Give Me Liberty!: Volume 1

An Old World: North America

The authors begin in 1534, when the Mi’kmaq Indigenous tribe of the Gulf of St. Lawrence approached Jacques Cartier’s ship to trade, signaling peace through animal skins attached to sticks. Six years later, the Cacica of Cofitachequi in present-day South Carolina met Hernando de Soto with gifts, a diplomatic gesture welcoming trade and alliance. These episodes are presented as examples to counter the European view of the Americas as a newly discovered world, instead presenting a continent with established societies and complex intercultural dynamics, highlighting The Significance of Diverse Groups in America.

The authors emphasize that Indigenous peoples saw European arrivals as opportunities for strategic alliances and trade, contrasting with European exploitative practices like the transatlantic trading of enslaved people. Europeans projected their aspirations onto the Americas, often mythologizing it as a land of wealth and freedom, which led to both exploitative and utopian endeavors.

An Old World: West Africa

West Africa before European contact was a diverse region with multiple languages, political systems, and significant empires like Mali and Benin, known for cities such as Jenne and Edo. The authors explain that these empires thrived on the trans-Saharan trade, exchanging gold, textiles, and other goods with North Africa and beyond.

The introduction of Islam significantly influenced the region, blending with local traditions and reinforcing trading networks. The authors do not gloss over the practice of enslavement within West Africa, which typically involved captives from war or debt but allowed for certain rights like property ownership and potential freedom, contrasting with European chattel slavery.

An Old World: Western Europe

Western Europe‘s political landscape in the late medieval and early modern periods was marked by the consolidation of power and growth of monarchies post-Black Death. The authors describe rigid social hierarchies with a distinct lack of freedoms, especially for women under doctrines like “coverture,“ which placed women and their property under their husband’s authority after marriage.  

Economic life was predominantly agricultural, but the allure of Asian luxuries drove the exploration that led to the Atlantic trade routes. Christianity deeply influenced European societies, with religious uniformity enforced to maintain social order, often leading to persecution of dissenters. The authors suggest that evolving concepts of freedom were complex, intertwining moral conditions with political rights, where the rule of law often upheld social hierarchies rather than individual liberties. As they explain, enslavement was justified through religious and war-based rationales, reflecting a hierarchical and exploitative society.

Contact

This section covers the expansive naval explorations of the Chinese and the Portuguese in the 15th century, highlighting China’s advanced maritime capabilities under Admiral Zheng He and Portugal’s subsequent navigational achievements that led to direct encounters with West Africa.

The authors detail Christopher Columbus’s voyages which, under the misconception of discovering a new route to Asia, led to European awareness of the Americas. The narrative explores the brutal conquests by Europeans like Cortés and Pizarro and the transformative impacts of the Columbian Exchange, which reshaped global agriculture and demographics but also introduced devastating diseases to Indigenous populations.

The Spanish Empire

By the mid-16th century, Spain had developed an extensive empire that utilized the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to create vast trade networks, stretching from Europe to the Americas and Asia. The authors explain that the empire was urban-centric, with major cities like Mexico City, which became cultural and administrative centers surpassing many cities in Europe.

Governance was centralized under the monarchy, heavily supported by the Catholic Church, though local governance had some autonomy. The social structure was rigid, with a significant racial hierarchy. The authors’ analysis here reflects their overall purpose to reveal the complexity of history: The empire’s approach to Indigenous populations was complicated, involving both coercion and assimilation, with the overarching goal of religious conversion and economic exploitation.