APUSH Unit 1 Topic 2: The Americas Before European Arrival

The Americas Before European Arrival

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Introduction

• Unit 1 Topic 2 focuses on Native American societies before European contact.

• The key concept is the diversity of Native American cultures across the continent.

• Avoid generalizing Native Americans as a single group. They lived in diverse ways depending on location, including fishing villages, nomadic lifestyles, farming communities, and city-based empires.

Central and South America

• Three major civilizations emerged with urban centers, political systems, and religions:

  • Aztecs (Mexica) - Central America (Mesoamerica)

    • Capital city: Tenochtitlan (300,000 people at its height).

    • Written language and complex systems of irrigation

    • Cult of fertility maintained by priests and upheld by human sacrifice.

  • Maya - Yucatan Peninsula

    • Developed cities.

    • Complex irrigation and water storage systems.

    • Stone temples and palaces for rulers believed to be descended from gods.

  • Inca - Andes Mountains (present-day Peru)

    • Massive empire: 16,000,000 people, 350,000 square miles.

    • Cultivation of fertile mountain valleys.

    • Grew potatoes and other crops with elaborate irrigation systems.

• Commonality: all three civilizations cultivated maize (corn).

  • Maize cultivation spread north, supporting economic development, settlement, irrigation, and social diversification.

North America

• Diversity of Native peoples.

  • Southwest: Pueblo People (present-day New Mexico and Arizona)

    • Sedentary population, farmers of maize and other crops.

    • Adobe and masonry homes built in the open and into cliffs.

    • Organized society with administrative offices, religious centers, and craft shops.

  • Great Plains and Great Basin: Nomadic Peoples

    • Hunter-gatherer lifestyle due to the aridity of the region.

    • Example: Ute people lived in small, egalitarian kinship-based bands.

  • Pacific Northwest

    • Lived by the sea in fishing villages; also relied on elk from forests.

    • Example: Chinook people used cedar trees to construct giant plank houses (up to 70 family members).

  • California Coast: Chumash People

    • Hunters and gatherers in permanent settlements.

    • Settlements located where there was sufficient game and vegetation.

  • Mississippi River Valley: Larger, more complex societies

    • Fertile soil allowed for settled farming and development.

      • Hopewell People

      • Lived in towns of about 4,000 to 6,000 people

      • Traded extensively with other regions as far away as Florida and the Rocky Mountains.

    • Cahokia People

      • Largest settlement in the region (10,000-30,000 people).

      • Government led by powerful chieftains, centralized government.

      • Extensive trade networks from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

  • Northeast: Iroquois

    • Villages of several hundred people, grew maize, squash, and beans.

    • Lived in longhouses (30-50 family members).