Apush Unit 1 Simple Review Flashcards
Native American societies before contact
● Before the Europeans arrived on the North American content, Native American people
organized themselves into diverse cultures depending on where they lived
○ Lifestyles were varied, from fishing villages to nomadic hunter gatherers to
agriculture-based communities to cities
● Central and South American
○ Three major civilizations that were large urban centers, complex political systems,
and well-formed religions
○ The Aztecs were in Central America. Capital city Tenochtitlan with 300,000
people, written language, irrigation, cult of fertility upheld by human sacrifice
○ The Maya were on the Yucatan peninsula and had large cities, complex irrigation,
water storage, giant stone temples
○ The Inca people were in the Andes mountain in Peru and had mountain fortress
Machu Picchu. Massive empire, key to success fertile mountain valleys watered
by potatoes and other crops.
○ Cultivation of maize that spread north into American Southwest and supported the
inhabitation of this region.
● Southwest America
○ Pueblo people, stayed in one place, farmers of maize, built homes in open and
into sides of cliffs, organized society with government
● Great plains and great basin regions
○ Hunter gather people who needed a lot of land to do hunting and gathering, Ute
people
● Pacific northwest
○ Lived in fishing villages by the sea, relied on elk, Chinook people who relied on
cedar trees to construct giant houses
○ Chumash lived on the Pacific coast too in California and were hunters and gathers
in permanent settlements
● Mississippi River valley
○ Larger and more complex societies because the fertile soil of the region allowed
people to stay put and farm and develop
○ Hopewell lived in towns of 4,000-6,000, traded extensively
○ Cahokia people, 10,000-30,000 people, led by powerful chiefs, engaged in trade
● Northeast
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○ Iroquois lived in villages of several hundreds, grew crops of maize and beans,
lived in longhouses with family members
European exploration in the Americans
● Reasons for European expansion
○ Population increase, political unification with powerful monarchs presiding over
centralized government, desire for luxury goods imported from Asia
■ Land-based trade routes were controlled by Muslims and Europeans
unable to establish land-based trade with Europe on their own terms →
needed water passage
○ Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal tried to find water passage to Asia
■ Sailed around Africa, establishing trading post empire
■ Found dominance in lucrative Indian ocean trade
■ Succeed because they updated their technology: caravels (nimble trade
ships), updated marital and astronomical tools, added astrolabes and
rudder
○ Spain wanted economic benefits from trade too, Isabella + Ferdinand wanted to
get in the game to spread Christianty and make money
■ Christopher Columbus asked Ferdinand and Isabella to find a trading
route to Asia by sailing west and wanted to prove the world was round
■ 1492 encountered North America; thought it was the East Indies but
actually was the Carribens (San Salvador)
■ Columbus sailed back to Spain, displaying gold jewelry and enslaved
natives, so more Spaniards set sale to obtain wealth
Columbian Exchange, Spanish exploration, and conquest
● The columbian exchange was the transfer of food, animals, minerals, people, and
diseases between Africa, Europe and the Americas
○ Disease: Tenochtitlan had 300,000 inhabitants, Spanish conquistador Hernán
Cortés conquered the city with 1,000 men because of the spread of smallpox.
Smallpox also devastated Arawak & Taino peoples, Incas, Aztecs, Maya
■ Americans had no immunity
○ Food: Americas → Europe/Africa, nutritional food like maize, tomatoes, potatoes,
cacao, tobacco. Europe/Africa shared rice, wheat, soybeans, (grain crops became
staple) and circus fruits as well as animals like horses, pigs, cattle, and chickens
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○ Minerals: gold and silver, Spanish plundered South American colonies for gold
and silver, made Spain wealthy beyond belief
■ Western Europe experienced unprecedented economic growth
■ Feudalism, peasants lived and worked on noble’s land in exchange for
protections → influx of wealth → capitalism, private ownership and free
and open exchange of goods
○ People: Native Americans were enslaved and taken to Spain, but more enslaved
Africas were taken to the Americas
■ Taken off African coast, crammed in ships, endured middle passage, sold
into bondange into the highest bidder
○ Spanish colonization efforts were driven by the state and mercantilism economic
policies (heavy governmental direction and intervention) that later transitions to
joint-stock companies (privatize exploration)
Labor, slavery, and caste in the Spanish colonial system
● African Slave Trade changed when Europeans got involved; before, slaves were POWs,
had some legal rights, and their situiatons were never permanent. But, Europeans started
developing forts along the African coasts and traded guns to the leaders of powerful tribes
in exchange for enslaved peoples.
● European purchasers of enslaved people proved inferiority of black people and justified
their actions.
○ Noah cursed Ham’s son Canan, and Canan would be a servant rest of the days,
Europeans argued that “servants” were African Americans
● Spanish brought African Americans to the New World to solve labor shortage, because
Native Americans made bad slaves
○ Encomienda system of labor was introduced by Colmbus, encomenderos were
given a portion of land and all the natives on that land became slaves
○ The Spanish empire released requerimiento which gave Spanish monarchs the
authority to claim land in the Americans and convert the people on it and send
priests; if natives converted, protected by the crown, if resisted, penalized
○ This system failed because natives died from European diseases and knew the
land, so they could escape
○ Thus, they imported blacks to replace natives
● Spanish imposed caste system in the Americas because the government needed a way to
impose taxes, and the lower you are the more you’re taxed
○ Peninsulares - whites born in Spain
○ Criollos - Spaniards born in America
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○ Mestizos - mixed Spanish and Native American
○ Mulattoes - mixed Spanish and African
○ African Americans
○ Native Americans
Cultural interactions between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans
● Spanish hegemony, Spanish dominated the natives and African Americans
● Spanish method of conquering land changed: rather than sending soldiers to conquer
natives with guns, sent missionaries to convert natives with Christianity (mission system)
● Varying beliefs between Natives and Spanish
○ Natives were pantheists and animists, Spanish were Catholic
○ Natives believed land was not a commodity, Spanish believed land existed for
private ownership
○ Natives held together by kinship networks of 70 people, Spanish focused on
nuclear family
○ Both adopted helpful components of other culture; natives wanted metal tools
(farming and hunting) and horses (war), Europeans wanted fur trade (marriages
for trading rights)
● Pueblo people brought Christianity into their religion but did not stop worshiping their
other gods; Spainards were upset and tried to get natives to solely worship their god
● Pueblo Revolt - 1610, Spanish forced conversion by many of Pueblo, Pueblo underwent
many hardships and correlated them with Spanish, Pueblo rose up, killed up 400 Spanish
colonizers, and burned all churches to the ground
○ Spanish returned 12 years later, reconquered land and people
● News reached Spain of events in America, group of people discussing the moral and legal
fallout of Spanish conquest and the Americas
○ Some felt that conquest was good for natives, brought them Western ways, some
felt that conquest violated dignity of Americans (Bartolome de las cases, felt that
with trajectory of brutality, natives would either die or hate Christianity, opposed
the encomienda system for natives but supported it for Africans for biblical
reasons)