APUSH CH1
Describe the major Native American civilizations that existed before Columbus’s arrival. Include at least one from North America, one from Central America and one from South America.
The Incas in South America, or Peru, were the largest empire that ruled about 2,000 miles from western South America. The Incas used persuasion as a way of conquering other areas, compared to force and war that is common among other civilizations. This made the empire stable with creative regulatory systems. Their growth is even more impressive when considering their starting place. The Incas began as a small tribe that quickly advanced due to the assistance of a strong leader known as Pacahcuti.
After the societies of the Maya, the Aztec, who also called themselves the Mexica, were a major civilization in Central America. The Mexica conquered regions near and around Mexico to the point that they were widely known as tyrannical rulers. This civilization developed the city of Tenochtitlán, which grew to become a prosperous center of many tribes and societies. They developed a religion that surrounded human sacrifice, which were often captured prisoners, because they believed this is what pleased the gods. However, they were too weak compared to the mighty societies of Europe and Asia like other civilizations in South America.
In North America, the Eskimos specialized in hunting, gathering, and fishing, especially seals across their vast and icy land. They led an active lifestyle where they traveled from place to place with no permanent abode, often targeting moose and caribou. Other tribes in North America were similar to the Eskimos and occupied the nomadic life as well. This created immense competition for resources. Some tribes were agricultural and contrasted irrigation systems to enchape their farming capabilities. They also created cities, like Tenochtitlán, became bustling and popular with tribes, which allowed for trading opportunities and spiritual or religious rituals.
Describe the Spanish Empire in the New World during the 1500’s. Include political, military, economic, social and cultural considerations.
The Spanish Empire had three separate periods: Columbus and his explorations, conquistadors and the significant decrease of natives due to disease, and the laws and overall development of the empire itself. After obtaining support from Spain including military support, Columbus left Spain in August 1492 and thought he reached China when he truly reached Cuba. In his later expedition, he traveled the Caribbean, discovering numerous islands, and modern-day Venezuela.
Instead of seeing America as an obstacle on their mission to discover more about the East, Spanish explorers decided to explore it. Colonists that accompanied Columbus on voyages settled in the Caribbean where they enslaved individuals and tried to find gold. In 1518, Hernando Cortes led a military expansion alongside 600 men in Mexico to initially search for treasures, but ended up spreading smallpox which reduced the population greatly. Francisco Pizarro, who conquered Peru (1532-1538), Hernando de Soto (1539-1541), and Francisco Coronado (1540-1542) all traveled near or in Mexico when looking for gold, silver, and other treasures. Most explorers traveled for greedy purposes.
The empire surrounded the desire for wealth, establishment/wide spread of Catholicism, and the influence of the military which became the primary purpose for Spanish expansion in the Americas in the 1540s. Military bases were used to offer protection. Royals such as Ferdinand and Isabella had immense influence and rigid control in Spain, especially when making Catholicism the official religion. Royals established restrictive rules, especially on trade which suffocated the economy and its development in Spanish areas of the Americas. In the late 1500s, colonization had spread and military outposts had been established. In 1598, a colonizing journey began that included the assistance of Don Juan de Onate traveled with 500 men from Mexico to Spain where Pueblos and Spanish mixed. These explorers established a colony and demanded labor and tribute from natives. The Pueblos and Spanish lived together until the Pueblos rose in revolt in 1680. However, there still remained more natives to the land and colonizers, despite war and diseases that spread. Culture and social hierarchy mostly surrounded wealth and success instead of race. Language, farming techniques, people, marriage, food and more factors mixed between the colonizers and natives.
Discuss briefly the society of southern and western Africa before the arrival of large numbers of Europeans.
Since there was little native population to meet the needs of the colonists for labor in the Spanish Empire, the colonists looked to Africa to fulfill their needs.
Most laborers came from Guinea (west) which had stable contact with the Mediterranean world where they traded ivory, gold, and slaves for other goods, which led them to convert to Islam. In Guinea, civilization surrounded cultivation of rice and trading with the Mediterranean world (SWANA region). Those in the west believed the natural world and spiritual world were intertwined (spirits lived in trees, forests etc), worshiped ancestors, and prioritized their family lineage.
