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Gitche Manitou

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Gitche Manitou ( Gitchi Manitou , Kitchi Manitou , etc.) means " Great Spirit " in several Algonquian languages . Christian missionaries have translated God as Gitche Manitou in scriptures and prayers in the Algonquian languages.

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92-632: Manitou is a common Algonquian term for spirit, mystery, or deity . Native American Churches in Mexico , United States and Canada often use this term. In more recent Anishinaabe culture, the Anishinaabe language word Gichi-manidoo means Great Spirit, the Creator of all things and the Giver of Life, and is sometimes translated as the "Great Mystery". Historically, Anishinaabe people believed in

184-590: A band of Canarse from Brooklyn who occupied the bottom quarter of Manhattan, known then as the Manhattoes , for 60 guilders ' worth of trade goods. Minuit conducted the transaction with the Canarse chief Seyseys, who accepted valuable merchandise in exchange for an island that was actually mostly controlled by another indigenous group, the Weckquaesgeeks . Dutch fur traders set up a network upstream on

276-730: A capital city and royal palace, fully expecting the Dutch to retain control of this rich area. As the Dutch had in Europe, it tolerated the presence of Jews and other religious groups in the colony. After Maurits departed in 1643, the Dutch West India Company took over the colony until it was lost to the Portuguese in 1654. The Dutch retained some territory in Dutch Guiana , now Suriname . The Dutch also seized islands in

368-666: A century after Spain. The relatively late arrival meant that the British could use the other European colonization powers as models for their endeavors. Inspired by the Spanish riches from colonies founded upon the conquest of the Aztecs , Incas , and other large Native American populations in the 16th century, their first attempt at colonization occurred in Roanoke and Newfoundland , although unsuccessful. In 1606, King James I granted

460-590: A charter with the purpose of discovering the riches at their first permanent settlement in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. They were sponsored by common stock companies such as the chartered Virginia Company financed by wealthy Englishmen who exaggerated the economic potential of the land. The Reformation of the 16th century broke the unity of Western Christendom and led to the formation of numerous new religious sects, which often faced persecution by governmental authorities. In England, many people came to question

552-516: A colony in Greenland in the late tenth century, and lasted until the mid 15th-century, with court and parliament assemblies ( þing ) taking place at Brattahlíð and a bishop located at Garðar . The remains of a settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland , Canada, were discovered in 1960 and were dated to around the year 1000 (carbon dating estimate 990–1050). L'Anse aux Meadows is

644-475: A core group of scientists, who sought to map and catalogue the flora, fauna, and other aspects of the natural world. A major Russian expedition for exploration was mounted in 1742, contemporaneous with other eighteenth-century European state-sponsored ventures. It was not clear at the time whether Eurasia and North America were completely separate continents. The first voyages were made by Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov , with settlement beginning after 1743. By

736-534: A large scale colonization of the Americas , involving a number of European countries, took place primarily between the late 15th century and the early 19th century. The Norse explored and colonized areas of Europe and the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short-term settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland circa 1000 AD. However, due to its long duration and importance,

828-522: A planetary scale, ... The fact that this other slavery had to be carried out clandestinely made it even more insidious. It is a tale of good intentions gone badly astray." A major event in early Spanish colonization, which had so far yielded paltry returns, was the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521). It was led by Hernán Cortés and made possible by securing indigenous alliances with

920-691: A protected group of Christians, Indigenous men no longer could aspire to be ordained Christian priests. Throughout the Americas, the Jesuits were active in attempting to convert the Indigenous peoples to Christianity. They had considerable success on the frontiers in New France and Portuguese Brazil , most famously with Antonio de Vieira, S.J; and in Paraguay , almost an autonomous state within

1012-675: A range of responses, from outright hostility to active embrace of the new religion." In central and southern Mexico where there was an existing Indigenous tradition of creating written texts, the friars taught Indigenous scribes to write their own languages in Latin letters . There is a significant body of texts in Indigenous languages created by and for Indigenous peoples in their own communities for their own purposes. In frontier areas where there were no settled Indigenous populations, friars and Jesuits often created missions , bringing together dispersed Indigenous populations in communities supervised by

