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 Ginés de Sepúlveda).
  • Bartolomé 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.