In the south, Africans were more isolated from the Mediterranean and Europe and more politically separated. In the north, larger empires in Ghana and Mali emerged but none comparable to these were found in the south. The south specialized in trading all sorts of goods (iron, wood, ceramics, etc). Those in the south farmed, raised livestock, and fished with some nomadic travelers/tribes.
Africa, as a whole, followed equality between sexes. Women handled trade and farmed while men fished, hunted, and raised animals. Individuals traced hereditary and inherited property from their mothers. The social hierarchy followed priests and nobles at the top, then farmers and other workers (largest group), and the bottom was for slaves, criminals, and those who had debt. The demand for slaves gradually increased as wealthy families wanted black individuals as their servants and to fix labor shortages in Europe and North Africa. Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and English all took part in this system but Portuguese participated to the largest extent. The demand grew due to a labor-intensive crop known as sugarcane. Therefore, Europeans mostly took slaves from west Africa to fulfill these needs. As a whole, slavery expanded in the Caribbean and in the Americas. This was justified because colonizers and Europeans thought that individuals from Africa were less civilized than them.
4. Discuss the economic and religious motivations that led to the establishment of English colonies in North America.
The economic motivation that led to the establishment of English colonies in North America began with the Enclosure Movement. Since the demand for wool was increasing rapidly, landowners switched their lands of field for crops to pastures for sheep which helped wool trade significantly. Past evicted rent-paying tenants, who used to work the land, would often beg or rob from fortunate householders. The Enclosure Movement set laws to halt enclosures, help the worthy poor, and put beggars to work and continue them despite their little effect. England's population grew rapidly, and because the movement removed land from cultivation, England struggled to feed its growing population. While this was occurring, the merchant capitalist class rose and prospered because foreign trade was expanding. Some merchant capitalists worked independently while the others joined forces to work in chartered companies. This is where they would obtain a charter (written grant that defines the company's privileges) from a monarch/government which gave the company a monopoly/control to trade in a certain area. This was very profitable as it grew. These profits were also supported by Mercantilism. Mercantilism was a belief that the nation, as a whole, was the base of the economy and should gain as much as wealth as possible to benefit and upkeep the nation. Mercantilism increased competition between other nations. However with colonies (part of a distant region owned by a different area), the nation could profit more with other sources of goods. According to Richard Hakluyt, colonies would create new markets, alleviate poverty, and gain prosperity from other products in new territories that Sngland used to be dependent on (silver, gold, lumber, etc).
The religious motivations that led to the establishment of English colonies in North America began with the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, and his new beliefs that openly challenged the Roman Catholic Church in 1517. Martin Luther believed that the bible, not the church, was the authentic voice of God, and salvation was to be found through faith alone, not through “works” or through the formal practice of religion. Because he was excommunicated (excluded from the practices of the church), Luther led his followers away from the Catholic Church. instead of reforming within. John Calvin (where Calvinism emerged from) came after Luther and tried to reform even more than Luther. Calvin introduced the doctrine of predestination that everyone’s destiny was destined before birth. They believe God chose certain people to go to heaven and others to go to hell. In 1529, the English Reformation began due to disputes between the pope and King Henry VIII when the pope refused to grant the king a divorce to his Spanish wife since she did not give birth to a son. After he died, his daughter Mary restored England back to the Roman Catholic Church and executed those who refused to return back to the church (earning the nickname “Bloody Mary”). After her death, her half-sister Elizabeth reigned and continued the nation’s connection with the church. Those who fled the nation under Mary, returned and tried to “purify”/reform the church, and earned the title of “Puritans” (closely related to Separatists who believed individuals should separate from the church since it was "beyond reform”). Laws did not align with the beliefs and practices of the Puritans or Separatists due to their differing ideas. Tensions grew since both of their desires were not being met. Puritans and Separatists grew increasingly frustrated, and King James I ascending to the throne in 1603, was the tipping point. Since he did not desire to compromise with his opponents, he actively attempted to suppress them in any way possible, such as resorting to arbitrary taxation and supporting “high church” forms of ceremony (as the vast majority of them were businessmen). Religious discontent from society attracted them to regions outside of the kingdom.
