Unit 1-2

• Between 15,000-60,000 years before Columbus, people came to the Americas via a land bridge
• As temperatures and sea levels rose, this land bridge became the Bering Strait
• Native Americans


  • Developed a wide variety of social, political, and economic structures based on interactions with each other and the environment
  • Their religion was very often connected to their relationship with nature
• Animism


  Belief that non-human things (plants, animals) possess a spiritual essence
• Native American Societies


  • Developed different and complex societies that transformed and adapted to their diverse environments
• Native American Societies


  • Southwest (Pueblo): lived in arid land and relied on irrigation to grow maize and other agricultural products
  • Great Basin & Great Plains (Lakota Sioux): lack of natural resources led to growth of nomadic lifestyle and the importance of hunting buffalo
  • Atlantic Coast & Northeast (Iroquois): mix of agricultural and hunter-gatherer society; Established permanent villages
• 3G's


  Gold: New sources of wealth (trade with Asia), Glory: increased power and status, God: convert the native population to Christianity
• The arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492 (and other Europeans thereafter) led to massive demographic and social changes on both sides of the Atlantic
• Columbian Exchange


  Trans-Atlantic exchange of people, animals, diseases, food, products, ideas, etc. between the Americas, Africa, and Europe
• Horses (from Europe) dramatically change Native life
• Disease such as smallpox (from Europe) led to massive population decline as deadly epidemics spread
• Maize/corn (from America) fueled population increase in Europe
• Treaty of Tordesillas


  Spain and Portugal agree to divide up colonies in the Western Hemisphere
• Spanish Colonization


  • Spain was the earliest to permanently colonize North America (St. Augustine, FL 1565) and became dominant colonial power
  • Encomienda System: Spanish colonists were in charge of land and labor of native peoples, Native American slave labor in mining (silver) or agriculture (sugar), Spanish sought to convert Native Americans to Catholicism
  • Racially mixed populations of European, Native, and African people led to the Casta (caste) system
• Mestizo


  People of mixed Native American and European ancestry
• Mulatto


  People of mixed European and African ancestry
• Debates occurred over how Native Americans should be treated and how "civilized" they were compared to European standards
• Debating Spanish Colonization


  • Juan de Sepulveda wrote "Just Causes for War Against the Indians" that justified Spanish colonization of the Americas
  • Bartolome de las Casas: published in 1552 "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies" that criticized Spanish treatment of the indigenous people
• Spanish Colonial Efforts


  • Efforts to extract wealth from the land led them to develop institutions based on subjugating native populations, converting them to Christianity, and incorporating them, along with enslaved and free Africans, into Spanish colonial society
• French and Dutch Colonial Efforts


  • Involved relatively few Europeans and relied on trade alliances and intermarriage with American Indians to build economic and diplomatic relationships and acquire furs and other products for export to Europe
• English Colonization Efforts


  • Attracted a comparatively large number of male and female British migrants, as well as other European migrants, all of whom sought social mobility, economic prosperity, religious freedom, and improved living conditions
  • Colonists focused on agriculture and settled on land taken from Native Americans, from whom they lived separately
• Chesapeake and North Carolina Colonies

  • Grew prosperous exporting tobacco—a labor intensive product initially cultivated by white, mostly male indentured servants and later by enslaved Africans
• New England Colonies


  • Initially settled by Puritans, developed around small towns with family farms and achieved a thriving mixed economy of agriculture and commerce
• Middle Colonies


  • Supported a flourishing export economy based on cereal crops and attracted a broad range of European migrants, leading to societies with greater cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity and tolerance
• Southern Atlantic Coast and British West Indies Colonies

  • Used long growing seasons to develop plantation economies based on exporting staple crops
  • Depended on the labor of enslaved Africans, who often constituted the majority of the population in these areas and developed their own forms of cultural and religious autonomy
• Colonial Self-Governing Institutions


  • Distance and Britain's initially lax attention led to the colonies creating self-governing institutions that were unusually democratic for the era
  • The New England colonies based power in participatory town meetings, which in turn elected members to their colonial legislatures
  • In the southern colonies, elite planters exercised local authority and also dominated the elected assemblies
• Atlantic Economy


