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APUSH Unit 1 Review Notes

Native Societies Before European Arrival

  • Diverse societies adapted to different environments.
  • Not a monolithic group; varied lifestyles from fishing villages to hunter-gatherer bands to large empires.

Pueblo People

  • Location: Present-day Utah and Colorado.
  • Farmers: settled population.
  • Crops: beans, squash, maize.
  • Advanced irrigation systems: diverted river water to crops.
  • Built small urban centers from hardened clay bricks.
  • Famous for cliff dwellings.

Great Basin and Great Plains Region

  • Location: From Colorado to Canada.
  • Nomadic: hunter-gatherers.
  • Hunted buffalo and gathered food.
  • Organized into small, egalitarian kinship bands.
  • Example: Ute people.

Northwest and Pacific Coast

  • Permanent settlements due to abundant resources (fish, small game, diverse plant life).
  • California: Chumash people.
    • Villages of nearly a thousand people.
    • Regional trade networks.
  • Pacific Northwest: Chinook peoples.
    • Similar to Chumash.
    • Extensive plank houses for kinship groups.

Northeast: Iroquois People

  • Farmers.
  • Lived communally in longhouses (constructed from timber).

Mississippi River Valley

  • Farmers (rich soil).
  • Trade along waterways.
  • Cahokia: largest civilization (10,000-30,000 people).
    • Centralized government led by chieftains.

Key Takeaway

  • Native societies were distinct and complex, shaped by their environment.
  • Vast trading networks existed throughout North and South America.

European Arrival

Political Unification in Europe (1300s-1400s)

  • European kingdoms became stronger, more centralized states governed by monarchs.
  • Growing wealthy upper class desired luxury goods from Asia.
  • Muslims controlled land-based trade routes, limiting European access.
  • Europeans sought sea-based routes for trade.

Portuguese Exploration

  • First European mover: Portugal.
  • Established trading posts around Africa (trading post empire).
  • Gained foothold in Indian Ocean trade network.

Maritime Technology

  • Updated astronomical charts.
  • Astrolabe.
  • New ship designs: smaller, faster, nimble (trade-focused).
  • Borrowed technology: lateen sail, stern post rudder (improved navigation).

Spanish Exploration

  • Spain finished reconquest of Iberian Peninsula from Moors.
    • Led to a desire to spread Catholic Christianity.
    • New power led to seeking economic opportunities in the East.

Christopher Columbus

  • Italian sailor seeking Spanish sponsorship (Ferdinand and Isabella) to sail west to Asia.
  • 1492: Columbus sailed west across Atlantic Ocean.
  • Landed in Caribbean (San Salvador in the Bahamas).
  • Tales of wealth in the New World spread, leading to competition among European nations (Portugal, France, England).

Columbian Exchange

  • Columbus's landing marked a major turning point: massive ecological changes.
  • Definition: transfer of people, animals, plants, and diseases from East to West and West to East.

Specific Transfers

  • Food:
    • From Americas to Europe: potatoes, tomatoes, maize.
    • From Europe to Americas: wheat, rice, soybeans.
  • Animals:
    • From Americas to Europe: turkeys.
    • From Europe to Americas: cattle, pigs, horses.
  • Gold and silver: from Americas to Europe.
  • People: Europeans to Americas, enslaved Africans to Americas.
  • Disease:
    • Smallpox from Europe decimated Native American populations (no immunity).
    • Syphilis (possibly) from Americas to Europe.

Economic and Societal Shift in Europe

  • Influx of wealth from Americas led to shift from feudalism to capitalism.
  • Feudalism: peasants worked on noble's land for protection.
  • Capitalism: economic system based on private ownership and free exchange.
  • Rise of joint-stock companies to fund exploration.
    • Limited liability: investors pooled money; shared profits, limited risk.

Spanish Colonization

  • Main goal: agriculture.

Encomienda System

  • Spaniards forced natives to work on plantations and extract gold/silver.
  • Problems:
    • Difficulty keeping natives subservient (escape).
    • Native deaths due to smallpox.
  • Solution: importation of African slave laborers.
    • Africans less likely to escape (unfamiliar geography).
    • Greater immunity to European diseases.

Casta System

  • Social classes based on racial ancestry.
  • Peninsulares: Spaniards born in Spain (top).
  • Criollos (Creoles): Spaniards born in the Americas.
  • Castas:
    • Mestizos: Spanish and Native American blood.
    • Mulattos: Spanish and African blood.
  • Africans.
  • Native Americans (lowest).

European and Native American Interactions

  • Europeans largely looked down on natives (exploitation, military alliances, forced labor, Christian conversion).
  • Cultural adoption: natives taught English how to hunt and cultivate maize; natives adopted iron tools and weapons.
  • Difficult and brutal relationship.
  • Europeans developed belief systems to justify treatment of natives.
    • Some believed natives were ontologically less than human (Juan GinĂ©s de SepĂşlveda).
    • BartolomĂ© de las Casas defended native humanity and persuaded the king to pass laws ending native slavery (later repealed).

Justification for Exploitation of African Laborers

  • Based on interpretation of the Bible (Noah's curse on Ham's son Canaan).
  • Europeans associated black skin with the mark of Ham, justifying slavery.