5. Explain why the French were so successful in their early colonizing in North America.
In France’s early colonization of America, the French were extremely successful because they formed close relationships with the natives deep inside the continent. With this technique, the French established some of the first contacts between two different groups of individuals. This approach is very different compared to the English, who hugged the coastline and traded with natives in the continent through intermediaries (those who act as a link between two groups of people for any affairs, typically to reconcile). Even more important to the French’s were the coureurs de bois—adventurous fur traders and trappers—who traveled into the wilderness and developed a large trading system that became a base of the French colonial economy. They often worked with the Algonquins and the Hurons (prime fur traders among the natives), often forming successful partnerships between them. This fur trade helped intensify French presence in North America such as the agricultural estates (or seigneuries) along the St. Lawrence River, the development of trade and military centers at Quebec and Montreal, and the creation of an alliance with the Algonquins and others. This allowed the French to compete with the other European/British colonizers in the contest for control of North America.
6. Analyze which factors influence historians in their differing interpretations of historical fact and significance.
When interpreting historical events, facts, significance, and history as a whole, factors such as whether the ability to research a certain topic is possible or if it’s simply up to interpretation. Historians also consider that history must “stick to the facts” and should summarize and describe “what happened”. However, they believe that not doing so is what essentially leads to controversies and differing facts about history. Despite there being certain topics in which everyone has the same thoughts on such as the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor or the date that Abraham Lincoln was elected (being 1860), arguments may appear when the context and reasons are clear. Although, each individual’s personal beliefs, such as political or ideological, may play a part in historians’ disagreements. Some certain topics also take the consideration of society and culture, not always government, politics, and facts. Specific events such as the Cold War and the Vietnam War changed the way civilization thought about the past. Beliefs regarding past events are forever changing since one must also consider the present events. Another factor that contributes to why historians have differing interpretations of historical fact and significance is that “truth” may not exist in some cases. One single view on a topic is hard to achieve when historians fill a wide spectrum with different personalities and thoughts. Therefore, this belief that one view is teh correct view is not true all the time. Reaching a unanimous decision among numerous historians in order to agree on the many facts that surround history takes an immense amount of factors and research which also requires consideration from logical and moral perspectives from individuals all with different lives, thoughts, and experiences.
7. Compare and contrast diverse historical interpretations of Native American population density in 1500. Discuss how this influenced historical analyses of European impact(s) on native societies.
George Catlin was a painter and ethnographer who was alongside the tribes present in the 1830s. The spread of white civilization caused him to fear that these tribes he was actively spending time with were on the fast tracks towards extinction. His final estimate of how many natives were in North America before Columbus arrived was around 16 million individuals. However, he received quick backlash from other white American who were set on the idea that the tribes could not have even reached the millions. Their reasoning was solely due to the fact that the tribes were “too primitive” to have sustained such a giant population.
James Mooney was an early twentieth century ethnologist at the Smithsonian Institution who was determined to find a means of deciphering truly how many individuals were present before Columbus. This was because earlier estimates were simply guesses. Therefore, he desired a scientific approach and accurate estimate. His sources were from soldiers and missionaries in the early sixteenth century. He came up with the estimate of 1.15 million natives who occupied northern Mexico in the early sixteenth century. This number was much lower than the estimates before him, such as Catlin’s estimate of 16 million, but larger than other writers in the nineteenth century.
Alfred Kroeber was an anthropologist who used many of Mooney’s ways to create his own estimate for the entire Western Hemisphere. In 1934, his final estimate was around 8.4 million individuals in 1492 in the Americas (half being in North America and the other half being in the Caribbean and South America). This estimate was lower than Catlin’s but greater than Mooney’s and was mostly agreed upon until the 1960s.
