APUSH Unit 1-4 Notes

Iroquois

• Lived communally in longhouses constructed from timber.

European Arrival in The Americas

• European states were undergoing political unification in the 1300s and 1400s, leading to stronger, more centralized states.

• This resulted in a growing upper class with a taste for luxury goods from Asia.

• The Ottoman Muslims controlled land-based trade routes, hindering European trade.

• Europeans began searching for sea routes to Asia.

Portuguese Exploration

• Portugal established a trading post empire around Africa and into the Indian Ocean.

Spanish Exploration

• Spain aimed to access lucrative trade in the Indian Ocean and Asia.

• They sailed west to find new paths to Asian markets due to Portugal's monopoly.

• The Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula fueled a desire to spread Christianity.

• Christopher Columbus was sponsored by the Spanish crown to sail west, leading to the discovery of The Americas.

• This discovery led to competition among European states for exploration and claiming new lands.

Colombian Exchange

• Definition: The transfer of people, animals, plants, and diseases between the East and West (Old World to New World, New World to Old World).

Examples:

• Crops from The Americas to Europe: potatoes, maize.

• Crops from Europe to The Americas: wheat, rice.

• Animals from The Americas to Europe: turkeys.

• Animals from Europe to The Americas: cattle, pigs, horses.

Significance:

• Expanded diets led to longer lifespans and population increases, especially in Europe.

• Diseases from Europe (smallpox, measles) devastated indigenous populations in The Americas.

• Minerals (gold and silver) from The Americas facilitated the European shift from feudalism to proto-capitalism.

Spanish Impact on The Americas

• The encomienda system used indigenous forced labor for plantations and mining.

• Indigenous populations were decimated by European diseases.

• The rise of African slavery occurred as European powers partnered with West Africans to replace native labor.

• The casta system categorized people based on race and ancestry with native-born Spaniards at the top and Africans/Native Americans at the bottom.

Changing Understandings Between Europeans and Native Americans

• Differing views on land use: Europeans saw land as a commodity, while Native Americans had a spiritual connection to the land.

• Religious differences: Europeans were primarily Christians, while Native Americans practiced pantheistic religions.

Debate on the Relationship Between Europeans and Native Americans:

• Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda argued that Native Americans were less than human and benefited from harsh labor conditions.

• Bartolomé de las Casas argued for the dignity of Native Americans as human beings.

Motivations for Colonization

• Spanish: Extraction of wealth (gold, silver, cash crops) and spreading Christianity led to subjugation of native populations.

• French and Dutch: Establishing trade partnerships (especially fur trade) with few permanent settlements (Quebec for French, New Amsterdam for Dutch).

• British: Social mobility, economic prosperity, religious freedom due to inflation, enclosure movement, and religious persecution.

• Goals summarized: gold, god, and glory.

British Colonies in North America

• Chesapeake Region (Jamestown, 1607): Wealth extraction with a population mainly of men (indentured servants, later enslaved Africans).

• Tobacco cultivation made it profitable.

• New England Region (1620s): Settled by Puritan families seeking religious freedom; goal was to establish a colony shaped by religious principles.

• British West Indies and Southern Atlantic Coastal Colonies: Warm climates facilitated cash crop economies (tobacco, sugar), increasing demand for African laborers.

• Middle Colonies (New York, New Jersey): Trade hubs with diverse populations focused on exporting cereal crops.

Governance:

• New England colonies were largely self-governing due to distance from Britain.

• Examples: Mayflower Compact, House of Burgesses in Virginia.

Transatlantic Trade

• Triangular trade: Merchants carried rum from New England to West Africa for enslaved people, then to the Caribbean for sugarcane.

• Mercantilism: Dominant economic system where colonies provided raw materials to the parent country.

• Britain controlled trade through the Navigation Acts.

• Mercantilism sought to accumulate wealth by controlling gold and silver.

Conflicts and Interactions with Native Americans

• Metacom's War (King Philip's War): Chief of the Wampanoag Indians resisted British encroachment with attacks on settlements.

• Pueblo Revolt: Pueblo resistance to Spanish land grabs and Christianizing missions; Spanish eventually accommodated certain aspects of American Indian culture.

Slavery in British Colonies

• Reliance on enslaved African laborers varied among colonies (highest in the Caribbean and Southern colonies, lowest in New England).

• Enslaved people were considered chattel (property).

• Despite oppression, enslaved people maintained their culture and resisted the system.

Growing Mistrust in American Colonies

• American colonies were becoming more Anglicized but also developing autonomous political communities.

