Period 1: 1491-1607: The Meeting of Three Peoples

Columbus and colonizers (ew)

Southwest Tribes

• depended on Maize

• fostered economic development and social diversification

• The Pueblo People (Anasazi): lived in pueblos

  • technologically advanced societies

  • 13th-14th century climate change caused Pueblo people to disperse from the complex settlements around the four corners region (The First Great Migration)

Tribes of the Great Basin and Great Plains

• Great Basin: area between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada Mountains

• Great Plains: land in the US and Canada that stretches from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains

• “Desert Culture”: mobile lifestyles in response to natural resources (area lacked resources)

• Plain indians depended on Buffalo

• Tribes closer to the mississippi developed a more sedentary lifestyle

Tribes of the East

• along the atlantic seaboard people were a mix of agricultural and hunter-gatherer economies

• Algonquian language group: around the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes

• On the Atlantic coast they hunted, fished and grew corn

• In northern new england and the upper great lakes (colder) they relied on hunting and fishing

• Iroquois League (present day New York State): ex. Mohawks

  • powerful force

  • settled in permanent villages

  • farmed (corn, beans, and squash), fathered, hunted, and fished

  • matrilineal society

Tribes of the Pacific Northwest

• northwest + present day California

• economic development and social diversifaction

• developed a mix of foraging and hunting

• Chinook: washington/oregon region

  • foragingm hunting, fishing

  • settled communities

  • social stratification

Start of European exploration of americas

• late 1400s and 1500s

• reasons:

  • desire for new sources of wealth, competition for power, and push among christian sects for new converts

  • the crusades shook the stability of European feudal society - Europeans wanted to circumvent the Italian city-states and find new trade routs with the East

  • Black Death: left a surplus of land and food which undermined the feudal system

  • Renaissance spirit of curiosity: the printing press helped dissipate info

  • Reformation + Counter-Reformation revived religious zeal

Impact of Exploration On Europe

• Columbian Exchange

• new sources of wealth in form of precious metals helped transition from feudalism to capitalism

  • inflation (esp in spain who went into debt and increased taxes as a result)

• new crops and livestock contributed to population growth

• Brought back diseases

• Tobacco!!

New inventions that allowed for exploration

• tech: compass, astrolabe, quadrant, and hourlass

• Portulanos maps

• New ships: Caravels

• Joint stock companies: risk involved would be spread among multiple investors (limited liability)

Spain and Portugal - first explorers/settlers

• Portugal searched for new trade routs to Asia: Prince Henry the Navigator

  • Bartholomeu Dias sailed around the Cape of Good Hope

  • Vasco da Gama reached India

• Spain also sought new trade routes: Christopher Columbus was funded by Isabella and Ferdinand to try to find a way to Asia by going west (around the globe)

  • Columbus landed in the East Indies and encountered the Taino people

Treaty of Tordesillas

• settled competing claims of spain and portugal in the new world

• drew a longitudinal line through the Atlantic Ocean and South America, portugal got land east of line, spain got the rest of the lands of the americas

Effect of Spanish/Portuguese Settlers on Americas

• Defeat of the Mexica/Aztecs: Hernan Cortes

• Defeat of the Inca: Fransisco Pizarro

• Brought diseases: bubonic plague, influenza, cholera, scarlet fever, and smallpox

• Natives underwent warfare, brutal conquest, and harsh working conditions

• Introduced sugar, wheat, and horses (among other livestock) to the Americas

Labor & Slavery in the spanish colonial system

• turned to forced labor of native indians: encomienda

  • plantation agriculture and extraction of precious metals

• initial spanish settlers were granted land and right to extract labor from local inhabitants (encomenderos)

• Critics (i.e. Bartolome de Las Casas) brought about reforms to the ecomienda system (repartimiento) - spain turned to the international slave trade

• Some believed that it was ok becayse natives were “of an inferior order” (Juan Gines de Sepulveda

Maroon Communities

• africans who had escaped slavery n the new world and established independent communities

• preserved african traditions

• most significant: Palmares - conquered by the Portuguese

• Fled and joined communities of Arawak Indians - came to control large areas of Jamaica

The Casta System

• Spanish caste sustem

  • Peninsulares (born in spain)

  • Creols (those born in the new world of spanish parents)

  • Mestizos (children of spanish men and indian women)

  • Mulattos: children of spanish men and african women

  • American Indians and Africans @ the bottom

Native Reaction to Spanish

• some natives accomodated the spanish/ their culture

• some fled

• others engaged in violent resistance

  • Juanillo’s Revolt: deaths of several missionaries

  • Juan de Onate (spanish conquistador) occupied land held by Acoma Pueblo who attacked the spanish occupiers, killin g15, Onate responded by killing over 800 natives