These generally low assumptions lead people to believe that the natives’ population was not greatly reduced when the Europeans arrived in the Americas. These assumptions were also interlaced with the idea that plagues and diseases from the Europeans that the natives were not immune to also tanked population numbers. This means that numbers were already reduced in the late 1500s compared to numbers in 1492. In 1976, William McNeill and Alfred Crosby, ten years after him, considered that the tribes were near extinction. Considering the impact of these diseases (smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, etc), individuals such as Henry Dobyns (an anthropologist) estimates that there were 10-12 million people in northern Mexico and 90-112 million in the entirety of the Americas. Individuals after him, such as WIlliam M. Denevan, who estimated that the population in northern Mexico was under 4 million and in the Americas, was about 55 million, continued to discuss this never-ending debate and provide new estimates as time passed.
CONCEPTS AND TERMS
English Reformation: A political dispute that arose in 1529 when the pope would not grant King Henry VIII a divorce from his Spanish wife, who had failed to bear him the son he desperately desired. In response, he broke England’s ties with the Catholic Church and established himself as the head of the Christian faith in his country (otherwise recognized as the Church of England).
Calvinist Puritans: The numerous exiles who had fled England under Queen Mary and now returned under the tenure under Queen Elizabeth were not satisfied with the amount of incorporations of the doctrines of Calvinism. Bringing their new, more radical religious ideas to the Church of England, they clamored for reforms that would “purify” the church; hence, the phrase “Calvinist Puritans” signals their creation of a new branch of Calvinism.
Church of England: The official religion of England; King Henry VIII was the head of this institution before his death. Over time, it satisfied the political objectives of the later Queen Elizabeth, but it failed to satisfy the religious desires of many English Christians.
“Separatists”: Puritans that took what were, by the standards of the time, genuinely radical positions, and were determined to worship as they pleased in their own independent congregations. Most Puritans and English law resisted and prohibited separatism for their radical ideologies; other examples being their rejection of prevailing assumptions about the proper religious roles of women, their desire to simplify Anglican forms of worship, their want to reduce the power of the bishops, and their want to reform the local clergy.
Plantations: Transplantations of English society in a foreign land.
Enclosure Movement: An economic transformation (“farming revolution”) of the countryside, where farms were converted into pastures for sheep, as the worldwide demand for wool was growing rapidly. The results of this was an increase in worldwide wool trade, the rise of the merchant capitalist, and the eviction of tenants that once inhabited the now pastures for sheep.
Merchant Capitalist: A rising class amid the distress that was capitalizing from the expansion of foreign wool trade. These individuals created chartered companies, enterprises built when they came together as groups, to obtain a charter from the monarch that would permit them to monopolize on a particular region’s trading.
Mercantilism: A concept of economic life that rested on the assumption that the nation’s economic health depended on extracting as much wealth as possible from foreign lands and exporting as little wealth as possible from home. The principles of mercantilism guided the economic policies of virtually all the European nation-states in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as the Enclosure Movement and merchant capitalists.
Utopia: Published in Latin in 1516, but then translated into English thirty-five years later, Utopia is a text by Thomas More that describes a mythical and nearly perfect society on an imaginary island supposedly discovered by a companion of Amerigo Vespucci in the waters of the New World. More’s picture of an ideal community was, among other things, a comment on the social and economic ills of England of his own time.
Spanish Armada: The Spanish Armada is recognized as one of the largest assembled military fleets in the history of warfare. The reason behind this was for the powerful Spanish king, Phillip II, to invade England in 1588. This invasion comes as Phillip II united his nation under Portugal, and was determined to end England’s challenges to Spanish commercial supremacy and to bring the English back into the Catholic Church. The Spanish Armada became an element of the past when a smaller English fleet ended Spain’s domination of the Atlantic when Phillip II attempted to carry his troops across the English Channel and into England itself.
