Unit 1 Notes on Prep Book

Native Americans

  • Pre-Columbian Era

  • People first got there with the Bering Land Bridge

  • Millions in the Americas

  • Had mastered Maize (staple and sister crop)

    • Part of Columbian exchange

  • Nomadic hunters to societies

  • Aztecs and Mayans

  • Pueblo people in Southwest

  • Chinook people in Pacific Northwest

  • Plains tribes (nomads)

  • Iroquois and Algonquians

Early New World Colonization

  • Columbus- arrived in 1492

    • Definitely NOT the first explorer of North America

  • Columbian Exchange developed

    • Exchange of plants, animals, food, disease, and ideas between the New and Old Worlds

      • Gold and silver, tobacco, corn, squash to Old World

      • Apples, peaches, wheat, horses barely to New World

  • Spanish conquistadores working through South America

  • Spain extremely powerful

  • Encomienda system to give colonists authority over certain Native people

    • Would care for them and convert them to Catholicism and would be entitled to their labor because of it

  • Intermarriage/sexual relations led to Mestizos, and Zambos

  • Spanish Armada kept other powers from colonising

  • Disease wiped out Native Americans and led to the introduction of Africans for slavery

Competition for Global Dominance

  • Spain was about to have competition

  • Joint-stock companies worked to profit off intercontinental trade

  • British East India Company, Virginia Company (Jamestown)

  • Juan de Sepulveda and Bartolome de Las Casas were wildly opposite

    • Sepulvelda wanted dominance, Casas wanted peace and tolerance

  • Spanish mission system thrived

The English

  • Sent large numbers of people

  • Sir Walter Raleigh sponsored Roanoake

    • Vanished; Lost Colony

  • 1607: Jamestown

    • Funded by Virginia Company

  • Captain John Smith

  • Native Americans of the Powhatan Confederacy lived there, didn’t supply Jamestown with food when trade was denied

    • Led to starving time

  • John Rolfe

    • Married Pocahontas

    • Pioneered tobacco practices (best decision ever)

  • Chesapeake

    • Overpopulation brought many immigrants there

    • Indentured servitude was how they got there

    • Headright system by Virginia Company (tract of land granted to colonists)

    • House of Burgesses (any property-holding white man could vote)

  • Saw Native Americans as slaves, trading partners, or allies

  • Excluded as much as possible

The French

  • A bit nicer to Native Americans

  • Quebec

  • Explored as much as possible, wanted gold and path to Asia

  • Intermarriage

  • Helped trade for furs

  • French and Indian War later

  • Friendlier relationship

    • Alliances, trading

On to Unit 2: Colonization of North America