Period 1

Native Societies Before European Arrival 🌎

The native societies in the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans were diverse and complex, each with their own unique cultures, societies, and ways of life.

Pueblo People 🏠

• Lived in present-day Utah and Colorado

• Farmers who planted and harvested crops like beans, squash, and maize

• Built small urban centers made of hardened clay bricks

• Famous for their magnificent cliff dwellings

Great Basin and Great Plains Regions 🏞

• Lived in present-day Colorado and Canada

• Nomadic hunter-gatherers who wandered the Great Plains hunting buffalo and gathering food

• Organized into small, egalitarian kinship bands

• Examples: Ute people

Pacific Coastal Regions 🏖

• Lived in present-day California and Pacific Northwest

• Developed permanent settlements due to abundance of fish and small game

• Examples: Chumash people, Chinook people

• Built villages that sustained nearly a thousand people and participated in regional trade networks

Iroquois People 🏠

• Lived in present-day Northeast region

• Farmers who planted crops like maize, beans, and squash

  • Three sister farming

• Lived communally in longhouses made of abundant timber

• Famous for their advanced farming techniques and trade networks

Mississippi River Valley 🌳

• Lived in present-day Midwest region

• Farmers who farmed the rich soil and participated in trade along the river

• Examples: Cahokia civilization, which had a centralized government and 10,000 to 30,000 people

European Exploration and Colonization 🚀

Background 📚

"From the 1300s to the 1400s, European kingdoms were changing significantly. They were going through a process of political unification and were developing stronger, more centralized states that were governed by monarchs."

• A growing wealthy upper class developed a taste for luxury goods from Asia

• Muslims controlled many land-based trading routes, making it difficult for Europeans to establish trade on their own terms

• This led to a search for sea-based trade routes

Portuguese Exploration 🇵🇹

• Established a trading post empire around Africa

• Gained a strong foothold in the Indian Ocean trade network

• Used new maritime technologies, such as:

  • Updated astronomical charts

  • Astrolabe

  • New ship designs (smaller, faster, and more nimble)

  • Latin sail and stern post rudder (borrowed technology)

Spanish Exploration 🇪🇸

• After Portugal's success, Spain jumped into the maritime game

• Had just finished the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula from North African Muslim Moors

• Led to a desire to spread Catholic Christianity and seek new economic opportunities in the East

• Christopher Columbus proposed a plan to sail west to find new wealth in Asian markets

Columbian Exchange 🌈

"The transfer of people, animals, plants, and diseases from the East to the West and from the West to the East."

• Food:

  • From the Americas: potatoes, tomatoes, maize

  • From Europe: wheat, rice, soybeans

• Animals:

  • From the Americas: turkeys

  • From Europe: cattle, pigs, horses

• Gold and silver from the Americas were transferred to Europe

• People were also transferred, including Europeans making permanent homes in the Americas and enslaved Africans being introduced to the continent

• Diseases, such as smallpox, were transferred from Europe to the Americas, decimating native populations

• Syphilis was possibly transferred from the Americas to Europe## European Societal and Economic Shifts 📈

The influx of wealth from the Americas had a significant impact on the societal and economic makeup of European states. Feudalism, a system in which peasants lived and worked on a noble's land in exchange for protection, began to shift towards a more capitalistic system.

What is Capitalism?

An economic system based on private ownership and free exchange.

Joint Stock Companies

Joint Stock Companies played a significant role in this shift. These companies were limited liability organizations in which a plurality of investors pooled their money to fund a venture. The limited liability feature meant that if the venture failed, no one suffered the consequences entirely, but if it succeeded, everyone shared in the profits.

Spanish Colonization in the Americas 🌎

The Encomienda System

The Spanish introduced the Encomienda System, an economic system whereby Spaniards forced natives to work on their sprawling plantations and extract gold and silver in other locations. This system benefited the Spaniards for a while, but they soon encountered problems.

Problems with the Encomienda System

• Difficulty keeping natives subservient and enslaved

• Natives dying in massive numbers due to the spread of smallpox

Solution: African Slave Laborers

The Spanish solution to these problems was the importation of African slave laborers to work the plantations. Africans were seen as a good solution because they:

• Didn't know the American geography and were less likely to escape

• Had developed more immunity to European diseases due to their history of interactions with Europeans through vast trade networks in Afro-Eurasia

The Casta System ⚖

As Spain came to dominate Central and South America, they introduced a new system of social classes called the Casta System. This system categorized people in the Americas based on their racial ancestry.

European-Native American Relations 👥

The relationship between Europeans and Native Americans was largely difficult and brutal. Europeans developed elaborate systems of belief to justify their treatment of the natives, including:

• The belief that Native Americans were ontologically less than human

• The use of biblical passages to justify the exploitation of African laborers (e.g., the story of Noah's son Ham)

However, there were also priests like Bartolome de las Casas who opposed this kind of thinking and advocated for the humanity and dignity of Native Americans.