• British impressment (seizing colonial men for the Royal Navy) led to resistance.

• Colonists were becoming increasingly aware of their natural rights and viewed actions like impressment as violations.

Tension Between Britain and American Colonies

• The French and Indian War led to increased land for the American colonies, but a greater burden of taxation.

Causes of the French and Indian War:

• Conflict between the French and the British.

• The British victory ousted the French from North America.

• The Louisiana territory was transferred to Spain.

• Britain doubled their land holdings in North America.

• Moving west led to more conflicts with Native Americans.

• The British government's parliament passes a an injunction known as the proclamation line of 1763.

Taxation Without Colonial Representation

• Due to the increased war debt, the British levied taxes on the colonies.

• New taxes caused angst due to a long period of solitary neglect.

Taxation Policies:

• Stricter enforcement of the Navigation Act.

• The Quartering Act.

• The Stamp Act (tax on all paper items).

• Parliament is extracting taxes from us without our consent.
  *Colonists object on the grounds that they have no representation in parliament.
  *Parliament says there's virtual representation.
  *Colonists respond with the Stamp Act Congress.
  *British keep introducing new taxes like the Townshend Acts.
  *Tension reaches a boiling point in the Boston Massacre in which British imperial officers fire into a a crowd of colonists, killed 11 of them.

• The Boston Tea Party, in which colonists dumped massive amounts of tea, very expensive, into the Boston Harbor.

• The British response to that is the Coercive Acts, which is to shut down, Boston Harbor until they paid for their lost tea.
  *News of this is starting to spread throughout all the colonies, and there's there's, like, a growing support for the the patriot movement.

Enlightenment Influence

• Enlightenment ideals (natural rights, social contract, separation of powers) influenced the American independence movement, especially Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence.

• Thomas Paine's Common Sense argued that independence was the only way forward.

• The Declaration of Independence was deeply influenced by enlightenment thought.

Revolutionary War and Independence

• Loyalists opposed independence, while Patriots favored it.

• George Washington led the Continental Army.

• The Battle of Saratoga (1777) convinced France to ally with Americans.

• The war ended with the Battle of Yorktown in 1781.

Articles of Confederation

• The first constitution of The United States, federal government was too weak.

• States had their own constitutions before, during, and after the revolution.

• Federal power was put into a legislative body.

• There was no president no executive judicial. There was additionally no provision for a national military, no power to tax the states.

• The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, provided a plan for how unformed territories could apply to the union for statehood.

• Shays' Rebellion exposed the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation.

Constitutional Convention

• The convention was called to draft a new constitution.

Factions:

• Federalists favored a stronger central government.

• Antifederalists favored more state power.

• Compromises: We're going to have a bicameral legislature with two houses. In the house of representatives, the people will be represented by population. In the senate, each state will be represented equally. (Connecticut Compromise)
  They also made a compromise over slavery. This is known as the three fifths compromise, and it just basically said that, for purposes of representation, three fifths of the enslaved population would count towards that goal.

• Federalists won the debate by agreeing to the Antifederalist demands for a bill of rights to be added to the constitution.

Constitution of The United States

*Federalism: Sharing of power between federal government and the state government.

• The provision for that comes from the tenth amendment in the bill of rights.

• Separation of powers: Legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

Impact of the American Revolution

• Renewed debate on the morality of slavery, which led to Northern states begin the process of emancipation, but, Southern states become much more entrenched in the institution.
  *Development of the idea of the republican motherhood assigned women a new purpose, which is that the best way that women could influence political realities even though they didn't have power to vote or anything like that. But if women wanted to influence political realities realities, they could raise virtuous sons instructed in the principles of liberty.
  *. The Haitian revolution -Haiti was a colony of France. It had a majority black enslaved population. And the Haitian revolution, overthrow French colonial leadership, and become their own independent state.

Precedents Set by Washington and Adams:

*Washington set a one President Precedent. Set up for the National Bank. Put down the Whiskey Rebellion.

• Alien and sedition act makes it illegal to criticize the Government
  *Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. And this is important. In the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, essentially, the argument goes, if the federal government passes a law that is clearly unconstitutional, then states have the right to nullify them.

National Identify:

1. Art devoted to historical themes like John Wilson Peel, John Trumbull.

2. Literature goes, you've got Benjamin Franklin's, poor Richard's Almanac, which was full of all these aphorisms, it helped shape American identity as, people who are industrious, very hardworking.

3. Architecture, especially the classical revival style in Thomas Jefferson's home Monticello, which, you know, they have the columns and the dome.
   Americans are starting to form and discover their own particular, artistic identity.