APUSH Period 1 Study Guide

APUSH Complete Study Guide

Period 1: 1491-1607

1491: One year prior to the arrival of Columbus

1607: establishment of Jamestown

1. Society/Politics of Indigenous People

  • Native American Societies: diverse, varied, geography plays significant role in the development of those differences
  • Maize = stable crop that supported many, led to the development of larger and more complex societies

Effects of Maize cultivation:

1. Economic development

2. Permanent Settlements societies located in one place, lead to increased social and political complexity

3. Advanced irrigation techniques

4. Social Diversification: settlement/society becomes more complex, labor becomes more specialized and social hierarchies develop to organize people into more powerful and less powerful groups

Northeast

Iroquois: semi-sedentary and relied on maize and used trees for housing (longhouses) and multi-generational families

Mississippian and Atlantic Coast:

Cherokee: maize, beans, squash, agricultural, semi-sedentary, men hunted and women grew crops, migrated with seasons

• Many cultures were matrilineal: power passed through generations on the mother's side

• river valleys = rich soil

• large societies (4-6k population)

Great Plains and Great Basin

• hot/dry climate

• nomadic lifestyle

• lived in extended family groups migrated with seasons

• mobile shelters (teepees)

Pacific Coast

• Did not practice agriculture

• built permanent settlements

• Utilized ocean for food

1492: Europeans arrive for…

• Gold, God, and Glory (3 G’s)

Cause 1: Gold (economic motives)

1. Renaissance

• sparked cultural and technological innovations

Shipbuilding and maritime technologies:

• Caravel: fast & highly navigation ship

• Lateen sail: took wind from both directions

• Magnetic Compass: direction

• Astrolabe: latitude

•Joint-stock companies

• Funded European exploration through several investors opposed to a single source of funding (ex. gov)

• Portugal was first to create a trading post empire all around Africa

• Spain wanted to compete, so they sent Columbus

2. Conquistadors

• subdued population and found wealth

3. Feudalism replaced by Capitalism

4. Agriculture and cash crops

•Encomienda labor system: coerced labor system

• Spanish crown granted tracts of land to encomerendos who forced indigenous people into plantation-based agriculture and mining

• grew profitable crops like sugar cane, tobacco, cotton, etc

• indigenous laborers kept running away or dying from disease so the Spanish slowly replaced indigenous slaves win African slaves

5. Caste System

• Complete reorganization of indigenous societies social structure

according to race based hierarchy put in place by Spaniards

Cause #2: God

1. Dominant Belief system: Christianity

• for long time, Roman Catholic Church was the sole sect of Christianity

• two belief systems fighting for dominance and tied very close to the state, European leaders wanted to show that their particular version of Christianity was better than the other (Catholic vs Protestant)

2. Protestant Reformation

• Split Christian Church in Europe

3. Spain

• unified in 1469 through marriage of Isabella of Castile & Ferdinand Il of Aragon

• Led Reconstruction

• reconquered all areas formerly under Muslim control

•united Spain as Catholic state

• sent Catholic missionaries to convert native populations to Christianity

Cause #3: Glory

1. Political Motivations

• political change was occurring in some European states where large, multi-ethnic empires were breaking apart while small kingdoms were uniting and becoming more powerful

• new political reality where a state ruled over people with similar language and culture, and history (nation-state)

• maritime (sea-based) empires

2. Line of Demarcation

• Decided which New World territories belonged to whom (Treaty of Tordesillas)

The Columbian Exchange: transfer or plants, animals, minerals, diseases, and people between the Old and New Worlds

• The most significant demographic, environmental, and ecological change in world history

The Columbian Exchange

1. Diseases

•smallpox induced by Spanish spread though Mexico and Central America

• killed half of indigenous population

• continued to spread through South America

• Led to African slavery replacing encomienda system

2. Food & Plants

• nutrient rich foods led to healthier Europeans

• population boom after 1700

3. Animals

• Pigs, sheep, cattle, horses

4. Minerals

• gold & silver

5. People

• Indigenous Americans brought to Europe

• Millions of enslaved Africans sent to colonial America to work in cash crop plantations

Cultural Interactions & Their Effects

• as contact between Europeans and natives increased, it became clear that their worldviews were very different

Cultural Adoptions

1. Indigenous Peuples converted tu Chnstianiy

•influenced by spanish missions in North America

• Polytheism: saw no conflict in adding another god to the list

2. Europeans Adopted Aspects of Indigenous Culture

• Natives taught the English local agricultural techniques

• French settlers intermarried with indigenous women to improve trade relations

Indigenous Resistance

1. Diplomatic Negotiations

• allied w/European groups

2. Military Resistance

• Taino Rebellion (1511)

Race Debates

  1. Status of Native Americans and Africans
  2. Valladolid Debates

• debates over encomienda system

  1. Europeans justified African slavery

• used the Bible