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1104-408: A richer endowment of antibodies. The large-scale contact with Europeans after 1492 introduced Eurasian germs to the indigenous people of the Americas . Epidemics of smallpox (1518, 1521, 1525, 1558, 1589), typhus (1546), influenza (1558), diphtheria (1614) and measles (1618) swept the Americas subsequent to European contact, killing between 10 million and 100 million people, up to 95% of

1196-481: A seafaring nation and built a global empire in regions where the Portuguese had originally explored. In the Dutch Golden Age , it sought colonies. In the Americas, the Dutch conquered the northeast of Brazil in 1630, where the Portuguese had built sugar cane plantations worked by black slave labor from Africa. Prince Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen became the administrator of the colony (1637–43), building

1288-533: A series of Papal Bulls that confirmed Spanish claims to the newly discovered lands. After the final Reconquista of Iberia , the Treaty of Tordesillas was ratified by the Pope, the two kingdoms of Castile (in a personal union with other kingdoms of Spain) and Portugal in 1494. The treaty divided the entire non-European world into two spheres of exploration and colonization. The longitudinal boundary cut through

1380-450: A spirit. This spirit is seen as a person as well as a concept. Everything has its own manitou—every plant, every stone and, since their invention, even machines. These manitous do not exist in a hierarchy like European gods/goddesses, but are more akin to one part of the body interacting with another and the spirit of everything; the collective is named Gitche Manitou . Manitou Manitou ( / ˈ m æ n ɪ t uː / ), akin to

1472-579: A state. The Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God , a translation by John Eliot of the gospel into Algonquian , was published in 1663. Roman Catholics were the first major religious group to immigrate to the New World, as settlers in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Portugal and Spain, and later, France in New France . No other religion was tolerated and there was a concerted effort to convert indigenous peoples and black slaves to Catholicism. The Catholic Church established three offices of

1564-462: A variety of spirits, whose images were placed near doorways for protection. According to Anishinaabeg tradition, Michilimackinac , later named by European settlers as Mackinac Island , in Michigan, was the home of Gitche Manitou, and some Anishinaabeg tribes would make pilgrimages there for rituals devoted to the spirit. In Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 's The Song of Hiawatha , Gitche Manitou

1656-474: Is estimated that from Columbus's arrival to the end of the 19th century between 2.5 and 5 million Native Americans were forced into slavery. Indigenous men, women, and children were often forced into labor in sparsely populated frontier settings, in the household, or in the toxic gold and silver mines. This practice was known as the encomienda system and granted free native labor to the Spaniards. Based upon

1748-498: Is now Brazil. They imported millions of slaves to run their plantations. The Portuguese and Spanish royal governments expected to rule these settlements and collect at least 20% of all treasure found (the quinto real collected by the Casa de Contratación ), in addition to collecting all the taxes they could. By the late 16th century silver from the Americas accounted for one-fifth of the combined total budget of Portugal and Spain. In

1840-407: Is spelled Gitche Manito . Other Anishinaabe names for God incorporated through the process of syncretism are Gizhe-manidoo ("venerable Manidoo "), Wenizhishid-manidoo ("Fair Manidoo ") and Gichi-ojichaag ("Great Spirit"). While Gichi-manidoo and Gichi-ojichaag both mean "Great Spirit", Gichi-manidoo carried the idea of the greater spiritual connectivity while Gichi-ojichaag carried

1932-567: The Caribbean that Spain had originally claimed but had largely abandoned, including Sint Maarten in 1618, Bonaire in 1634, Curaçao in 1634, Sint Eustatius in 1636, Aruba in 1637, some of which remain in Dutch hands and retain Dutch cultural traditions. On the east coast of North America, the Dutch planted the colony of New Netherland on the lower end of the island of Manhattan , at New Amsterdam starting in 1624. The Dutch sought to protect their investments and purchased Manhattan from

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2024-459: The Caribbean , and parts of South America. They also gained Florida and Quebec in the French and Indian War . John Smith convinced the colonists of Jamestown that searching for gold was not taking care of their immediate needs for food and shelter. The lack of food security leading to an extremely high mortality rate was quite distressing and cause for despair among the colonists. To support