  • Goods, as well as enslaved Africans and American Indians, were exchanged between Europe, Africa, and the Americas through extensive trade networks
  • European colonial economies focused on acquiring, producing, and exporting commodities that were valued in Europe and gaining new sources of labor
• Continuing trade with Europeans increased the flow of goods in and out of American Indian communities, stimulating cultural and economic changes and spreading epidemic diseases that caused radical demographic shifts
• British Attempts to Incorporate North American Colonies

  • The British government increasingly attempted to incorporate its North American colonies into a coherent, hierarchical, and imperial structure in order to pursue mercantilist economic aims, but conflicts with colonists and American Indians led to erratic enforcement of imperial policies
• Interactions Between European Rivals and American Indian Populations

  • Fostered both accommodation and conflict
  • French, Dutch, British, and Spanish colonies allied with and armed American Indian groups, who frequently sought alliances with Europeans against other American Indian groups
  • British conflicts with American Indians over land, resources, and political boundaries led to military confrontations, such as Metacom's War (King Philip's War) in New England
  • American Indian resistance to Spanish colonizing efforts in North America, particularly after the Pueblo Revolt, led to Spanish accommodation of some aspects of American Indian culture in the Southwest
• Slavery in the British Colonies

  • All the British colonies participated to varying degrees in the Atlantic slave trade due to the abundance of land and a growing European demand for colonial goods, as well as a shortage of indentured servants
  • Small New England farms used relatively few enslaved laborers, all port cities held significant minorities of enslaved people, and the emerging plantation systems of the Chesapeake and the southern Atlantic coast had large numbers of enslaved workers, while the great majority of enslaved Africans were sent to the West Indies
  • As chattel slavery became the dominant labor system in many southern colonies, new laws created a strict racial system that prohibited interracial relationships and defined the descendants of African American mothers as black and enslaved in perpetuity
  • Africans developed both overt and covert means to resist the dehumanizing nature of slavery and maintain their family and gender systems, culture, and religion
• Colonial Society and Culture

  • The presence of different European religious and ethnic groups contributed to a significant degree of pluralism and intellectual exchange, which were later enhanced by the first Great Awakening and the spread of European Enlightenment ideas
  • The British colonies experienced a gradual Anglicization over time, developing autonomous political communities based on English models with influence from intercolonial commercial ties, the emergence of a transatlantic print culture, and the spread of Protestant evangelicalism
  • The goals and interests of European leaders and colonists at times diverged, leading to a growing mistrust on both sides of the Atlantic
  • Colonists, especially in British North America, expressed dissatisfaction over issues including territorial settlements, frontier defense, self-rule
• The dominant labor system in many southern colonies was slavery, and new laws created a strict racial system that prohibited interracial relationships and defined the descendants of African American mothers as black and enslaved in perpetuity
• Africans developed both overt and covert means to resist the dehumanizing nature of slavery and maintain their family and gender systems, culture, and religion
• The presence of different European religious and ethnic groups contributed to a significant degree of pluralism and intellectual exchange, which were later enhanced by the first Great Awakening and the spread of European Enlightenment ideas
• The British colonies experienced a gradual Anglicization over time, developing autonomous political communities based on English models with influence from intercolonial commercial ties, the emergence of a transatlantic print culture, and the spread of Protestant evangelicalism
• The goals and interests of European leaders and colonists at times diverged, leading to a growing mistrust on both sides of the Atlantic. Colonists, especially in British North America, expressed dissatisfaction over issues including territorial settlements, frontier defense, self-rule, and trade
• Colonists' resistance to imperial control drew on local experiences of self-government, evolving ideas of liberty, the political thought of the Enlightenment, greater religious independence and diversity, and an ideology critical of perceived corruption in the imperial system
• European Colonization


  • Spanish
  • French
  • Dutch
  • English Colonies
• Spanish


  • Catholic: Missionaries
  • Brutal conquest & Casta system
  • Gold/silver mining and sugar plantations
  • Viceroyalty