaw's later reputation as a people who
"don't take guff" with a talent of “going for the jugular” with
the sudden and unexpected.
1541AD. In 1541, the Yuchi tribe was documented by the
Hernando de Soto DE SOTO as a powerful tribe living in what is now central
Tennessee. They were recorded at that time as
Uchi, and also associated with the Chisca tribe. European colonial records from
the 17th century note the Yuchi. YUCHI. Yuchi is commonly interpreted to mean
“over there sit/live” or “situated yonder.” Their autonym, or name for
themselves, is COYAHA Coyaha or Tsoyaha TSOYAHA, meaning “Children of the
Sun.” The Shawnee call them Tahokale, and the Cherokee call them Aniyutsi. The
origin of the Yuchi has long been a mystery. The Yuchi language does not
closely resemble any other Native American language.
1541. AD. Francisco Pizarro would redeem his want of
clemency towards his former partner in his own blood: in 1541, Almagro’s
son, Diego de Almagro II or el Mozo, murdered Pizarro in an attempted coup
d’etat. (Almagro the Younger, too, would be executed for his trouble.) Although
he was an important conquistador who spent most of his time at points further
north, Almagro is best remembered today not in Peru but in Chile — for his
abortive and disappointing expedition made him that land’s first European
“discoverer”.
1,541. March 8. AD. De Soto's Spaniards received a
defiant answer from the Chickasaws. The Spanish had slaughtered over a
thousand Indians at the Battle of Mabila somewhere in southern Alabama
during the previous autumn. In an
uneasy truce, the Chickasaws brought supplies and let the Spaniards remain at
their camp until spring 1541. As Hernando de Soto prepared to leave, he
demanded 200 Chickasaw female slaves to carry the troops’ supplies. Chickasaw
warriors made a surprise night attack on the Spanish encampment bringing
along live coals in clay pots to set it afire. The result was chaos, and De
Soto himself was almost killed when his saddle came loose after mounting a
horse to defend the camp. The Chickasaw withdrew and when the smoke cleared in
the morning, the Spanish had lost 12 men, 57 horses, and 400 of their
precious pigs.... “Chickasaw warriors staged a surprise night attack, burning
the entire camp, killing 50 horses, 400 hogs and destroying the Spaniard’s
weaponry, saddles and clothing and food stores. At least a dozen Spanish
soldiers died and many more were wounded.” Even worse, almost all of their
clothing and weapons had been destroyed, and the expedition was within a hair's
breadth of being wiped out. Under constant attack, they gathered what remained
and retreated cold, desperate, and almost entirely naked to an abandoned
Chickasaw village where they hastily built a forge to repair their weapons
and saddles. The Spanish reassembled on a hill some distance away and spent
weeks recovering, camping in defensive formations under the open air in grass
sleeping bags, due to lack of clothing. The
Chickasaws had sent a strong message to their European enemies: do not return
to our land. It was over 150 years until the Chickasaws received another
European exploration party. Once this was done, the conquistadors left the
Chickasaw homeland by the shortest route available.
1,541. June 17. AD. Hernando De Soto becomes the first
white genicidal slaughtering superhero butcher of native Americans, to reach
the Mississippi River.
1541. June 26. AD. Pizarro's former friend, Diego
Almagro, was captured and executed, and, on 26 June 1541, Diego
Almagro's embittered son killed Pizarro in Lima. The conqueror of Peru was laid
to rest in the Lima Cathedral.When historians compare Pizarro's and
Cortés's conquests of Peru and Mexico, they usually give the palm to Pizarro
because he led fewer men, faced larger armies, and was far from Spanish
outposts in the Caribbean which could have supplied men, arms, and provisions.
