Key Concept 1.3

Contacts among American Indians, Africans, and Europeans challenged the world-views of each group.

I. European overseas expansion and sustained contacts with Africans and American Indians dramatically altered European views of social, political, and economic relationships among and between white and non-white peoples.

• With little experience dealing with people who were different from themselves, Spanish and Portuguese explorers poorly understood the native peoples they encountered in the Americas, leading to debates over how American Indians should be treated and how "civilized" these groups were compared to European standards.
  • Juan de Sepúlveda, Bartolomé de Las Casas
• Many Europeans developed a belief in white superiority to justify their subjugation of Africans and American Indians, using several different rationales.

II. Native peoples and Africans in the Americas strove to maintain their political and cultural autonomy in the face of European challenges to their independence and core beliefs.

• European attempts to change American Indian beliefs and worldviews on basic social issues such as religion, gender roles and the family, and the relationship of people with the natural environment led to American Indian resistance and conflict.
  • Spanish mission system, Pueblo, Juan de Oñate
• In spite of slavery, Africans' cultural and linguistic adaptations to the Western Hemisphere resulted in varying degrees of cultural preservation and autonomy.
  • maroon communities in Brazil and the Caribbean, mixing of Christianity and traditional African religions.