Period 1

Native American Societies Before European Contact

Societies of Southwest

• Depend on maize

• Spread from Mexico to North America

• Fostered economic development and social diversification among Native Americans

• Pueblo people (Anasazi)

  • Lived in small towns - pueblos starting from year 900

  • Four corners - Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico

  • 13th-14th century - volcano + drought - dispersed and led to conflict

  • Some joined with Zunis and Hopis in NewMexico, others joined communities in the Rio Grande

  • Great Migration 

Societies of the Great Basin and Great Plains

• Mobile lifestyles - lack of natural resources

• Shoshone, Paiute, and Ute Peoples of the Great Basin

  • Great Basin - area between Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada Mountains

  • Desert, arid conditions, drought

  • “Desert culture” - made baskets as opposed to sedentary groups that made pottery

• American Indians of the Great Plains

  • Great Plains - Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains

  • Plains Indians are stereotype Native Americans

  • Most hunted on foot and maintained a mobile lifestyle

  • Some who were closer to the Mississippi developed more sedentary, agrarian lifestyles

Societies of the East

• Atlantic = mix of agricultural and hunter-gatherer economies 

• Fostered the development of permanent settlements

• Algonquian Peoples

  • Atlantic coast - hunted, fished, grew corn

  • Those in the upper Great Lakes/New England - cold = no agriculture, relied on hunting and fishing

• Iroquois Great League of Peace

  • A group of Iroquoian-speaking people formed the Iroquois League

  • Formed in order to end fighting among is groups

  • They lived in permanent villages

  • Relied on farming, gathering, hunting, and fishing - mostly farming however

  • Three sisters - corn, beans, squash

  • Traditionally matrilineal society - inheritance and descent pass through the mother’s line

Societies of the Pacific Northwest

• In areas of present day California - foraging + hunting + resources of the Pacific Ocean and rivers

• Chinook People of the Pacific Northwest

  • The Chinook people lived in Washington and Oregon

  • High degree of economic development and social stratification

  • A higher caste of people - shamans, warriors, wealthy merchants - lived separate from the commoners

• Many Chinook people lived in longhouses - 50 ppl

European Exploration in the Americas

Factors contributing to European Exploration

• Explain why the age of exploration took place when it did

• The Crusades and the Revival of Trade

  • Trade routes and international economic activity shifted power

  • Became interested in finding new trade routes with the east

• Black Death and the Decline of Feudalism

  • Black Death played a role in the decline of feudalism

  • Opened up opportunities for survivors - work was in high demand and food and land were more plentiful

• Renaissance

  • Spirit of exploration

  • Scholarly spirit to map new areas

  • Gutenberg’s printing press

• Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation

  • Puritans flee to North America

  • Jesuits devote themselves to spreading their gospel throughout the world

Columbian Exchange, Spanish Exploration, and Conquest

The Impact of Exploration and Conquest on Europe

• New sources of wealth helped the transition from feudalism to capitalism

• New crops + livestock = population growth in Europe

• The Impact of the Columbian Exchange on Europe

  • Revolutionized agriculture

  • Supplemented the meager diets of the peasants

  • Introduction of tobacco

• Economic Impact of Conquest

  • Conquest did not necessarily bring improvements to Spain

  • The influx of gold and silver caused inflation

  • Taxes went up fivefold to pay for military expenditure

  • Spain went into debt and borrowed money from European banks, eventually ending in a depression on the Spanish economy

Technological Advances and New Economic Structures

• Technological Advances and a Revolution in Navigation

  • Compass

  • Astrolabe

  • Quadrant

  • Hourglass

  • Portolani - detailed maps

• Joint-stock company

  • Important engine for exploration and colonization

  • Investors propelled expeditions to the New World

  • Risks were spread out across multiple shareholders

Spanish and Portuguese Models

• First expeditions were by the Spanish and Portuguese

• Portugal and Spain Lead the Way

  • Prince Henry the Navigator searched for new trade routes to Asia that avoided the Mediterranean