In Lima, Peru on 26 June 1541 “a group of twenty heavily
armed supporters of Diego Almagro II stormed Pizarro's palace, assassinated
him, and then forced the terrified city council to appoint young Almagro as
the new governor of Peru”, according to Burkholder and Johnson. “Most of
Pizarro's guests fled, but a few fought the intruders, numbered variously
between seven and 25. While Pizarro struggled to buckle on his breastplate, his
defenders, including his half-brother Alcántara, were killed. For his part
Pizarro killed two attackers and ran through a third. While trying to pull out
his sword, he was stabbed in the throat, then fell to the floor where he was
stabbed many times.” Pizarro (who now was maybe as
old as 70 years, and at least 62), collapsed on the floor, alone, painted a
cross in his own blood and cried for Jesus Christ. He died moments after. Diego
de Almagro the younger was caught, and executed the following year after
losing the battle of Chupas.
1541. August 23. AD. Jacques Cartier attempted to create
the first permanent European settlement in North America at Cap-Rouge
(Quebec City) in 1541 with 400 settlers but the settlement was abandoned the
next year after bad weather and first nations attacks. “War in Europe prevented
Francis I from sending another expedition until 1541. This time, to secure
French title against the counterclaims of Spain, he commissioned a nobleman, Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval, to establish a
colony in the lands discovered by Jacques Cartier, who was appointed Roberval’s
subaltern. Jacques Cartier sailed first, arriving at Quebec on August 23;
Roberval was delayed until the following year. Jacques Cartier again visited
Montreal, but as before he remained only a few hours and failed to go even
the few miles necessary to get beyond the rapids. The subsequent maps based on
the knowledge he provided fail to indicate that he had reached a large island
at the confluence of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers.”
1,542. May 21. AD. Hernando De Soto dies of a lil' fever
DE SOTO in Arkansas, or Louisiana, and his body was dumped into the Mississippi
River. De Soto introduced horses and armor to North America - along with smallpox,
measles, yellow fever, and typhoid.
1542AD. Legacy of Diego de Almagro: The unexpected
execution of Almagro had far-reaching consequences for the Pizarro brothers. It
turned many against them in the New World as well as Spain. The civil wars did
not end: in 1542 Almagro’s son Diego de Almagro the Younger, then 22, led a
revolt which resulted in the murder of Francisco Pizarro. Almagro the younger
was quickly caught and executed, ending Almagro’s direct line. Today Almagro is
remembered chiefly in Chile, where he is considered an important pioneer even
though he left no real lasting legacy there other than having explored some of
it. It would be Pedro de Valdivia, one of Pizarro’s lieutenants, who would
conquer and settle Chile.
1543AD. Nicolaus Copernicus dies. (Polish: 
Mikołaj Kopernik (help·info);
German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a
Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe
that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at its center. The publication of
this model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the
Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) just before his death in 1543 is
considered a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican
Revolution, and making an important contibu...
Mikołaj Kopernik (help·info);
German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a
Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe
that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at its center. The publication of
this model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the
Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) just before his death in 1543 is
considered a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican
Revolution, and making an important contibu...
1550s. The first use of the term “Maroons” being used in
the American Hemisphere was by the Spanish in Jamaica. The Spanish brought
swine and African slaves to Jamaica and began to export swine products from the
island. By the mid 16th century, 80,000 swine were killed annually on Ashanti,
who came to be known as “Maroons” a word probably derived from the Spanish
word, mareno, meaning porker.” (Harcourt-Smith, p. 22) The Spanish lost
control of the Maroons on Jamaica. They became virtually free men. “Their
occupation bred in them an almost fanatical love of liberty, and martial powers
of a singular kind. They came to know every twisting forest track every pool
where the water was sweet, every fern-hung cave whence secret rivers gushed...
Above all; they knew every glade where the wild pig rooted.” (Harcourt-Smith,
p. 22).
1550AD. SUSQUEHANNOCK. Since the Susquehannock was good
friends with the Huron from times long before contact, it is
possible they migrated to the Susquehanna Valley from the north. The earliest
village sites identified as Susquehannock were located on the upper
Susquehanna River and date from about 1550, but they probably had occupied the
region for at least 400 years before this.
1557AD. The word “Cherokee” comes from the 1557
Portuguese narrative of DeSoto's expedition, which was then written as
Chalaque. It is derived from the Choctaw word, choluk, which means “cave”.
Mohawk call the Cherokee “oyata’ge’ronoñ”, which means people who live in caves
or in the cave country. In Catawba, the Cherokee are called MANTERAN
Mañterañ, which translates as the people who come out of the ground.
