AP US History Notes: Period 1 (1491-1607 C.E.)

Period 1 (1491-1607 C.E.)

Five Things to Know

  • Before European arrival, diverse American Indian tribes with unique religious, political, and cultural beliefs were scattered across North and South America.
  • European countries aimed to conquer the New World for wealth, military status, and to spread Christianity. This exploration led to negative repercussions for native populations, including epidemics and forced labor like the Spanish encomienda system.
  • Relationships between Europeans and American Indians were strained by misunderstandings and conflicts over land, resources, and differing cultural beliefs.
  • The Columbian Exchange brought significant social, cultural, and political changes to both Europeans and American Indians. New food crops and mineral wealth spurred demographic, economic, and social changes in Europe. The Americas were impacted by new food crops and animals.
  • As native populations declined, Europeans turned to Africa for forced labor, resulting in the early plantation system and widespread slavery in the Americas.

Key Topics

Native Populations Before European Arrival
  • Three Sisters: Staple crops (corn, beans, and squash) crucial to many North American native tribes. The name highlights their interdependence: cornstalks support bean growth, and squash retains soil moisture for all three.
  • Great League of Peace (Haudenosaunee): A political confederation of five, later six, Iroquois tribes aimed at coordinating collective action while maintaining individual tribal systems and beliefs. Believed to have formed around 1450.
The Columbian Exchange
  • Christopher Columbus: Italian explorer who, in 1492, while seeking a westward route to East Asia, reached the Bahamas. He was the first European to visit Hispaniola and Cuba.
  • Amerigo Vespucci: Italian explorer and cartographer whose 1499–1502 voyage along the South American coast revealed the New World as distinct from Asia.
  • Columbian Exchange: The interchange of plants, animals, diseases, cultures, human populations (including slaves), and technologies between the New World and the Old World. It greatly benefited Europe and Asia while causing catastrophe to American Indian populations and cultures.
European Expansion
  • Jacques Cartier: French explorer who developed a fur trade with American Indians and named the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and its surroundings “the Country of Canadas,” derived from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word for village/settlement.
  • Samuel de Champlain: French explorer known as “The Father of New France.” Founded Quebec in 1608 and created the first accurate maps of modern-day Eastern Canada.
  • Treaty of Tordesillas: Signed in 1494 between Spain and Portugal to divide Christopher Columbus’s New World discoveries, granting Portugal influence over what would become Brazil.
  • Spanish Requirement of 1513: Spain asserted its divine right to conquer the New World, claiming to rescue natives from hedonism.
  • Vasco Núñez de Balboa: Spanish explorer and conquistador who, in 1513, led the first European overland expedition to the Pacific, crossing the Isthmus of Panama.
  • Juan Ponce de León: Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the first European expedition to Florida in 1513. The search for the Fountain of Youth is often associated with him, although this is considered a myth.
  • Ferdinand Magellan: Portuguese explorer who led a Spanish expedition from 1519 to 1522 that was the first to circumnavigate the Earth. He died in battle in the Philippines in 1521, and command was transferred to Juan Sebastián Elcano.
  • Hernán Cortés: Spanish conquistador whose expedition conquered the Aztec Empire, bringing large parts of modern-day Mexico under Spanish control. He famously destroyed his own ships to prevent his men from abandoning the campaign.
  • Conquistadores: A general term for soldiers and explorers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires. They colonized what became Latin America from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries.
  • Encomienda: A legal system established by the Spanish crown where conquistadores or officials received a number of American Indians to extract tribute from while instructing them in the Roman Catholic faith. In practice, it was a form of slavery.
  • Repartimiento: Replaced the encomienda system. American Indians living in native villages were legally free, rendering indigenous slavery legally nonexistent. Natives received land and pay for labor and could not be bought and sold, but were still abused by Spanish authorities.
  • Juan de Oñate: A conquistador born in New Spain (modern-day Mexico). He established the first permanent colonial settlement in the modern-day American Southwest. He is infamous for the 1599 Acoma Massacre, in which over 800 American Indians were killed. He was later recalled to Spain and convicted for cruelty toward natives and colonists alike.
  • Sir Walter Raleigh: English polymath. One of the most important figures of the Elizabethan era. Granted permission by Queen Elizabeth I to explore and colonize the New World in exchange for one-fifth of all the gold and silver obtained. He founded Roanoke.
  • Roanoke: Nicknamed “the Lost Colony.” The first attempted English colony in the New World, founded in 1585 by Sir Walter Raleigh on an island off the modern-day North Carolina coast. By 1590, its inhabitants had vanished for reasons that remain unknown.
  • Virginia Company: The collective name for two joint-stock companies (one of London, the other of Plymouth) with identical charters but different territorial claims. Chartered in 1606 by King James I to settle the North American eastern coastline.