APUSH Unit 1 Review Notes

Native Societies Before European Arrival

  • Diverse societies existed based on the environments they inhabited.
  • Not a monolithic group; diversity was prevalent.

Pueblo People

  • Located in present-day Utah and Colorado.
  • Farmers with settled populations.
  • Cultivated crops like beans, squash, and maize.
  • Demonstrated advanced irrigation systems.
  • Built urban centers from hardened clay bricks.
  • Famous for magnificent cliff dwellings.

Great Basin and Great Plains Region

  • Nomadic hunter-gatherers (e.g., Ute people).
  • Organized into small egalitarian kinship bands.
  • Wandered the Great Plains hunting buffalo.
  • Did not build cities or towns.

Northwest and Pacific Coast

  • Permanent settlements due to abundant resources (fish, small game, plants).
  • Chumash people in California:
    • Built villages sustaining nearly 1,000 people.
    • Participated in regional trade networks.
  • Chinook peoples in the Pacific Northwest:
    • Similar to Chumash but built extensive plank houses for families and kinship groups.

Northeast

  • Iroquois people:
    • Farmers.
    • Lived communally in longhouses constructed from timber.

Mississippi River Valley

  • Farmers due to rich soil.
  • Participated in trade along waterways.
  • Cahokia civilization:
    • Population around 40,000.
    • Centralized government led by chieftains.

Key Takeaway

  • Native societies were distinct and complex, shaped by their environment.
  • Utilized vast trading networks across North and South America.

European Arrival

European Context (1300s-1400s)

  • European kingdoms were undergoing political unification.
  • Development of stronger, centralized states governed by monarchs.
  • Growing wealthy upper class with a taste for luxury goods from Asia.

Trade Challenges

  • Muslims controlled land-based trade routes to Asia.
  • Europeans sought sea-based routes for trade.

Portuguese Exploration

  • Portugal was the first European mover.
  • Established trading posts around Africa (trading post empire).
  • Gained a foothold in the Indian Ocean trade network.

Maritime Technology

  • Updated astronomical charts.
  • Astrolabe for reckoning.
  • New ship designs: smaller, faster, and nimble for trade.
  • Borrowed technology:
    • Latine sail.
    • Stern post rudder (for accurate navigation).

Spanish Exploration

  • Spain entered the maritime game after the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors.
    • Motivated to spread Catholic Christianity.
    • Sought new economic opportunities.

Christopher Columbus

  • Sought sponsorship from Ferdinand and Isabella to sail west to Asian markets.
  • Columbus set sail in 1492 and landed in the Caribbean.
  • His arrival marked a major turning point, leading to ecological and cultural exchange.

Columbian Exchange

  • Definition: The transfer of people, animals, plants, and diseases between the East and the West.

Specific Transfers

  • Food:
    • From Americas to Europe: potatoes, tomatoes, maize.
    • From Europe to Americas: wheat, rice, soybeans.
  • Animals:
    • From Americas to Europe: turkeys.
    • From Europe to Americas: cattle, pigs, horses.
  • Resources:
    • Gold and silver from the Americas to Europe.
  • People:
    • Europeans migrated to the Americas.
    • Introduction of enslaved Africans to the Americas.
  • Disease:
    • Smallpox from Europe to the Americas (devastating to native populations due to lack of immunity).
    • Syphilis (?Possible) from Americas to Europe.

Impact on Europe

  • Influx of wealth led to a shift from feudalism to capitalism.

Capitalism

  • Economic system based on private ownership and free exchange.
  • Rise of joint-stock companies to fund exploration:
    • Limited liability organizations where investors pooled money.

Spanish Colonization

Encomienda System

  • Economic system where Spaniards forced natives to work on plantations and extract gold and silver.
  • Problems:
    • Difficulty keeping natives subservient (escapes).
    • Native population decline due to smallpox.

Solution

  • Importation of African enslaved laborers.
    • Africans were less likely to escape (unfamiliar with the geography).
    • Greater immunity to European diseases due to prior contact.

Casta System

  • Social hierarchy based on racial ancestry.
    • Peninsulares: Spaniards born in Spain.
    • Criollos (Creoles): Spaniards born in the Americas.
    • Castas:
      • Mestizos: Spanish and Native American blood.
      • Mulatos: Spanish and African blood.
    • Africans.
    • Native Americans.

European Views of Natives

  • Natives were seen as good for exploitation, military alliances, forced labor, and Christian conversion.
  • Relationships were often difficult and brutal.
  • Europeans developed belief systems to justify their treatment.

Cultural Adoption

  • Natives taught the English how to hunt and cultivate maize.
  • Natives adopted iron tools and weapons from the English.

Belief Systems Justifying Treatment

  • Some Spaniards believed Native Americans were less than human.
  • Priests like Juan Guines de Sepulveda argued natives benefited from harsh labor conditions.

Opposition

  • Bartolome de las Casas defended the humanity of the natives and persuaded the king to end slavery of natives (laws later repealed).

Justification for African Slavery

  • Based on a biblical interpretation (curse of Ham).
  • Africans were seen as destined to be slaves due to their skin color (misinterpretation of the Bible).