Kentucky KENTUCKY! is the land of caves, home to the longest cave in the world,
and home of the Cherokee, and their salt and crystal mines. The Cherokee
mined minerals, disposed of their dead, conducted ceremonies, and explored
the unknown, as indicated by the footprints, pictographs, petroglyphs, mud
glyphs, stone tools, and sculptures they left behind. Wherever the Cherokee
found a dry cave in Kentucky with a reasonably accessible opening, they entered
and explored it systematically. Kentucky has been in Cherokee territory for
centuries, representing the northern quarter of the Cherokee Nation since time
immemorial, ad nauseum, eternity, infinite. The boundaries of the ancient
premodern Cherokee nation extended to the Ohio River in the north, the
Cumberland River in the west, and the Great Kanawha River in the east. 1557. Kentucky
caves are full of evidence of Cherokee people, from salt and crystal mines to
exploration and habitation. As the Cherokee explored and settled in KENTUCKY!
Kentucky, they came across the entrances of great caves, some of which were
filled with mineral resources that extended many miles underground. They
ventured into caves in search of protection from the elements, to mine
minerals, to dispose of their dead, to conduct ceremonies, and to explore the
unknown, as indicated by the footprints, pictographs, petroglyphs, mud glyphs,
stone tools, and sculptures they left behind. Wherever the Cherokee found a dry
cave in Kentucky with a reasonably accessible opening, they entered and explored
it systematically. Before European colonization, Kentucky was a significant
part of the Cherokee country, representing the northern quarter of the Cherokee
Nation since time immemorial. Its boundaries extended to the Ohio River in
the north, the Cumberland River in the west, and the Great Kanawha River in the
east. By the end of the American Revolution, the northern boundary of the
Cherokee country was moved southward to encompass the land below the Cumberland
River. Eventually, some 38,000 square miles of Cherokee land in Kentucky was
ceded to Great Britain and the United States.
1560. In the 1560s, the French settlers built a fort and
colony on the St. John’s River in Florida. The presence of the fort
threatened Spain’s search for treasure, and the French Protestants were a dual
affront to the Spanish Catholic nation.
1562AD. Britain Joins Slave Trade. John Hawkins, the
first Briton to take part in the slave trade,
makes a huge profit hauling human cargo from Africa to
Hispaniola.
1562. A small group of French troops were left on Parris
Island, South Carolina in 1562 to build Charlesfort, but left after a year
when they were not resupplied by France.
1564AD. Fort Caroline established in present-day
Jacksonville, Florida in 1564, lasted only a year before being destroyed by
the Spanish from St. Augustine.
1565AD. August 28. On the Feast Day of St. Augustine, a
Spanish army overpowered the Huguenots, and renamed the town St. Augustine.
1566-1568AD. Juan Pardo with a force of 125 Spaniards
visited Cofitachequi (which he also called CANOSI Canosi) on two
expeditions between 1566 and 1568.
1570AD. Or 1580-1600. Iroquois oral tradition, as
recorded in the Jesuit Relations, speaks of a draining war between the Mohawk
Iroquois and an alliance of the Susquehannock and Algonquin sometime
between 1580 and 1600. This was perhaps in response to the formation of the
League of the Iroquois. NABoI puts this at about 1570. From wikipedia, like
most of this document is.
1570AD. Although they inflicted a major defeat on the
Mohawk shortly before 1600, wars with the Iroquois had by 1570 forced the
Susquehannock south into the lower Susquehanna Valley. Hardened by years of
constant warfare, they overwhelmed the Algonquin tribes along the shores of
Chesapeake Bay and began extending their control southward.
1572. June 24. The Spanish entered Vilcabamba to find it
deserted and the Sapa Inca gone. The city had been entirely destroyed, and the
Inca Empire, or what was left of it, officially ceased to exist.
