APUSH Period 1 (1491-1607): Chapter 1

Indigenous Societies in the Americas: Prior to European contact, a variety of Native American civilizations existed across North and South America. These included advanced societies like the Aztecs and Incas in the South and complex cultures like the Mayans. These societies had rich cultural traditions, agricultural practices, and political structures.

(Cultures of Central and South America) Several centuries after the decline of the Mayas, the Aztecs from central Mexico developed a powerful empire. The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, had a population of about 200,000, equivalent in population to the largest cities of Europe. While the Aztecs were dominating Mexico and Central America, the Incas based in Peru developed a vast empire in South America. All three civilizations developed highly organized societies, carried on an extensive trade, and created calendars that were based on accurate scientific observations. All three cultivated crops that provided a stable food supply, particularly corn (maize) for the Mayas and Aztecs and potatoes for the Incas.
(Cultures of North America) The population in the region north of Mexico (present-day United States and Canada) in the 1490s may have been anywhere from under 1 million to more than 10 million. In general, the native societies in this region were smaller and less sophisticated than those in Mexico and South America. One reason for this was how slowly the cultivation of corn (maize) spread northward from Mexico.
(Culture of North America) Beyond these similarities, the cultures of American Indians were very diverse (Language). In the dry region that now includes New Mexico and Arizona, groups such as the Hokokam, Anasazi, and Pueblos evolved multifaceted societies supported by farming with irrigation systems (Southwest Settlements). Along the Pacific coast from what is today Alaska to northern California, people lived in permanent longhouses or plank houses. They had a rich diet based on hunting, fishing, and gathering nuts, berries, and roots. The high mountain ranges in this region isolated tribes from one another, creating barriers to development (Northwest Settlements). Most people who lived on the Great Plains were either nomadic hunters or sedentary people who farmed and traded. They lived in tepees, frames of poles covered in animal skins, which were easily disassembled and transported. While the farming tribes also hunted buffalo, they lived permanently in earthen lodges often along rivers. They raised corn (maize), beans, and squash while actively trading with other tribes. Not until the 17th century did American Indians acquire horses by trading or stealing them from Spanish settlers (Great Plains)..

European Exploration and Expansion: The chapter highlights the factors driving European exploration, including the desire for new trade routes, the quest for wealth, and the spread of Christianity. Technological advancements, like the compass and improved shipbuilding, facilitated long-distance voyages.

(Improvements in Technology) In Europe, a rebirth of classical learning prompted an outburst of artistic and scientific activity in the 15th and 16th centuries known as the Renaissance. Several of the technological advances during the Renaissance resulted from Europeans making improvements in the inventions of others. Europeans also made major improvements in shipbuilding and mapmaking. In addition, the invention of the printing press in the 1450s aided the spread of knowledge across Europe.
(Religious Conflict) The later years of the Renaissance were a time of intense religious zeal and conflict. The Roman Catholic Church that had once dominated Western Europe was threatened from without by Ottoman Turks who were followers of Islam and from within by a revolt against the pope's authority. In the early 1500s, certain Christians in Germany, England, France, Holland, and other northern European countries revolted against the authority of the pope in Rome. Their revolt was known as the Protestant Reformation. Conflict between Catholics and Protestants led to a series of religious wars. The conflict also caused the Catholics of Spain and Portugal and the Protestants of England and Holland to want to spread their own versions of Christianity to people in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Thus, a religious motive for exploration and colonization was added to political and economic motives (Protestant Revolt in Northern Europe).
Europe was also changing politically in the 15th century. Small kingdoms, such as Castile and Aragon, were uniting into larger ones. Enormous multiethnic empires, such as the sprawling Holy Roman Empire in central Europe, were breaking up. Replacing the small kingdoms and the multiethnic empires were nation-states, countries in which the majority of people shared both a common culture and common loyalty toward a central government. The monarchs of the emerging nation-states, such as Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain; Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal; and similar monarchs of France, England, and the Netherlands; depended on trade to bring in needed revenues and on the church to justify their right to rule. They used their power to search for riches abroad and to spread the influence of their version of Christianity to new overseas dominions (Developing Nation States).
(Christopher Columbus) Columbus spent eight years seeking financial support for his plan to sail west from Europe to the "Indies." Finally, in 1492, he succeeded in winning the backing of Isabella and Ferdinand. The two Spanish monarchs were then at the height of their power, having just defeated the Moors in Granada. They agreed to outfit three ships and to make Columbus governor, admiral, and viceroy of all the lands that he would claim for Spain. Columbus died in 1506, still believing that he had found a western route to Asia. However, many Spaniards viewed Columbus as a failure because they suspected that he had found not a valuable trade route, but a "New World." Furthermore, Columbus's voyages brought about, for the first time in history, permanent interaction between people from all over the globe.

The Columbian Exchange: The chapter discusses the biological and cultural exchanges that occurred after Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage, which included the transfer of plants, animals, diseases, and ideas between the Old World (Europe, Africa, Asia) and the New World (the Americas). This exchange significantly impacted both the indigenous populations and the European settlers.

Europeans learned about many new plants and foods, including beans, corn, sweet and white potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco. They also contracted a new disease, syphilis. Europeans introduced to the Americas sugar cane, bluegrasses, pigs, and horses, as well as the wheel, iron implements, and guns. Deadlier than all the guns was the European importation of germs and diseases, such as smallpox and measles, to which the natives had no immunity. Millions died (there was a mortality rate of more than 90 percent), including entire tribal communities.