2116-679: The Great Plains , fully across the wider group of Algonquian peoples . Cognate terms recorded in other Algonquian languages include: Gitche Manitou has been seen as those cultures' analogue to the Christian God. When early Christian (especially French Catholic) missionaries preached the Gospel to the Algonquian peoples, they adopted Gitche Manitou as a name for God in the Algonquian languages. This can be seen, for example, in

2208-613: The Haudenosaunee orenda , is the spiritual and fundamental life force in the theologies of Algonquian peoples . It is omnipresent and manifests everywhere: organisms , the environment, events, etc. Aashaa monetoo means "good spirit", while otshee monetoo means "bad spirit". When the world was created, the Great Spirit , Aasha Monetoo , gave the land to the indigenous peoples , the Shawnee in particular. Manitou

2300-626: The Hudson River . There were Jewish settlers from 1654 onward, and they remained following the English capture of New Amsterdam in 1664. The naval capture was despite both nations being at peace with the other. Russia came to colonization late compared to Spain or Portugal, or even England. Siberia was added to the Russian Empire and Cossack explorers along rivers sought valuable furs of ermine , sable , and fox . Cossacks enlisted

2392-726: The Indigenous peoples in the Americas, and the establishment of several settler colonial states. Russia began colonizing the Pacific Northwest in the mid-18th century, seeking pelts for the fur trade. Many of the social structures—including religions , political boundaries , and linguae francae —which predominate in the Western Hemisphere in the 21st century are the descendants of those that were established during this period. The rapid rate at which some European nations grew in wealth and power

2484-611: The Indigenous peoples of the Americas to the Christian religion . Pope Alexander VI issued the Inter caetera bull in May 1493 that confirmed the lands claimed by the Kingdom of Spain , and mandated in exchange that the Indigenous peoples be converted to Catholic Christianity . During Columbus 's second voyage, Benedictine friars accompanied him, along with twelve other priests. With

2576-585: The Ojibwe , or Anishinaabe, because of its many sacred sites and sounding rocks. Native peoples continue to dwell on the island, which hosts several reserves. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore , on Lake Michigan 's eastern coastline in the state of Michigan , includes two sites known as North and South Manitou Islands . European colonization of the Americas During the Age of Discovery ,

2668-599: The River Plate in South America. These explorers include João Vaz Corte-Real in Newfoundland; João Fernandes Lavrador , Gaspar and Miguel Corte-Real and João Álvares Fagundes , in Newfoundland, Greenland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia (from 1498 to 1502, and in 1520). During this time, the Portuguese gradually switched from an initial plan of establishing trading posts to extensive colonization of what

2760-609: The Silk Road , the traditional route for trade between Europe and Asia, forced European traders to look for alternative routes. The Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus led an expedition to find a route to East Asia, but instead landed in The Bahamas . Columbus encountered the Lucayan people on the island Guanahani (possibly Cat Island ), which they had inhabited since the ninth century. In his reports, Columbus exaggerated

2852-1016: The Spanish Inquisition , in Mexico City ; Lima, Peru ; and Cartagena de Indias in Colombia to maintain religious orthodoxy and practice. The Portuguese did not establish a permanent office of the Portuguese Inquisition in Brazil, but did send visitations of inquisitors in the seventeenth century. English and Dutch colonies, on the other hand, tended to be more religiously diverse. Settlers to these colonies included Anglicans , Dutch Calvinists , English Puritans and other nonconformists , English Catholics , Scottish Presbyterians , French Protestant Huguenots , German and Swedish Lutherans , as well as Jews , Quakers , Mennonites , Amish , and Moravians . Jews fled to

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2944-539: The Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire , evangelization of the dense Indigenous populations was undertaken in what was called the "spiritual conquest". Several mendicant orders were involved in the early campaign to convert the Indigenous peoples. Franciscans and Dominicans learned Indigenous languages of the Americas , such as Nahuatl , Mixtec , and Zapotec . One of the first schools for Indigenous peoples in Mexico

3036-502: The first wave of European colonization , the religious discrimination , persecution , and violence toward the Indigenous peoples' native religions was systematically perpetrated by the European Christian colonists and settlers from the 15th–16th centuries onwards. During the Age of Discovery and the following centuries, the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires were the most active in attempting to convert

