APUSH Unit 2: Native Americans

Flashcards about Native Americans in the 1600-1700s.

Preconceptions

The tendency to believe what fits our preconceptions. Example: Columbus names the indigenous people “Indians.”

Jacques Le Moyne

An artist who accompanied the French settlement in Florida in the 1560s and produced some of the first European images of North American peoples. (Typically inaccurate)

Aztec human sacrifice

Used by the Spanish as justification for brutal control, arguing natives are savage monsters, defending against "The Black Legend of Spain."

Result of teaching 'good' natives Western civilization

Death due to disease, death of culture and society as it existed pre-contact - slowly.

Result of taming 'bad' natives

Death due to wars and disease, death of culture and society as it existed pre-contact – quickly.

Economics

Attacks on natives are driven in large part by this and its companion issue, population pressure.

The term 'Indians'

Implies homogeneity among native populations, which is false; many cultures and nations exist with deep differences.

Scalping

Some groups, especially Great Lakes region tribes, do this as a ceremonial custom in inter-tribal wars.

Mourning war

Iroquois concept of fighting, taking captives, and adopting them into tribe to ease grief due to population drops. Interpreted as slavery by the Europeans.

John Eliot

17th century Protestant minister who translated the Bible into Cherokee and tried to create written forms of other native languages.