History test #1

The Arctic

Cold, treeless, pretty harsh environment  Near Arctic Circle - present day Alaska  Tribes - Inuit and Aleut Small groups of nomadic people  Followed seals, polar bears, and other game  Aleut lived in small fishing villages usually in dome shaped houses  Made waterproof and warm clothing out of seal skins, and otter skins

The Subarctic

Swampy forests, waterlogged tundra  Region stretched across much of inland Alaska and Canada  Travel was difficult - toboggans, snowshoes and lightweight canoes were used for transportation  Population was small  Settled in small family groups  Followed herds of caribou  lived in small, easy-to-move tents and lean-tos

The Northeast

The Northeast stretched from present-day Canada’s Atlantic coast to North Carolina and inland to the Mississippi River valley. Tribe - Iroquois; lived along inland rivers and lakes, and in fortified politically stable villages  Tribe - Algonquian; lived in small farming and fishing villages along the ocean  Grew crops: corn, beans, and vegetables

The Southeast

fertile agricultural region Natives were expert farmers  Grew crops such as: maize, beans, squash, tobacco, and sunflowers Small market villages known as hamlets Tribes: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole

The Plains

Vast prairie region between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains Present day Canada to the Gulf of Mexico Hunters and farmers People of the great plains became more nomadic Tribes such as the Crow, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Comanche, and the Arapaho used horses to herd buffalo   Lived in cone sapped teepees; bison skin tent that can fold up  Plains Indians known for their feathered war bonnets

The Great Basin

A geographic bowl formed by the Rocky Mountains to the east and the Sierra Nevadas to the west a barren wasteland of deserts, salt flats, and brackish lakes people foraged for roots, seeds and nuts and hunted snakes, lizards and small mammals. Lived in compact, easy-to-build wikiups made of willow poles or saplings, leaves and brush.

California

estimated 100 different tribes and groups spoke more than 200 dialects.   Many native Californians lived very similar lives.  They did not practice much agriculture. Instead, they organized themselves into small, family-based bands of hunter-gatherers known as tribelets.  Inter-tribelet relationships, based on well-established systems of trade and common rights, were generally peaceful.

The Northwest Coast

mild climate and an abundance of natural resources. The ocean and the region’s rivers provided almost everything its people needed—salmon, especially, but also whales, sea otters, seals and fish and shellfish of all kinds. Unlike many other hunter-gatherers who struggled to find enough food and were forced to follow animal herds from place to place, the natives of the Pacific Northwest were comfortable enough to build permanent villages that housed hundreds of people.  Those villages operated according to a strict social structure. A person’s status was determined by his closeness to the village’s chief and reinforced by the number of possessions—blankets, shells and skins, canoes and even slaves—he had at his disposal.

The Plateau

The Plateau area sat in the Columbia and Fraser river basins at the intersection of the Subarctic, the Plains, the Great Basin, California and the Northwest Coast.  People lived in small, peaceful villages along streams and riverbanks and survived by fishing for salmon and trout, hunting and gathering wild berries, roots, and nuts.