3128-591: The indigenous population of the Americas. The cultural and political instability attending these losses appears to have been of substantial aid in the efforts of various colonists in New England and Massachusetts to acquire control over the great wealth in land and resources of which indigenous societies had customarily made use. Such diseases yielded human mortality of unquestionably enormous gravity and scale – and this has profoundly confused efforts to determine its full extent with any true precision. Estimates of

3220-491: The northern Great Plains , experienced little to no colonization at all until the 1800s. European contact and colonization had disastrous effects on the indigenous peoples of the Americas and their societies. Norse Viking explorers were the first known Europeans to set foot in North America. Norse journeys to Greenland and Canada are supported by historical and archaeological evidence. The Norsemen established

3312-495: The pre-Columbian population of the Americas vary tremendously. Others have argued that significant variations in population size over pre-Columbian history are reason to view higher-end estimates with caution. Such estimates may reflect historical population maxima, while indigenous populations may have been at a level somewhat below these maxima or in a moment of decline in the period just prior to contact with Europeans. Indigenous populations hit their ultimate lows in most areas of

3404-550: The 16th century perhaps 240,000 Europeans entered ports in the Americas. France founded colonies in the Americas: in eastern North America (which had not been colonized by Spain north of Florida ), a number of Caribbean islands (which had often already been conquered by the Spanish or depopulated by disease), and small coastal parts of South America. Explorers included Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524; Jacques Cartier (1491–1557), and Samuel de Champlain (1567–1635), who explored

3496-535: The 1790s the first permanent settlements were established. Explorations continued down the Pacific coast of North America , and Russia established a settlement in the early nineteenth century at what is now called Fort Ross, California . Russian fur traders forced indigenous Aleut men into seasonal labor. Never very profitable, Russia sold its North American holdings to the United States in 1867, called at

3588-605: The 1800s, although some parts of the continent gained their independence from Europe by then, countries such as the United States continued to fight against Native Americans and practiced settler colonialism . The United States for example practiced a settler colonial policy of Manifest Destiny and the Trail of Tears . Other regions, including California , Patagonia , the North Western Territory, and

3680-731: The Americas in the early 20th century; in a number of cases, growth has returned. According to scientists from University College London , the colonization of the Americas by Europeans killed so much of the indigenous population that it resulted in climate change and global cooling . Some contemporary scholars also attribute significant indigenous population losses in the Caribbean to the widespread practice of slavery and deadly forced labor in gold and silver mines. Historian Andrés Reséndez, supports this claim and argues that indigenous populations were smaller previous estimations and "a nexus of slavery, overwork and famine killed more Indians in

3772-492: The Atlantic Ocean and the eastern part of present-day Brazil. The countries declared their rights to the land despite the fact that Indigenous populations had settled from pole to pole in the hemisphere and it was their homeland. After European contact, the native population of the Americas plummeted by an estimated 80% (from around 50 million in 1492 to eight million in 1650), due in part to Old World diseases carried to

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3864-573: The Aztecs' enemies, mobilizing thousands of warriors against the Aztecs for their own political reasons. The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan , became Mexico City , the chief city of the " New Spain ". More than an estimated 240,000 Aztecs died during the siege of Tenochtitlan , 100,000 in combat, while 500–1,000 of the Spaniards engaged in the conquest died. The other great conquest was of the Inca Empire (1531–35), led by Francisco Pizarro . During

3956-619: The Caribbean than smallpox, influenza and malaria." According to the Cambridge World History , the Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, and the Cambridge World History of Genocide, colonial policies in some cases included the deliberate genocide of indigenous peoples in North America. According to the Cambridge World History of Genocide, Spanish colonization of the Americas also included genocidal massacres. According to Adam Jones , genocidal methods included

4048-687: The Darien scheme was one of the factors that led the Kingdom of Scotland into the Act of Union 1707 with the Kingdom of England , creating the united Kingdom of Great Britain and giving Scotland commercial access to English, now British, colonies. The Netherlands had been part of the Spanish Empire , due to the inheritance of Charles V of Spain. Many Dutch people converted to Protestantism and sought their political independence from Spain. They were

4140-462: The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam when the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions cracked down on their presence. The European lifestyle included a long history of sharing close quarters with domesticated animals such as cows, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, dogs and various domesticated fowl , from which many diseases originally stemmed. In contrast to the indigenous people, the Europeans had developed

