Pre-1600: Communications: Chronology

IMPORTANT EVENTS TO 1600

IMPORTANT EVENTS TO 1600

40,000–10,000 b.c.

• Paleolithic peoples migrate from Asia to North America and spread through unglaciated regions.

7000 b.c.–700 a.d.

• Free-wandering Paleolithic peoples settle into more-regular patterns of movement within restricted territories as they adapt to local conditions and exploit their new environments, giving rise to a variety of Archaic cultures throughout the continent. Increasing cultural differentiation among these Archaic peoples leads to increasing linguistic diversity.

1480s?

• Bristol Fishermen from the west coast of England begin fishing for cod in the waters off Newfoundland in the North Atlantic. Rudimentary trade begins with the native inhabitants.

1501

• Portuguese Captain Gaspar Côrte-Real kidnaps some fifty Indians from the northeastern coast of North America and sends them to his king in Lisbon as slaves.

1519

• Alvarez De Pineda Completes a survey of the Gulf Coast for Spain.

1520s?

• Basque Fishermen from southwestern France and the western Pyrenees of Spain begin fishing and whaling off the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts and establish good relations and trade with the local natives. A Basque-based pidgin begins to develop.

1524–1525

• Portuguese explorer Estevâo Gomes surveys the Newfoundland and New England coasts beyond Cape Cod for Spain.

1525

• Spaniard Pedro De Quejo maps the southeastern coastline of North America as far north as Delaware.

1526

• Lucas VáZquez de Ayllón takes Indian interpreter Francisco de Chicora and several other native translators with him on his colonizing venture to South Carolina. Francisco and the others had been kidnapped from the area of Winyaw Bay, South Carolina, five years earlier.

1528

• PáNfilo De Narváez attempts to explore Florida and the Gulf Coast but is forced to retreat. The entire expedition is lost except for four men, including Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Estévanico the Moor.

1529–1536

• Cabeza de Vaca, Estévanico, and the other two survivors of the Narváez expedition wander Texas and northern Mexico as captives, traders, and shamans, learning the languages and customs of the local inhabitants.

1530s

• Discovery Of Grand Banks leads to increased European fishing off the Maine coast and the beginning of more intensive contacts with the native peoples living there.

1534

• Jacques Cartier Explores the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River, contacting Iroquoian Indians living at Stadacona and Hochelaga. He kidnaps two sons of Stadaconan chief Donnacona and takes them to France to be trained as interpreters.

1535–1536

• Cartier and his Stadaconan interpreters return to the St. Lawrence. Over the winter relations sour between the French and the St. Lawrence Iroquoians. When Cartier leaves for France, he takes ten captives with him, including Donnacona and his two sons. All are dead by the time Cartier again sails for New France in the early 1540s.

1536

• Cabeza De Vaca, Estévanico, and the other two survivors of the Narváez expedition reach Culiacán, Mexico, in early April.

1538

• Mexican Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza sends Franciscan Fray Marcos de Niza on a reconnaissance to the north. Estévanico the Moor accompanies him as guide and interpreter and is killed by Zuni Indians in the spring of 1539.

1539–1542

• Hernando de Soto explores the interior southeast for Spain and is the first European to encounter the Indians of the Mississippi River valley. De Soto finds a survivor of the Narváez expedition, Juan Ortiz, living among the natives of Florida and takes him along as an interpreter.

1540–1542

• Conquistador Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, with Fray Marcos as his guide, coordinates several expeditions to explore the interior southwest.

1542

• The First Allusion to the existence of Basque pidgin appears in the historical record.

1561

• A Spanish Crew Captures a young Indian from the York River in Virginia and takes him to Spain to be trained as an interpreter. During his nine years in Europe he is baptized and given the name Don Luis de Velasco.

1570s?

• Micmac Chief Messamouet visits Bayonne, France, and lives with the mayor of the southwestern port during his stay.

1570

• Don Luis Returns To the York River with a small group of Jesuits to establish a mission. He runs off shortly after his arrival and later leads an Indian attack on the priests in which all of them are killed.

1580

• English Explorer John Walker lands at Penobscot Bay and finds an Indian building containing more than two hundred moose hides. His discovery is the earliest evidence of an indigenous fur trade conducted by native Souriquois middlemen between the Indians of the Maine coast and Europeans in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

1584

• The English Adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh sends the first reconnaissance voyage to the Outer Banks in preparation for establishing a colony. The explorers encounter local Algonquian Indians and bring two, Wanchese and Manteo, back to England to be trained as interpreters.

1585

• Raleigh’S First colony is established, under Ralph Lane, on Roanoke Island. Difficulties in obtaining provisions lead to worsening relations with the local Roanokes, and the colony is abandoned in June of the next year. Manteo returns to England with them.

1587

• Raleigh Sends A Second group of colonists, with Manteo, to the Carolina coast under John White. The group fails to reach their intended destination in the Chesapeake Bay and again settles at Roanoke Island. White leaves in the fall to obtain more supplies in England but is delayed in returning. By 1590 the colonists have vanished.