Unit 1: Exploration and Colonization

• The Columbian Exchange


  Exchange of foods, animals, and diseases
• Results of the exchanges affected the biology of both regions and altered the history of the world
• Europe


  • Animals: cattle
  • Food: Pig, sheep, chicken
  • Disease: Small pox, yellow fever
• Americas


  • Animals: turkeys
  • Food: maize (corn), potatoes, pumpkins
  • Disease: Syphilis, whooping cough
• Regions Colonised: Spain, France, England/Britain, Dutch
• Important Events


  • Find gold
  • Establish new homes
  • Set up alliances with Native Americans
  • Establish fur trade
  • Spread Christianity
• Important People


  • Native Americans
  • Explorers and colonists
• Mayflower Compact (1620)


  First document of self-governance in the American colonies
• Bacon's Rebellion (1676)


  Conflict between Virginia settlers and Susquehannocks, led to rebellion against the governor
• Zenger Case (1733)


  Established freedom of the press in the American colonies
• Enlightenment (18th century)


  Ideas emphasizing rationality, harmony, and order
• Great Awakening and John Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God" (1741)

  Period of religious revival and emotional conversions
• J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer (1782)

  Fictional correspondence exploring the American identity
• Slavery


  • Start of European slave trade in Africa
  • Expansion of sugar production in the Caribbean increased demand for slaves
  • Slave codes established to maintain order
  • Resistance and revolt by enslaved Africans
  • Slavery as the foundation of the British economy
• 1619 is the year that African Americans first arrived in Jamestown, Virginia
• Slavery was justified by the belief that Africans were inferior to whites
• Slaves resisted through refusing to cooperate, mistreating tools, running away, and revolting
• The slave trade was the foundation of the British economy, creating a large colonial market and supplying raw materials
• The Aztecs, developed a powerful empire. They had complex social structures
• The capital, Tenochtitlan housed at 250,000 people, equivalent to the size of London at the time
• The Inca Empire in Peru was the largest empire in the Andes
• The population of the Americas before European contact was around 71,000,000, reduced to less than 10,000,000 after contact
• General Patterns of Native American Cultures

  • Even though some developed from the same place, they varied less in North America than in other regions
  • They had less complex social and political structures than in Mexico and the Andes
• Language Differences


  • Languages were very diverse, with over 300 languages in North America
  • Languages were more uniform in the Southwest and Great Plains
• Native peoples in North America utilized the environment differently before European colonization
• In the Southwest, Native peoples built permanent settlements and practiced irrigation agriculture
• On the Great Plains, Native peoples were nomadic and followed herds of buffalo
• In the Northeast, Native peoples lived in villages near lakes and rivers and practiced agriculture
• On the Atlantic Seaboard, Native peoples lived in villages and practiced agriculture and hunting/gathering
• Native peoples in North America did not share a unified identity and often battled each other
• New technology, new knowledge, and new goals spurred European exploration
• The European contest for the "New World" was driven by economic, political, and cultural factors
• New technology enabled Christopher Columbus to dominate the "New World"
• The Columbian Exchange brought new crops to Europe from the Americas, stimulating population growth
• The Columbian Exchange also brought new sources of mineral wealth which facilitated the European shift from feudalism to capitalism
• Improvements in maritime technology and more organized methods for conducting international trade, such as joint-stock companies, helped drive changes to economics in Europe and the Americas
• Spanish exploration and conquest of the Americas were accompanied and furthered by widespread deadly epidemics that devastated native populations
• The Spanish colonial system marshaled Native American labor to support plantation-based agriculture and extract precious metals and other resources
• European traders partnered with some West African groups who practiced slavery to forcibly extract slave labor for the Americas
• The Spanish developed a caste system that incorporated and carefully defined the status of the diverse population of Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans in their empire