Roanoke: Founded by Sir Walter Raleigh and his small group of men in an expedition that followed that of the failed one of his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Roanoke was the first colony in North America ever established. Roanoke was located in a larger colony named “Virginia,” honoring Queen Elizabeth I. Efforts at establishing a population lasted five steady years: the first group sailed from English plantations in Ireland in 1585, but faced various challenges that compelled them to sail off back to their homeland with Sir Francis Drake, who, unexpectedly, appeared in the spring of 1586 with supplies and reinforcements. The second wave emigrated in 1587, in which the first American-born child of English parents, Virginia Dare, was given life to. Her father, John White, left Roanoke for a period of three years in search of supplies and additional settlers (and after the hostilities with Spain intervened), and when he returned, he was faced with an utterly deserted plantation. Ever since then, almost no trace (other than the cryptic inscription “Croatoan” carved on a post) of the 117 settlers has been discovered since, and Roanoke has been labeled as a mystery of the “Lost Colony.”
IDENTIFICATIONS
Richard Hakluyt: An Oxford clergyman and the outstanding English propagandist for colonization who argued that colonies in North America would not only create new markets for English goods, they would also help alleviate poverty and unemployment by siphoning off the surplus population.
Elizabeth I: The half-sister of Queen Mary who assumed the throne in 1558 following her death. Queen Elizabeth I severed the nation’s connection with the Catholic Church, and with it, an alliance with Spanish that Mary had forged. Under Queen Elizabeth I, the English were developing a powerful sense of nationalism that encouraged dreams of expansion.
James I: A Scotsman and the first of the Stuarts who ascended to the English throne in 1603, James I believed kings ruled by divine right, and felt no obligation to compromise with his opponents. He quickly antagonized the Puritans, a group that Included most of the rising businessmen, by resorting to arbitrary taxation, by favoring English Catholics in the granting of charters and other favors, and by supporting “high church” forms of ceremony. Within the same year, James I accused Sir Walter Raleigh of plotting against the king, stripped of his monopoly, and imprisoned for more than a decade. At last, Raleigh was executed by the king in 1618.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert: An educated and supposedly civilized man, Sir Humphrey Gilbert served, for a time, as governor of one Irish district, and suppressed native rebellions with extraordinary viciousness. He considered the natives somehow less than human, and therefore not entitled to whatever decencies civilized people reserved for their treatment of one another. [In other terms, he attempted to subjugate and subdue the natives in order to establish English colonies in Ireland without assimilation.] A friend of Queen Elizabeth, he obtained a patent in 1578 granting him the exclusive right for six years “to inhabit and possess at his choice all remote and heathen lands not in the actual possession of any Christian prince.” After numerous setbacks, Gilbert led an expedition to Newfoundland in 1583 and took possession of it in the queen’s name; however, he was lost at sea after a storm sank his ship.
Sir Francis Drake: An English “sea dog” who staged successful raids on Spanish merchant ships in the 1570s and 80s and built confidence in England’s ability to challenge Spanish sea power. He also was a driving force for the first wave of emigrants of the Roanoke colony to abandon the hardships of the new land for supplies and reinforcements from England.
Sir Walter Raleigh: The half-brother to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a fellow companion to Queen Elizabeth I, and a veteran of the earlier colonial efforts in Ireland, Sir Walter Raleigh, following Gilbert’s misfortune, he secured a six-year grant similar to Gilbert’s from Elizabeth, and sent a small group of men on an expedition to explore the North American coast. Following their voyage, they were particularly enthusiastic about an island the natives called Roanoke. Raleigh inquired the queen for permission to name the entire region “Virginia” in honor of Elizabeth; while Elizabeth granted permission, there was no financial aid he had hoped for. Thus, in 1585, Raleigh recruited his cousin, Sir Richard Grenville, to lead a group of men (most of them from the English plantations in Ireland) to Roanoke to establish a colony. Raleigh tried again in 1587, sending an expedition carrying a population - the nucleus, he hoped, of a viable “plantation.” However, following their mystery disappearance, this disaster marked the end of Sir Walter Raleigh’s involvement in English colonization of the New World.