Timeline: Transformations of North America, 1450–1700

Question

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
WORK, EXCHANGE, & TECHNOLOGY PEOPLING POLITICS & POWER IDEAS, BELIEFS, & CULTURE IDENTITY
1450
  • Diversified economies of Native America

  • Rise of the Ottoman Empire blocks Asian trading routes of the Italian city-states

  • Europeans fish off North American coast

  • Portuguese traders explore African coast

  • Christopher Columbus explores the Bahamas and West Indies (1492–1504)

  • Pedro Alvares Cabral makes landfall in Brazil (1500)

  • Spanish conquest of Mexico and Peru (1519–1535)

  • Rise of monarchical nation-states in Europe

  • Aztecs and Incas consolidate their empires

  • Probable founding of the Iroquois Confederacy

  • Rise of the Songhai Empire in Africa

  • Protestant Reformation (1517) sparks century of religious warfare

  • Henry VIII creates Church of England (1534)

  • Founding of Jesuit order (1540)

  • Castile and Aragon joined to create Spain; the Inquisition helps create a sense of Spanishness

  • John Calvin establishes a Protestant commonwealth in Geneva, Switzerland

1550
  • Growth of the outwork system in English textile industry

  • Spanish encomienda system organizes native labor in Mexico

  • Inca mita system is co-opted by the Spanish in the Andes

  • Castilians and Africans arrive in Spanish America in large numbers

  • English colonies in Newfoundland, Maine, and Roanoke fail

  • Elizabeth’s “sea dogs” plague Spanish shipping

  • English monarchs adopt mercantilist policies

  • Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588)

  • Philip II defends the Roman Catholic Church against Protestantism

  • Elizabeth I adopts Protestant Book of Common Prayer (1559)

  • English conquest and persecution of native Irish

  • Growing Protestant movement in England

1600
  • First staple exports from the English mainland colonies: furs and tobacco

  • Subsistence farms in New England

  • Transition to sugar plantation system in the Caribbean islands

  • First set of Anglo-Indian wars

  • African servitude begins in Virginia (1619)

  • Caribbean islands move from servitude to slavery

  • James I claims divine right to rule England

  • Virginia’s House of Burgesses (1619)

  • English Puritan Revolution

  • Native Americans rise up against English invaders (1622, 1640s)

  • Persecuted English Puritans and Catholics migrate to America

  • Established churches set up in Puritan New England and Anglican Virginia

  • Dissenters settle in Rhode Island

  • Pilgrims and Puritans seek to create godly commonwealths

  • Powhatan and Virginia Company representatives attempt to extract tribute from each other

1700
  • Tobacco trade stagnates

  • Maturing yeoman economy and emerging Atlantic trade in New England

  • Growing gentry immigration to Virginia

  • White indentured servitude shapes Chesapeake society

  • Africans defined as property rather than people in the Chesapeake

  • Restoration of the English crown (1660)

  • English conquer New Netherland (1664)

  • Metacom’s War in New England (1675–1676)

  • Bacon’s Rebellion calls for removal of Indians and end of elite rule

  • Salem witchcraft crisis (1692)

  • Social mobility for Africans ends with collapse of tobacco trade and increased power of gentry