4232-543: The English translation of the " Huron Carol ". Spirits who were either aspects of Gitche Manitou or lesser spirits under Gitche Manitou include: Manitou is the spiritual and fundamental life force among Algonquian groups in the Native American mythology . Manitou is one aspect of the interconnection and balance of nature and life, similar to the East Asian concept of qi . In simpler terms it can refer to

4324-554: The Indies in 1524, based in Seville, and issued laws of the Indies to assert its power against the early conquerors. The crown created the viceroyalty of New Spain and the viceroyalty of Peru to tighten crown control over these rich prizes of conquest. Over this same time frame as Spain, Portugal claimed lands in North America (Canada) and colonized much of eastern South America naming it Santa Cruz and Brazil . On behalf of both

4416-403: The New World. Smallpox was especially devastating, for it could be passed through touch, allowing native tribes to be wiped out, and the conditions that colonization imposed on Indigenous populations, such as forced labor and removal from homelands and traditional medicines. Some scholars have argued that this demographic collapse was the result of the first large-scale act of genocide in

4508-476: The Pacific Coast from Alaska to California . Violent conflicts arose during the beginning of this period as indigenous peoples fought to preserve their territorial integrity from increasing European colonizers and from hostile indigenous neighbors who were equipped with Eurasian technology. Conflict between the various European empires and the indigenous peoples was a leading dynamic in the Americas into

4600-499: The Portuguese and Spanish crowns, cartographer Amerigo Vespucci explored the South American east coast and published his new book Mundus Novus ( New World ) in 1502–1503 which disproved the belief that the Americas were the easternmost part of Asia and confirmed that Columbus had reached a set of continents previously unheard of to any Europeans. Cartographers still use a Latinized version of his first name, America , for

4692-558: The Spanish crown had acknowledged their inability to control and properly ensure compliance with traditional laws overseas, so they granted to Native Americans specific protections not even Spaniards had, such as the prohibition of enslaving them even in the case of crime or war. These extra protections were an attempt to avoid the proliferation of irregular claims to slavery. However, as historian Andrés Reséndez has noted, "this categorical prohibition did not stop generations of determined conquistadors and colonists from taking Native slaves on

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4784-472: The aid of indigenous Siberians , who sought protection from nomadic peoples, and those peoples paid tribute in fur to the czar. Thus, prior to the eighteenth-century Russian expansion that pushed beyond the Bering Strait dividing Eurasia from North America, Russia had experience with northern indigenous peoples and accumulated wealth from the hunting of fur-bearing animals. Siberia had already attracted

4876-521: The beginning of Virginia's settlements in 1587 until the 1680s, the main source of labor and a large portion of the immigrants were indentured servants looking for a new life in the overseas colonies. During the 17th century, indentured servants constituted three-quarters of all European immigrants to the Chesapeake Colonies . Most of the indentured servants were teenagers from England with poor economic prospects at home. Their fathers signed

4968-413: The century, the new Province of Pennsylvania was given to William Penn in settlement of a debt the king owed his father. Its government was established by William Penn in about 1682 to become primarily a refuge for persecuted English Quakers, but others were welcomed. Baptists , German and Swiss Protestants , and Anabaptists also flocked to Pennsylvania. The lure of cheap land, religious freedom and

5060-582: The colony, numerous supply missions were organized. Tobacco later became a cash crop, with the work of John Rolfe and others, for export and the sustaining economic driver of Virginia and the neighboring colony of Maryland . Plantation agriculture was a primary aspect of the economies of the Southern Colonies and in the British West Indies . They heavily relied on African slave labor to sustain their economic pursuits. From

5152-421: The complete and irrevocable renunciation of their ancestral religious beliefs and practices. In 1539, Mexican bishop Juan de Zumárraga oversaw the trial and execution of the Indigenous nobleman Carlos of Texcoco for apostasy from Christianity . Following that, the Catholic Church removed Indigenous converts from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition , since it had a chilling effect on evangelization. In creating