Early Spanish and Portuguese Colonization: The Spanish and Portuguese were the first European powers to establish colonies in the Americas. Spain focused on exploring the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, while Portugal concentrated on Brazil. The chapter examines their methods of colonization, which included the encomienda system and the establishment of large plantations worked by enslaved Native Americans and Africans.

Spain and Portugal were the first European kingdoms to claim territories in the Americas. Their claims overlapped, leading to disputes. The Catholic monarchs of the two countries turned to the pope in Rome to resolve their differences. In 1493, the pope drew a vertical, north-south line on a world map, called the line of demarcation. The pope granted Spain all lands to the west of the line and Portugal all lands to the east. In 1494, Spain and Portugal moved the pope's line a few degrees to the west and signed an agreement called the Treaty of Tordesillas. The line passed through what is now the country of Brazil. This treaty, together with Portuguese explorations, established Portugal's claim to Brazil. Spain claimed the rest of the Americas. However, other European countries soon challenged these claims.
The conquests of the Aztecs in Mexico by Heman Cortes, and the conquest of the Incas in Peru by Francisco Pizzaro secured Spain's initial supremacy in the Americas.
The conquistadores sent ships loaded with gold and silver back to Spain from Mexico and Peru. They increased the gold supply by more than 500 percent, making Spain the richest and most powerful nation in Europe. Spain's success encouraged other nations to tum to the Americas in search of gold and power. After seizing the wealth of the Indian empires, the Spanish instituted an encomienda system, with the king of Spain giving grants of land and natives to individual Spaniards. These Indians had to farm or work in the mines. The fruits of their labors went to their Spanish masters, who in tum had to "care" for them. As Europeans' diseases and brutality reduced the native population, the Spanish brought enslaved people from West Africa under the asiento system. This required the Spanish to pay a tax to their king on each slave they imported to the Americas.
(Spanish Settlements in North America) Florida After a number of failed attempts and against the strong resistance of American Indians in the region, the Spanish established a permanent settlement at St. Augustine in 1565. Today, St. Augustine is the oldest city in North America founded by Europeans.

Impact on Native Americans: European arrival had devastating effects on Native American societies, including warfare, disease, and the displacement from their lands. These events set the stage for the complex relationships between Native Americans and European settlers in subsequent centuries.

(English Claims) England's earliest claims to territory in the Americas rested on the voyages of John Cabot, an Italian sea captain who sailed under contract to England's King Henry VII. Cabot explored the coast of Newfoundland in 1497. England, however, did not follow up Cabot's discoveries with other expeditions of exploration and settlement. Another English adventurer, Sir Walter Raleigh, attempted to establish a settlement at Roanoke Island off the North Carolina coast in 1587, but the venture failed.
(French Claims) The first permanent French settlement in America was established by Samuel de Champlain in 1608 at Quebec. In 1673, Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette explored the upper Mississippi River, and in 1682, Robert de La Salle explored the Mississippi basin, which he named Louisiana.
(Dutch Claims) The Dutch government hired Henry Hudson, an experienced English sailor, to seek westward passage to Asia through northern America. In 1609, while searching for a northwest passage, Hudson sailed up a broad river that was later named for him, the Hudson River. This expedition established Dutch claims to the surrounding area that would become New Amsterdam (and later
New York). The Dutch government granted a private company, the Dutch West India Company, the right to control the region for economic gain.
(Spanish Policy) Even after diseases killed most natives, millions
remained in these empires that the Spanish could incorporate as laborers in their own empire. Many natives who did not die from disease died from forced labor. Because few families came from Spain to settle the empire, the explorers and soldiers intermarried with natives as well as with Africans. One European who dissented from the views of most Europeans toward Native Americans was a Spanish priest named Bartolome de Las Casas. Though he had owned land and slaves in the West Indies and had fought in wars against the Indians, he eventually became an advocate for better treatment for Indians. He persuaded the king to institute the New Laws of 1542. These laws ended Indian slavery, halted forced Indian labor, and began to end the encomienda system which kept the Indians in serfdom. Conservative Spaniards, eager to keep the encomienda system, responded and successfully pushed the king to repeal parts of the New Laws.
(English Policy) Unlike the Spanish, the English settled in areas without large native empires that could be controlled as a workforce. In addition, many English colonists came in families rather than as single young men, so marriage with natives was less common. Initially, at least in Massachusetts, the English and the American Indians coexisted, traded, and shared ideas. American Indians taught the settlers how to grow new crops such as corn (maize) and showed them how to hunt in the forests. They traded various furs for an array of English manufactured goods, including iron tools and weapons. But peaceful relations soon gave way to conflict and open warfare. The English had no respect for American Indian cultures, which they viewed as primitive or "savage." For their part, American Indians saw their way of life threatened as the English began to take more land to support their ever-increasing population. The English occupied the land and forced the small, scattered tribes they encountered to move away from the coast to inland territories. They expelled the natives rather than subjugating them.
(French Policy) The French, looking for furs and converts to Catholicism, viewed American Indians as potential economic and military allies. Compared to the Spaniards and the English, the French maintained good relations with the tribes they encountered.
(Native American Reaction) North American tribes saw themselves as groups distinct from each other, not as part of a larger body of Native Americans. As a result, European settlers rarely had to be concerned with a unified response from the Native Americans. Initially the European goods such as copper pots and guns had motivated the natives to interact with the strangers. After the decimation of their peoples from the violence and disease of the Europeans, the Native Americans had to adopt new ways to survive. Upon observing the Europeans fighting each other, some tribes allied themselves with one European power or another in hopes of gaining support in order to survive. A number of tribes simply migrated to new land to get away from the slowly encroaching settlers.

Reasons for European Expansion