  • Eventually sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and reached India

  • Spain sent Columbus and reached the Carribean

• Spanish and Portuguese Ambitions

  • Treaty of Tordesillas

  • Spaniards later established the first permanent European settlement at St. Augustine, Florida

• Conquistadores and the Defeat of Native Peoples

  • Defeat of the Aztecs by Cortes and defeat of the Incas by Pizarro

• Disease and Death

  • No immunities to European diseases

  • 90% of them died

Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System

Spanish Exploitation of New World Resources

• Spain created the encomienda system to extract gold and silver and ship it to Spain

• Spain soon became the wealthiest country in Europe with the influx of precious metals

• Silver and the Encomienda System

  • Spanish settlers were granted tracts of land and the right to extract labor from natives

  • Old World Feudalism

  • Bartholomew de Las Casas

Spain and the African Slave Trade

• Impact of the Slave Trade

• Slavery existed in Europe even before the discovery of the New World

• Destabilized African communities by taking out strong, young people

• Introduction of European goods undermined the African economy

• Resistance to Slavery and the Development of Maroon Communities

  • Africans developed cultural resistance that attempted to preserve traditional cultural patterns and maintain autonomy

  • Maroons were Africans who escaped slavery in the New World and established independent communities - many in Carribean and Brazil

  • Preserve African traditions using medicinal herbs, special drumming and dancing as part of healing rituals

  • Most significant Maroon communities - Palmares - 30,000 residents independent until conquered by Portuguese in 1694

Social Structure of Spanish America

• Spanish Caste system

• The Casta System

  • Spaniards were always outnumbered by natives

  • Spanish men outnumbered spanish women → intermarriage

  • Caste:

    • Peninsulares - born in Spain

    • Creoles - born in the New World of Spanish Parents

    • Mestizos - children of Spanish men and Indian women - 4-5% of Spain’s New World Empire

    • Mulattos - children of Spanish men and African women

    • Native Americans

    • Africans

Cultural Interactions between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans

Interactions, Trade, and Cultural Adaptations in the New World

• Each side adopted some useful aspects of the other’s culture

• Cultural Misunderstandings

  • Conflict between Indians and Europeans as both groups tried to make sense of each other

  • Matrilineal vs. Patrilineal

  • Indians did not understand individual ownership of land - it was seen as a community resource

• Religious Adaptation in the New World

  • Some Native Americans adopted Christianity

  • Some adopted Catholicism completely while others incorporated some aspects into traditional practices

Resistance by American Indians and Africans

• Native American Resistance in Spain’s New World Colonies

  • Some fled from Spaniards

  • Some Guale Indians led a revolt against the mission at St. Augustine - Juanillo’s Revolt - resulting in the death of several missionaries

• Juan de Onate and the Acoma Pueblo People

  • New Mexico

  • Juan de Onate and his soldiers occupied held by the Acoma Pueblo people

  • The Acoma attacked the Spanish occupiers, killing 15

  • Onate responded by firing cannons and killing over 800 natives

  • The remaining 500 were enslaved

Debates around Perceptions of American Indians

• Development of the Belief of White Superiority

  • As mixing of races occurred → pure blood

  • European control of Natives and Africans → white supremacy

    • Justified the Spanish belief that they were at the top of the hierarchy

• Debates over Spain’s Actions in the New World

  • Encomienda System → Bartholomew de Las Casas

  • Juan Gines de Sepulveda - asserted that Indians were beings of an inferior order

  • Natural slaves according to natural law

The Nature of Spanish Conquest and Colonization

• “Black Legend” was a term coined in 1914 to describe the anti-Spanish propaganda written by the English, Italian, Dutch, and other European writers

• English writers may have been trying to demonize the Spanish to portray English behavior in the New World in a more favorable light

• Look at the source of the documents in question