5244-400: The debate on Christianization was particularly acute during the early 16th century, when Spanish conquerors and settlers sought to mobilize Indigenous labor. Later, two Dominican friars, Bartolomé de Las Casas and the philosopher Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda , held the Valladolid debate , with the former arguing that Native Americans were endowed with souls like all other human beings, while

5336-450: The early 1500s, and the East Indies to Spain, where It established the Philippines . The city of Santo Domingo , in the current-day Dominican Republic , founded in 1496 by Columbus, is credited as the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in the Americas. By the 1530s, other Western European powers realized they too could benefit from voyages to the Americas, leading to British and French colonializations in

5428-461: The early period of exploration, conquest, and settlement, c. 1492–1550, the overseas possessions claimed by Spain were only loosely controlled by the crown. With the conquests of the Aztecs and the Incas, the New World now commanded the crown's attention. Both Mexico and Peru had dense, hierarchically organized indigenous populations that could be incorporated and ruled. Even more importantly, both Mexico and Peru had large deposits of silver, which became

5520-401: The economic motor of the Spanish empire and transformed the world economy. In Peru, the singular, hugely rich silver mine of Potosí was worked by traditional forced indigenous labor drafts, known as the mit'a . In Mexico, silver was found outside the zone of dense indigenous settlement, so free laborers migrated to the mines in Guanajuato and Zacatecas . The crown established the Council of

5612-415: The field of battle, stating that the indigenous were now subjects of the Spanish Crown and would be punished if they resisted. When the news of this situation and the abuse of the institution reached Spain, the New Laws were passed to regulate and gradually abolish the system in the Americas, as well as to reiterate the prohibition of enslaving Native Americans. By the time the new laws were passed, in 1542,

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5704-453: The following: Indigenous population loss following European contact directly led to Spanish explorations beyond the Caribbean islands they initially claimed and settled in the 1490s, since they required a labor force to both produce food and to mine gold. Slavery was not unknown in Indigenous societies. With the arrival of European colonists, enslavement of Indigenous peoples "became commodified, expanded in unexpected ways, and came to resemble

5796-409: The form of gold, agricultural products, and labor. The Spanish Crown tried to terminate the system through the Laws of Burgos (1512–13) and the New Laws of the Indies (1542). However, the encomenderos refused to comply with the new measures and the indigenous people continued to be exploited. Eventually, the encomienda system was replaced by the repartimiento system which was not abolished until

5888-420: The friars in order to more easily preach the gospel and ensure their adherence to the faith. These missions were established throughout Spanish America which extended from the southwestern portions of current-day United States through Mexico and to Argentina and Chile. As slavery was prohibited between Christians and could only be imposed upon non-Christian prisoners of war and/or men already sold as slaves,

5980-454: The idea of individual soul's connection to the Gichi-manidoo . Consequently, Christian missionaries often used the term Gichi-ojichaag to refer to the Christian idea of a Holy Spirit . In addition to the Algonquian Anishinaabeg, many other tribes believed in Gitche Manitou . References to the Great Manitou by the Cheyenne and the Oglala Sioux (notably in the recollections of Black Elk ), indicate that belief in this deity extended into

6072-414: The instructions given to the Anishinaabe by the Creator. The Anishinaabe Midewiwin , or Grand Medicine Society, considers the area containing the petroforms to be Manito Ahbee, where the Creator sits. It is the site where the Creator lowered the original Anishinaabe from the sky to the ground. Manitoulin Island , called mnidoo mnis , or " island of the Great Spirit", by the Odawa , is very important to

6164-406: The kinds of human trafficking that are recognizable to us today". While the disease was the main killer of indigenous peoples, the practice of slavery and forced labor was also a significant contributor to the indigenous death toll. With the arrival of Europeans other than the Spanish, enslavement of native populations increased since there were no prohibitions against slavery until decades later. It

6256-448: The later colonization by the European powers involving the continents of North America and South America is more well-known. During this time, the European empires of Spain , Portugal , Britain , France , Russia , the Netherlands , Denmark , and Sweden began to explore and claim the Americas, its natural resources, and human capital , leading to the displacement, disestablishment, enslavement , and even genocide of

6348-410: The latter argued to the contrary to justify their enslavement. In 1537, the papal bull Sublimis Deus definitively recognized that Native Americans possessed souls, thus prohibiting their enslavement, without putting an end to the debate. Some claimed that a native who had rebelled and then been captured could be enslaved nonetheless. When the first Franciscans arrived in Mexico in 1524, they burned

