Friday, August 23, 2013

Connecticut Colony During the 1600s

Thomas Hooker was a Puritan & was also a colonial leader. He was the man who founded Connecticut in the year 1635. However, the colony was actually settled a year later in 1636. When the people first settled in, the population was 1,000. Thomas Hooker wanted to start a new colony and that's when he discovered Connecticut. The colony was named after an Indian word, "quonentacut", meaning long tidal river.
An important event that occurred was the Pequot War. The Pequot War lasted from 1636-1637. Even though it seems like a short amount of time, many Pequot Indians were killed. The war was fought between the English settlers and the Pequot Indians. The population of the Indians drastically decreased due to this war. New Haven became a part of Connecticut in 1660. Both John Daven and Theophilus Eaton were given the credit of discovering New Haven.
The people of Connecticut also created the Fundamental Orders in 1639. Many people believed that the Fundamental Orders would be similar to the U.S. Constitution. The majority of the people within the colony were Puritans and Congregationalist. John Winthrop was governor of Connecticut from the years of 1659-1675. The settlers were able to maintain wheat, corn, and fish because they lived close by the coast & the soil was fertile.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Hernan Cortes


Hernan Cortes was born in 1485 in Spain. At one point in Cortes's life, he attended a university, but eventually dropped out. He dropped out of school due to the fact of the stories being told regarding the New World. He wanted to accomplish similar voyages to those of Christopher Columbus and other voyagers. The Spanish explorer's first voyage was in 1504; he left to an island called Santo Domingo.

Hernan Cortes's Cuba voyage took place during 1519. Cortes's intentions were simple; he simply wanted to take over Tenochitlan in order to get the gold he wanted. Eventually, the Aztecs noticed how greedy Cortes's was and decided not to treat him with anymore goods. Instead, the Aztecs kicked out the Spaniards out of their empire because they were a handful to handle. As stated in chapter one, Montezuma had believed that Hernan Cortes was "the god of Quetzacoatl", which made him think that spoiling him with goods was acceptable.

Even though Cortes got kicked out of the Aztec empire, he did not stop trying to conquer Tenochitlan. In 1521, he attempted once more, but this time he actually succeeded in his conquest. Everything was pretty much destroyed or transformed because Cortes had different plans for Mexico City. Hernan Cortes might have came up with negative outcomes, but also positive ones. He introduced new objects such as religion, laws, crops, animals, etc.