Unit 1-3 Review APUSH (Heimlers)

• The natives of the American continent were a diverse people that had diverse societies based on the kinds of environments in which they lived
• Native American cultures


  • Pueblo people
  • Hunter-gatherer nomadic groups
  • Coastal fishing villages
  • Groups that congregated in cities and built empires
• Pueblo people


  • Farmers
  • Built small urban centers made of hardened clay bricks
  • Built magnificent cliff dwellings
• Great Basin and Great Plains region groups

  • Nomadic hunter-gatherers
  • Organized into small egalitarian kinship bands
• Pacific Northwest and California groups

  • Built permanent settlements
  • Participated in regional trade networks
• Iroquois people


  • Farmers
  • Lived communally in long houses
• Mississippi River Valley groups

  • Farmers
  • Participated in trade up and down waterways
  • Cahokia civilization had centralized government led by powerful chieftains
• The natives of America developed distinct and increasingly complex societies shaped by their environment
• The natives utilized vast trading networks that stretched from South America to North America
• From the 1300s to 1400s, European kingdoms went through political unification and developed stronger centralized states governed by monarchs
• The growing wealthy upper class in Europe developed a taste for luxury goods from Asia
• Muslims controlled many of the land-based trading routes from Europe to Asia, so Europeans sought sea-based trade routes
• Portugal established a trading post empire around Africa and gained a foothold in the Indian Ocean trade network
• Maritime technologies used by the Portuguese

  • Updated astronomical charts
  • Astrolabe
  • Smaller, faster, and more nimble ship designs
  • Latin sail
  • Stern post rudder
• After Portugal's success, Spain also entered the maritime exploration game
• Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean in 1492, leading to the spread of tales of the hidden wealth of the New World
• Columbian Exchange


  The transfer of people, animals, plants, and diseases between the Eastern and Western hemispheres
• Items transferred in the Columbian Exchange

  • From the Americas to Europe: Potatoes, tomatoes, maize
  • From Europe to the Americas: Wheat, rice, soybeans
  • Animals: Turkeys, cattle, pigs, horses
  • Gold and silver
  • People (enslaved Africans)
• The influx of wealth from the Americas induced a shift from feudalism to capitalism in Europe
• Joint stock company


  Limited liability organization where investors pooled money to fund a venture, sharing profits and losses
• Spanish colonization in the Americas

  • Focused on agriculture and extraction of precious metals
  • Introduced the encomienda system to force natives to work on plantations
  • Imported African slave labor due to native population decline from disease
• Casta system


  Spanish colonial social hierarchy based on racial ancestry
• Europeans developed elaborate belief systems to justify the exploitation of native Americans and Africans
• Some Spanish priests, like Bartolomé de las Casas, opposed the harsh treatment of natives and argued for their humanity
• The major themes of this unit have to do with comparing the different motives and methods that Europeans used to colonize the Americas
• Spanish colonial policies


  Established colonies in the Americas to extract wealth in the form of valuable cash crops and gold/silver, subjected native population, tried to convert them to Christianity, introduced a caste system based on racial ancestry
• French colonial policies


  More interested in trade than conquest, especially the fish and fur trade, relatively few French people settled, some French traders married American Indian wives to advance economic goals, fostered alliances with tribes like the Ojibwe
• Dutch colonial goals


  Mainly economic, established fur trading center on the Hudson River, showed little interest in converting natives to Christianity, established New Amsterdam as a hub of trade
• British colonial motivations


  Seeking new economic opportunities and lands, some sought religious freedom and improved living conditions
• Financing British colonization


  Joint stock companies - private business entities where investors pooled money and collected profits
• Jamestown colony


  • Purely a profit-seeking venture, colonists divided time between searching for gold/silver and building military force, high mortality rates in early years, saved by discovery of tobacco cultivation
• Increasing demand for tobacco land


  Led to encroachment on native lands and violence, Bacon's Rebellion as a result
• New England colonies


  • Established by Pilgrims to create a religious society, not a profit-seeking enterprise, also faced high mortality rates initially
• British West Indies and Southern Atlantic Coast colonies

  • Grew cash crops like tobacco and sugarcane, increasing demand for African slave labor
• Middle colonies (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania)


  • Diverse populations, thrived on export economies, growing inequality between classes, Pennsylvania founded on religious freedom and negotiated land purchases from natives
• Colonial leadership established self-governing structures like the Mayflower Compact and House of Burgesses, dominated by elite classes
• In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, trade became truly global with the uptick of colonization in the Americas, leading to the development of a new Atlantic economic system
• Mayflower Compact


  • Pilgrims signed this before they disembarked from their ship the Mayflower, which organized their government on the model of a self-governing church congregation
• House of Burgesses in Virginia


  • A representative assembly which could levy taxes and pass laws
• Representative assemblies throughout the colonies were dominated by the elite classes