6440-492: The migrants from England died in the first few years. Economic advantage also prompted the Darien scheme , an ill-fated venture by the Kingdom of Scotland to settle the Isthmus of Panama in the late 1690s. The Darien Scheme aimed to control trade through that part of the world and thereby promote Scotland into a world trading power. However, it was doomed by poor planning, short provisions, weak leadership, lack of demand for trade goods, and devastating disease. The failure of

6532-452: The modern era . For example, the labor and tribute of inhabitants of Hispaniola were granted in encomienda to Spaniards, a practice established in Spain for conquered Muslims. Although not technically slavery, it was coerced labor for the benefit of the Spanish grantees, called encomenderos . Spain had a legal tradition and devised a proclamation known as The Requerimento to be read to indigenous populations in Spanish, often far from

6624-724: The names of several places in North America . The name of Lake Manitoba (for which the Canadian province of Manitoba is named) derives from the area called manitou-wapow , or "strait of the Manitou" in Cree or Ojibwe , referring to the strange sound of waves crashing against rocks near the Narrows of the lake. Manitoba is also home to Whiteshell Provincial Park 's petroforms , symbols made from rocks, which serve as reminders of

6716-477: The native population of North America which would come to be known as the skrælings . After capturing and killing eight of the natives, they were attacked at their beached ships, which they defended. Systematic European colonization began in 1492. A Spanish expedition sailed west to find a new trade route to the Far East , the source of spices, silks, porcelains, and other rich trade goods. Ottoman control of

6808-563: The natives was important. About 16,000 French men and women became colonizers. The great majority became subsistence farmers along the St. Lawrence River . With a favorable disease environment and plenty of land and food, their numbers grew exponentially to 65,000 by 1760. Their colony was taken over by Britain in 1760, but social, religious, legal, cultural, and economic changes were few in a society that clung tightly to its recently formed traditions. British colonization began in North America almost

6900-617: The northeast tip of the Americas, including in the present-day United States . Within a century, the Swedish established New Sweden ; the Dutch established New Netherland ; and Denmark–Norway along with the Swedish and Dutch established colonization of parts of the Caribbean . By the 1700s, Denmark–Norway revived its former colonies in Greenland , and Russia began to explore and claim

6992-463: The only site widely accepted as evidence of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. It was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1978. It is also notable for its possible connection with the attempted colony of Vinland , established by Leif Erikson around the same period or, more broadly, with the Norse colonization of the Americas . Leif Erikson's brother is said to have had the first contact with

7084-710: The organization of the Church of England by the end of the 16th century. One of the primary manifestations of this was the Puritan movement, which sought to purify the existing Church of England of its residual Catholic rites. The first of these people, known as the Pilgrims , landed on Plymouth Rock in November 1620. Continuous waves of repression led to the migration of about 20,000 Puritans to New England between 1629 and 1642, where they founded multiple colonies . Later in

7176-487: The papers that gave them free passage to America and an unpaid job until they came of age. They were given food, clothing, and housing and taught farming or household skills. American landowners were in need of laborers and were willing to pay for a laborer's passage to America if they served them for several years. By selling passage for five to seven years worth of work, they could then start on their own in America. Many of

7268-596: The phrase "gold, glory, and God". The Spanish justified their claims to the New World based on the ideals of the Christian Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims, completed in 1492. In the New World, military conquest to incorporate indigenous peoples into Christendom was considered the "spiritual conquest". In 1493, Pope Alexander VI , the first Spaniard to become Pope, issued

7360-538: The practice of exacting tribute from Muslims and Jews during the Reconquista , the Spanish Crown granted a number of native laborers to an encomendero , who was usually a conquistador or other prominent Spanish male. Under the grant, they were theoretically bound to both protect the natives and convert them to Christianity. In exchange for their forced conversion to Christianity , the natives paid tributes in

7452-568: The quantity of gold in the East Indies , which he called the " New World ". These claims, along with the slaves he brought back, convinced the monarchy to fund a second voyage. Word of Columbus's exploits spread quickly, sparking the Western European exploration, conquest, and colonization of the Americas. Spanish explorers, conquerors, and settlers sought material wealth, prestige, and the spread of Christianity , often summed up in

