**Big Idea - Natives of American continents were a diverse people that had diverse societies based on the environments they lived in.**

# Native Americans before European

* Before Europeans arrived, Native Americans were organized into diverse cultures
* Nomadic hunters, farmers, fishing societies - very diverse set of people to deal with
* Three major civilizations in central and south America
  * Aztecs/Mexica/Seneca
    * Capital city Tenochtitlan
    * Written language
    * Human sacrifice
  * Mayans
    * Irrigation
    * Powerful stone temples
  * Inca
    * Mountains in Peru
    * Covered around 350,000 square miles
    * Elaborate terrace irrigation
  * All three used maize as a primary crop; helped advance irrigation
* Southwest Native Americans
  * Pueblo People
    * Farmers, planted maize
    * Sedentary - didn’t move around a lot
    * Pretty advanced
    * Made urban centers out of clay
* Great Plains/Great Basin
  * Nomadic hunters, not super organized, but stayed in kinship bands
  * Ute
    * Nomadic
* Northwest
  * Fishing villages
  * Developed permanent settlements
  * Examples
    *  Chinook
      * Had extensive trade routes
    * Chumash 
* Mississippi River Valley
  * Good for farming, fertile soil
  * Trade up and down the river
  * Hopewell People - Traded extensively throughout America
  * Cahokia - Largest settlement, peak was 10-30,000 people


* Northeast
  * Iroquois - Lots of farming, longhouses with extended family living there

# European Exploration

* Reasons for exploration
  * Population increase - population was finally rebounding after the Black plague
  * Political Unification - centralized governments led by monarchs
  * Desire for luxury goods - People want more stuff from Asia


* Europeans wanted a water based route to Asia because land based route was controlled by Muslims - meant Europeans had no access to these trade routes
* Prince Henry the Navigator - works for Portugal, wants to use Atlantic Ocean, goes around Africa 
  * Updated astronomical charts, easier to keep track of where they were
  * Used Caravels, ships dedicated to trade
  * Astrolabe and Stern-Post Rudder
* Spain wants to do this as well, and want to spread Christianity
* Spain’s monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, sponsor Columbus’ project
* Spain sends Columbus across the Atlantic, he wants to prove the World is round
* End up discovering the Caribbean
* Columbus lands in San Salvadore, Natives were kind to Columbus
* Columbus sees gold, enslaves them

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# Columbian Exchange

* Transfer of food, animals, minerals, people, and diseases between Old World and New World
* Spanish shows up in Americas, want to conquer
* Hernan Cortes shows up at Tenochtitlan with only around 1000 men, were 200-400 thousand Natives
* Smallpox - Natives were not exposed to this disease, were not immune, heavily damaged them
  * Hispanola - Arawak and Taino People lost 300,000 people
  * Incas - 9 million to 500k
* Food 
  * Americas to Europe - Maize, Tomatoes, Potatoes, Cacao, Tobacco
  * Europe/Africa to Americas - Rice, Wheat, Soybeans, Rye, Oats, Lemons, Oranges
* Animals
  * Europe/Africa to Americas - Horses, pigs, cattle, chickens
* Minerals - Spanish plunder the Native American tribes for silver and gold, transforms their wealth - makes them really rich
* Unprecedented Economic Growth
* Europe was mainly defined by Feudalism, work for nobles for protection
* Capitalism grows, economic system based on private ownership and trade between these people
* Slave trade prominent as well - Native Americans, but mainly Africans 
  * Middle Passage
* Many European nations would go with Spain to the New World
* Mercantilism - Depends on heavy government intervention
* Joint Stock Companies - new model of funding, limited liability organization in which a plurality of investors pool their money to fund a venture

# Labor Systems/Societal Restructuring in Americas

* Europeans get involved in slave trade, change it significantly
* Before, prisoners of war were made slaves, sometimes had more legal rights, and slave status was very rarely inherited
* At ports in Africa, Europeans traded goods for people, specifically guns
* Europeans found Africans weird due to different customs, refused to see them as human to justify slavery
* Europeans say that Africans are descended from Canan, a Biblical figure who was cursed to be a servant for the rest of his life - use this to justify slavery
* Europeans bring slaves over to solve labor problems - Native Americans make bad laborers
* Encomienda System - Encomenderos (leading men) granted land, all natives that lived there are labor force, justified on religious grounds
* Ferdinand and Isabella, monarchs of Spain, issue Requerimiento - pope granted Spanish monarchs to convert whoever was found in the Americas
* Priests would be sent to the New World, whoever converted to Christianity would be protected 
* Christian natives would end up being enslaved anyway
* System wasn’t working because the Natives would escape, die from disease, etc.
* Africans didn’t know land as well and were immune to these diseases
* Makes Spanish super wealthy, but mainly the upper class/nobles just getting richer
* Spanish make a caste system so that they can tax people at the bottom more
* Caste system was based on race
  * Peninsulares - Spanish and born in Spain
  * Criollos - Spanish, but born in Americas
  * Mestizos - Spanish and Native-American ancestry
  * Mulattoes - Spanish and African ancestry
  * Africans
  * Native Americans

# Cultural Interactions between Europeans, Natives, and Africans

* New society imposed on Americas by Spanish Hegemony
  * Hegemony = Domination of one nation by another
* Spanish continues American expansion northwards, use missionaries to spread Christianity, known as the Mission system
* Fundamentally different worldviews
  * Natives
    *  Pantheists/Animists - Believe in natural world filled with spirits
    * Land is not a commodity - Cannot be carved up, bought and sold
    * Kinship networks of up to 70 people 
  * Spanish
    * Catholic - Belief in single deity
    * Believe land is meant for private ownership 
    * Spanish respects kinship, but focus on nuclear family
  * Adopted any ideas that would be useful
* Natives adopt metal tools and horses, use them for warfare
* Spain wants in on the fur trade, marry into Native tribes to get into it
* Pueblo people do convert to Christianity in a way - worship him along with their other gods
* Conquistadors have forced conversion, Natives see them and their Christ as evil - Pueblo people fight against them, kill 400 conquistadors, burn churches
* Conquistadors return and once again conquer their land 
* News reaches Spain about the morality of this
* A lot of people argue that they are bringing the worldview of the Old World to the Natives, and therefore helping them
  * Sepulveda - argues that Natives are less than human, benefit from the labor
* Others disagree, most important was Bartolome de Las Casas - says that people who allowed this would lose god, Natives would end up hating god
  * de Las Casas saw the awful conditions for Natives with the Encomienda System, doesn’t want it in practice
  * de Las Casas ends up suggesting the use of Africans for labor instead, which is what Spain does

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US History

**Big Idea - Natives of American continents were a diverse people that had diverse societies based on the environments they lived in.**

# Native Americans before European

* Before Europeans arrived, Native Americans were organized into diverse cultures
* Nomadic hunters, farmers, fishing societies

APUSH Unit 1

Rahul B

View the note APUSH Unit 1: Big Idea - Natives of American continents were a diverse people that had diverse societies based on the environments they lived in.Native Americans before EuropeanBefore Europeans arrived, Native Americans were organized into diverse culturesNomadic hunters, farmers, fish...