1.2: Native American societies pre-European contact

• spread of maize cultivation from Mexico north into the American Southwest supported economic development, settlement, advanced irrigation, and societal changes

  • great basins+grasslands of western great plains: aridity leads to the development of mostly mobile lifestyles

  • Northeast—> Mississippi River Valley and Atlantic Seaboard: mixed agricultural and hunter-gather economies, permanent settlements

  • Northwest: societies mostly supported by hunter-gathering and, in some areas, developed settled communities supported by ocean’s resources

1.3: European Exploration

• European nations’ efforts to explore and conquer the world stemmed from the search for new sources of wealth, economic and military competition, and the desire to spread Christianity

  • Key themes: Mercantilism, God-Gold-Glory

1.4: Effects of Columbian Exchange

• Improvements in maritime technology and more organized methods for conducting international trade help drive changes.

  • Joint-stock companies, Navigation act

• Spanish exploration and conquest brought deadly epidemics that decimated native Americans. The Spanish were also aided by introducing crops and livestock not found in the Americas.

• Diseases came mostly from livestock, which Europeans already had resistance to

  • Influenza, Measles, Chicken Pox, Mumps, Typhus, Smallpox

• Throughout this, Native people and Africans brought to the Americas fought to maintain cultural identities in the face of colonialism

Key Terms:

migration

Great Basin

Mississippi River Valley

Hunter Gatherer Societies

Columbian Exchange

joint-stock companies

encomienda system

caste system

Native Americans

European disease

Impact of contact between Europeans and Native Americans

Comparison between Spanish and English colonization

mercantilism

conquistadores

African slave trade

Nationalism

Northwest passage

Puritans

Pueblo Revolt (1680)