7544-535: The region of Canada he reestablished as New France . The first French colonial empire stretched to over 10,000,000 km (3,900,000 sq mi) at its peak in 1710, which was the second largest colonial empire in the world, after the Spanish Empire . In the French colonial regions, the focus of the economy was on sugar plantations in the French West Indies . In Canada the fur trade with

7636-734: The right to improve themselves with their own hand was very attractive. Mainly due to discrimination, there was often a separation between English colonial communities and indigenous communities. The Europeans viewed the natives as savages who were not worthy of participating in what they considered civilized society. The native people of North America did not die out nearly as rapidly nor as greatly as those in Central and South America due in part to their exclusion from British society. The indigenous people continued to be stripped of their native lands and were pushed further out west. The English eventually went on to control much of Eastern North America ,

7728-496: The sacred places dedicated to the Indigenous peoples' native religions . However, in Pre-Columbian Mexico , burning the temple of a conquered group was standard practice, shown in Indigenous manuscripts, such as Codex Mendoza . Conquered Indigenous groups expected to take on the gods of their new overlords, adding them to the existing pantheon. They likely were unaware that their conversion to Christianity entailed

7820-519: The signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, Portugal and Spain agreed to divide the Earth in two, with Portugal having dominion over non- Christian lands in the world's eastern half, and Spain over those in the western half. Spanish claims essentially included all of the Americas ; however, the Treaty of Tordesillas granted the eastern tip of South America to Portugal, where it established Brazil in

7912-639: The time " Seward's Folly ". Duke Ferdinand I de Medici made the only Italian attempt to create colonies in America. For this purpose, the Grand Duke organized in 1608 an expedition to the north of Brazil, under the command of the English captain Robert Thornton. Thornton, on his return from the preparatory trip in 1609 (he had been to the Amazon ), found Ferdinand I dead and all projects were cancelled by his successor Cosimo II . Beginning with

8004-403: The two continents. In April 1500, Portuguese noble Pedro Álvares Cabral claimed the region of Brazil to Portugal; the effective colonization of Brazil began three decades later with the founding of São Vicente in 1532 and the establishment of the system of captaincies in 1534, which was later replaced by other systems. Others tried to colonize the eastern coasts of present-day Canada and

8096-434: The word uses of gitche and manitou existed before contact. After contact, however, Gitche Manitou was adopted by some Anishinaabe , such as the Ojibwe , to refer to the supreme being. Algonquian religion acknowledges medicine healers , who used manitou to see the future, change the weather, and heal illness. Ojibwe medicine healers were primarily healers who used their spiritual connection to cure patients since illness

8188-418: Was founded by Pedro de Gante in 1523. The friars aimed at converting Indigenous leaders, with the hope and expectation that their communities would follow suit. In densely populated regions, friars mobilized Indigenous communities to build churches, making the religious change visible; these churches and chapels were often in the same places as old temples, often using the same stones. "Native peoples exhibited

8280-537: Was then believed to be caused by magic and spirits. To communicate with spirits and manipulate manitou, a healer would enter a trance , induced by singing, dancing, drumbeats, or the use of hallucinogens . Non-healers could also interact with spirits by embarking upon a "vision quest", using prayer , fasting , hallucinogens, and removing themselves from the society of others. A person who underwent vision quests would be visited by an "animal, voice, or object", which would become their guardian spirit. Manitou has entered

8372-526: Was unforeseeable in the early 15th century because it had been preoccupied with internal wars and it was slowly recovering from the loss of population caused by the Black Death . The Ottoman Empire 's domination of trade routes to Asia prompted Western European monarchs to search for alternatives, resulting in the voyages of Christopher Columbus and his accidental arrival at the New World . With

8464-422: Was widely used during early European contact . In 1585, when Thomas Harriot recorded the first glossary of an Algonquian language, Roanoke (Pamlico) , he included the word mantóac , meaning "gods and goddesses". Similar terms are found in nearly all Algonquian languages . In some Algonquian traditions, Gitche Manitou refers to a supreme being . The term has analogues dating to before European contact, and

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