1572. Inca resistance against Pizarro's Kingdom didn't end
under the murder of Tupac Amura. The Incas were doomed for similar reasons as
the Aztecs in Mexico. They had copper, but not iron, and llamas rather than the
much stronger horses and mules. A Bronze Age civilization, however refined,
could not withstand an Iron Age one, however crude. The horses were, as
Hemmings put it, 'the tanks of the conquest'. It was only when Indians further
south in Chile acquired the use of horses that the advance of the conquerers
suffered serious setbacks. … “In the valley of Lima only 2,000 out of a
population of 25,000 survived into the 1540s. The indigenous population of the
empire fell by between a half and three-quarters. (Chris Harman, page 171).
1581AD. Slaves in Florida. Spanish residents in St.
Augustine, the first permanent settlement in
Florida, import African slaves.
1583AD. The Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island in Dare
County, present-day North Carolina, United States, was a late 16th-century
attempt by Queen Elizabeth I to establish a permanent English settlement. The
enterprise was financed and organized originally by Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
who drowned in 1583 during an aborted attempt to colonize St. John's,
Newfoundland. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's half brother Sir Walter Raleigh later
gained his brother's charter from Queen Elizabeth I and subsequently executed
the details of the charter through his delegates Ralph Lane and Richard Grenville,
Raleigh's distant cousin.The final group of colonists disappeared during the
Anglo-Spanish War, three years after the last shipment of supplies from
England. Their disappearance gave rise to the nickname “the Lost Colony”. To
this day there has been no conclusive evidence as to what happened to the
colonists.
The
earliest Melungeon ancestors were white northern Europeans, Bantu Africans and
North American Indians. Among the northern Europeans, the Melungeon ancestors
include English, Scot, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, and German parents. North American
Indian ancestors include people from the tribes of Powhatan, Mattaponi, Monie,
Nansemond, Rappahanock, Pamunkey, Chickahominie, Cherokee (Buffalo Ridge) and
Choctaw.
1584AD. “In 1584, Ralph Dane, commander-in-chief of Sir
Walter Raleigh's colony at Roanoke, made reference to a town of about 700
fighting men, 130 miles from Roanoke, called Chawanock. This town also
appears on John White's map of 1586. Captain John Smith, who arrived in the New
World in 1607, referred to the Chawanocks as living in Virginia, where they
continued in dwindling numbers for some time. That the Chawanocks were Shawnee
is questionable, but the North Carolina location is only 400 miles from De
Soto's Chalaque. “Chawanock” is very similar to “Sawanwake,” a plural name
for Shawnee, and also brings to mind the Shawnee tradition that there were
originally 6 divisions, the most powerful of which, the Shawano, became
EXTINCT.” According to historian William S. Powell, the name apparently had
its start in 1585 when the English ship Tiger, on the way to the Roanoke Island
settlements, nearly wrecked “on a breach called the Cape of Feare.” John White,
governor of the Roanoke colony, had a similar experience in 1587 and repeated
the name. http://www.myreporter.com/2009/05/call-it-cape-fear/
1585AD. British Redcoat Grenville Torches Indian Village
Over Theft of Small Silver Cup. In 1585, before there was any permanent English
settlement in Virginia, Richard Grenville landed there with seven ships. The
Indians he met were hospitable, but when one of them stole a small silver
cup, Grenville sacked and burned the whole Indian village. Jamestown itself was
set up inside the territory of an Indian confederacy, led by Chief
Powhatan. Powhatan watched the English-speaking British Redcoat Occupiers
settle on his people's land, but did not attack, maintained a posture of
coolness.
1590AD. The five tribes of the Iroquois designed quite an
elaborate political system. This included a bicameral (two-house)
legislature, much like the British Parliament and modern U.S. Congress. The
representatives, or SACHEMS, from the SENECAand MOHAWK tribes met in one house
and those of the ONEIDA and CAYUGA met in the other. The ONONDAGA sachems broke
ties and had the power to veto decisions made by the others. There was an
unwritten constitution that described these proceedings at least as early as
1590. Such a complex political arrangement was unknown in Europe at that time.
1598AD. A French attempt to settle convicts on Sable
Island off Nova Scotia in 1598 failed after a short time.
1599AD. A sixteen-person trading post was established in
Tadoussac (in present-day Quebec), of which only five Frenchmen survived
the first winter.
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