Ch. 1 Study Guide- New World Beginnings 33,000 B.C.E. - 1680 C.E.

Mound Builders

• Native group located in the Ohio River Valley.

• Major settlement was at Cahokia in Mississippi,

• central mound 100ft. tall and spanning 16 acres.

• mounds of earth which could be used as temples/burial sites/town squares, earning them their name.

• began disappearing between 1100 CE and 1300 CE.

  • Reasons: climate change or deforestation.

• likely ancestors of the Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee tribes

Cahokia

• major settlement of the Mound Builders

• located in Mississippi

• had a central mound that was 100 ft. tall and spanned an area of 16 acres at the base.

• home to up to 25,000 people

Three sister farming

• corn, beans, and squash

Haudenosaunee Confederation (Iroquois)    

• Haudenosaunee Confederation/Haudenosaunee League/Iroquois

• inspired by Hiawatha

• North American version of the empires located in Mexico and Peru.

  • significant military alliances.

• relied on agriculture for food

• lived in sedentary, permanent villages.

  • matrilineal culture

  • participated in trade with other native groups

Hiawatha

A legendary figure that inspired the Haudenosaunee Confederation. 

Caravel

• ship developed by Portuguese mariners which could sail closely into the wind

• allowed a new way to return to Europe from Africa using westward wind.

Plantation agriculture

large-scale commercial agriculture relying heavily on slave labor

Columbian Exchange

• Christopher Columbus “discovered” America in 1492.

• brought Americas into the worldview of Europe and Africa.

• Columbus was an Italian seafarer sponsored by Spain

  • believed he was in the “Indies”

• completely changed the international economy/European diet

• tomatoes, maize, beans, sugarcane, and potatoes

• Europeans brought to the Americas cattle, swine, and horses as well as European crops.

  • Native groups used horses

• brought diseases (smallpox, malaria, yellow fever)

  • decimated Native populations with up to 90% of Native Americans dying from disease, violence, and enslavement

Treaty of Tordesillas

• written in 1494 and

• divided the New World between Spain and Portugal

• Spain received most of the Americas, Portugal got more land in Africa and Asia + Brazil.

Doctrine of Discovery

• gave European, Christian explorers the ability to claim any land not inhabited by Christians

Encomienda

• “commend” (give) Indians colonists who would try to Christianize them

• basically slavery

de Las Casas

• Bartolome de Las Casas

• Spanish missionary who disapproved of the encomienda system

  • called it “a moral pestilence invented by Satan.” 

Noche triste

June 30, 1520

• The Aztecs attacked the Spanish conquistadores,

  • driving them from Tenochtitlan

• Cortes laid siege to the city

  • surrendered on August 13, 1521

Mestizo

children of Spanish conquistadors and Native women

Conquistadores

• participated in the exploration of the Americas.

• claimed for their church and crown large portions of the Americas

• destroyed the Aztec and Incan empires

  • they used swords and had various motivations, but all wanted gold

Battle of Acoma

1599

• Spanish sentenced the Indian survivors to twenty years of servitude

  • cut off one foot of any men over the age of 25

• called the area the province of New Mexico in 1609

  • created its capital at Santa Fe in 1610 

Pueblo Revolt aka Pope’s Rebellion

1680

• missionaries' attempt to convert Natives to Christianity and suppress native customs

• Pueblo rebels destroyed all of the Catholic churches

  • killed the priests and settlers

  • built a kiva (ceremonial religious chamber) on the former Spanish plaza

• fifty years for the Spanish to regain control of New Mexico.

Junipero Serra

1769

• Serra led Spanish missionaries to the southern California coast

• buildt 21 missions

• San Diego to Sonoma

• worked to Christianize them and taught horticulture and crafts

Black Legend

• concept popularized by Spain’s Protestant rivals

  • conquistadors simply tortured and killed the Natives, gave them diseases, and stole their gold.

  • also created an empire that mixed the cultures, laws, religion, and language that would create many of the Spanish speaking nations

Bartolomeu Dias

Portuguese explorer who was the first to round the southern tip of Africa in 1488

Vasco de Gama

Portuguese explorer

• first to reach India through the water route (giving the name Indes to all the lands of the Orient)

• returned with jewels and spices in 1498.

Hernan Cortes

• Spanish explorer who left Cuba in 1519 to sail for Mexico

• rescued a Spanish castaway who was enslaved by Mayan speaking Indians and Malinche, a female Indian slave who spoke Mayan and Nahuatl (language of the Aztecs)

• explored and conquered the Valley of Mexico

• conquered the Aztec civilization. 

Francisco Pizarro

Spanish explorer who conquered the Incas in Peru in 1532

Juan Ponce de Leon

• Spanish explorer

• explored through Florida in 1513 and 1521

• looking for gold (not the fabled fountain of youth)

Hernando de Soto

• explorer searching for gold

• instead found the Mississippi River north of its junction with the Arkansas River traveling westward from Florida in 1539-1542

Francisco Coronado

• searching for legendary gold cities and instead found adobe pueblos

• explored Arizona, New Mexico, and Kansas

• discovered the Grand Canyon and the buffalo herds of the plains.

• explored from 1540-1542. 

Robert de La Salle

• traveled through down the Mississippi River in the 1680s

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo

• explored the California coast in 1542

• completely missed San Francisco Bay or anything interesting

• California’s Native people were undisturbed for another 200 years until Fr. Juniper Serra arrived

Vasco Nunez de Balboa

• discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513

• claimed all lands it touched for his king

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca

• explored around the Guld of Mexico

• reached Tampa Bay in 1528

Jaques Cartier

• French navigator

• explored northern part of North America in 1513

• three voyages

John Cabot

• aka Giovanni Caboto

• sent by England

• explored northeastern coast of North America

  • 1497 and 1498