Comparative New Worlds, 1400-1750 (saylor.org)

This course will introduce you to a comparative history of New World societies from 1400 to 1750. You will learn about European exploration and colonization as well as the cultures of native peoples of the Americas. The course will be structured geographically; each unit will focus on a particular New World society during a specific time period. Each unit will include representative primary-source documents that illustrate important overarching political, economic, and social themes, such as the fifteenth-century conceptualization of the “New World” and colonization, the indigenous peoples living in the Americas at the time of European contact, and the effect of New World societies on native peoples and Africans. By the end of the course, you will understand how the new communities in the New World evolved from fledgling settlements into profitable European colonies and how New World societies—whether French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, or indigenous—were highly varied polities.

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

-define what constituted the “New World” in the fifteenth century;

- identify and describe the major tribes/native civilizations of North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean at the time of European contact;

- identify and describe the effects of European colonization on native peoples;

- identify and describe the reasons for the European “age of discovery” in the New World and how and why the consolidation of powerful European states in the 1600s resulted in New World exploration, settlement, and commerce;

- identify and describe early New World exploration and initial settlements by Portugal and Spain;

- compare and contrast New France, French Louisiana, the French West Indies, and French Guiana;

- compare and contrast British North America (New England, Middle and Lower Colonies), the British West Indies, and British Central and South America;

- compare and contrast New Spain, the Spanish Caribbean, and Spanish South America;

- analyze and describe Portuguese Brazil;

- identify and describe the African slave trade and will also be able to compare and contrast the enslavement of Africans in different New World societies;

- identify and describe inter-European conflicts and European-Native Indian violence in the New World; and

- analyze and interpret primary-source documents that elucidate the causes and effects of exploration and colonization in the New World.