Unit 1 (1491-1607)

Mrs. Jean-Pierre

Context for Unit 1

Context for Unit 1

Cultural diversity - due to geographical and climate differences

Motives for exploration - were competition for land, spread Christianity, and economic gain (fur trade, silver mines, plantations)

Transatlantic Exchange - horses, potatoes, maize, beans, smallpox, syphilis

Addition of Enslaved Africans - low cost labor in mines + plantations bc death of Natives + ease of control in foreign land

Natives in Central and South America

Mayans - Big cities in rainforests, conquered by Spanish

Aztecs - Tenochtitlan had 200k people in Central Mexico, conquered by Hernan Cortes

Incas - Vast empire in western South America in Peru

Similarities: high organization, lots of trade, scientific calendars, and maize

Southwest (SW)native settlements

Pueblos

Dry region → lived in caves, under cliffs, multistoried buildings

Irrigation systems

Northwest (NW) native settlements

Chinooks

Permanent longhouses + plank houses

Rich diet with hunting, fishing, gathering, and farming

Totem poles - carved for stories, myths, legends

Great Basin + Great Plains native settlements

GP - Sioux, Apache

GB - Ute

Dry and/or grassy lands → nomadic hunters

Buffalo provided food, clothes, housing (tepees), tools

Introduction of horses → change in travel/migration and war tactics

Mississippi River Valley (MRV) native settlements

Woodland, Adena-Hopewell, Cahokia

Rich food supply with hunting, fishing, gathering, and farming

Cahokia → largest city in Native america with ~30k

Adena-Hopewell → earthmounds up to 300 ft

Northeast (NE) native settlements

Iroquois, Seneca, Mohawk

Matrilineal society in longhouses

Iroquois Confederation - political union in battles against native rivals and European settlers

Atlantic Seaboard native settlements

Cherokee

Rivers and the Atlantic provided a rich food source

Native culture and lifestyle

Agricultural - 3 sisters (corn, beans, squash)

Political - Tribal councils and chiefs

Social - Communal property (no concept of owning land), matrilineal society, egalitarian

Cultural - Animism and respect for nature

Reasons for European exploration in the Americas

Changes in thought - Renaissance

Improvements in technology - gunpowder, sailing compass, printing press

Religious conflict - Catholic victory in Spain against the Moors, Protestant revolt/reformation

Expanding trade - New routes by Henry the Navigator and Vasco da Gama (Portugal), slave trading bring West Africans to America

Developing nation-states - Monarchs depend on trade for revenue + church power to rule (SPN combine, Holy Roman Empire break)

Reasons for Transatlantic Trade

How?: Advancements in tech

Why?: Spread religion and increase power/influence by gaining money

Columbian exchange impacts in Americas

Gained sugarcane, pigs, horses, guns, and smallpox

Native populations greatly decrease

Stricter social hierarchies established

African populations increase for slavery

Columbian exchange impacts in Europe

Gained beans, maize, potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco

European populations increase because of more nutritional diet

Rise of capitalism

Before exploration, feudalism - land is power

After, capitalism - money is power

→ social power shift from landowners to merchants

Joint-stock company

Safely finance voyages by having many investors to decrease individual risk

Spanish policy in the Americas

Conquistadores - Ferdinand Magellan, Hernan Cortes (Aztecs), Francisco Pizarro (Incas)

Labor systems - encomienda (in return, natives recieve requerimiento), asiento

Caste system until New Laws of 1542

Spanish Policy - Debate of Valladolid between Bartolome de las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepulveda

Politics - Viceroys, Council of Indies

Resistance - Pueblo Revolt

Encomienda system

Spain’s king granted natives to individual conquistadores

→ natives were forced to farm or mine in return for care

Asiento system

Colonists who bought imported slaves had to pay a tax per purchased slave

→ needed to replace the natives who died from disease and brutality

Requerimiento

read to Native Americans to inform them of Spain's rights to conquest, in name of Christianity

Caste system

Strict social hierarchy based on amount of Spanish blood

Peninsulares, creoles, mestizos, mulattoes

New Laws of 1542

Ended Native slavery, halted forced labor of Natives, and began to end the encomienda system

Conservative Spanish pressured the king to repeal some of the acts

Valladolid Debate

Between de las Casas and Sepulveda about using natives for labor

→ would lead to increased use of African slaves

Bartolome de las Casas

Catholic priest

Argued against encomienda system

bc it made conversion less attractive and was unnecessary to save natives

*Suggested Africans replace natives

Juan Gines de Sepulveda

Argued for encomienda system

bc natives were barbaric, uncivilized, and backwards

Therefore, Europeans had duty to bring them Western civilization

Pueblo Revolt of 1680

Lead by Popé

Largest and only successful resistance to European colonists

→ Decreased use of encomienda system

→ Increased syncretism of Catholicism and native religion

English policy in the Americas

Religious persecution, economy, or strategic buffer

Trading posts in NYC, NY and Boston, MA

Separation from Natives bc most settlers came as families and more women colonists

Not focused on religious conversion of Natives

French policy in the Americas

Trade posts near rivers → St. Lawrence, Great Lakes, Mississippi

Focused on fur trade

Amicable relations with Natives

Some intermarriage (métis)