a) The first settlers of the New World arrived over a land bridge between modern-day Alaska and Russia
i) There were more than 54 million people inhabiting the two continents by the time that Europeans arrived in 1492 ii) Over time, they split into many tribes, developing more than 2,000 separate languages and cultures iii) Native Americans in Central and South America were hunters, gatherers, and farmers specializing in maize, or corn.
(1) About 5000 B.C. hunter-gatherers in highland Mexico developed a wild grass into the staple crop of corn, which became the foundations of the Aztec and Inca nation-states that eventually emerged
(2) Corn planting reached the American Southwest by about 1200 B.C. and powerfully molded …show more content…
iii) The Spanish used the West Indies as offshore bases to store supplies and provide shelter for men and horses.
b) Soon, other European powers were soon sniffing around the edges of the Spanish domain and the Spanish were forced to defend their land
i) The English sent Giovanni Caboto to explore the Northeast in 1497 and 1498 ii) The French sent Giovanni da Verrazano and Jacques Cartier into the Americas iii) Led by Don Juan de Oñato, the Spaniards founded New Mexico in 1609 iv) The Spanish continued to spread Christianity and wrestle land away from the Indians
v) In 1769, Spanish missionaries founded a chain of 21 missions that attempted to Christianize native Californians
c) The many misdeeds of the Spanish in the Americas greatly outweigh their