APUSH Unit 1

• Before the Europeans arrived, native American peoples organized themselves into diverse cultures depending on where they live
• Native Americans did not all live the same way - some lived in fishing villages, others roamed as nomadic hunters and gatherers, some settled down and farmed, and others lived in large city-based empires
• Central and South American civilizations


  • Boasted large urban centers
  • Had complex political systems
  • Had well-formed religions
• Central and South American civilizations


  • Aztecs (Mexica)
  • Maya
  • Inca
• Maize


  A nutritious corn-like crop that spread north and supported economic development, settlement, irrigation, and social diversification
• Native peoples of North America


  • Pueblo people
  • Nomadic hunter-gatherers (e.g. Ute)
  • Pacific Northwest fishing villages (e.g. Chinook)
  • California hunter-gatherers in permanent settlements (e.g. Chumash)
  • Hopewell people
  • Cahokia people
  • Iroquois
• The Hopewell people lived in towns of 4,000-6,000 people and traded extensively with other regions
• The Cahokia people had the largest settlement in their region, with 10,000-30,000 people at its height, led by powerful chieftains who centralized the government and engaged in extensive trade networks
• The Iroquois lived in villages of several hundred people where they grew crops like maize, squash and beans, and lived in longhouses with 30-50 family members
• 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, constructed advanced irrigation systems, built magnificent cliff dwellings
• Great Basin and Great Plains region groups


  • Nomadic hunter-gatherers
• 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, largest was the Cahokia civilization with a centralized government
• From the 1300s to the 1400s, European kingdoms were going through a process of political unification and developing stronger, more centralized states governed by monarchs
• The growing wealthy upper class in Europe developed a taste for luxury goods from Asia, but Muslims controlled many of the land-based trading routes
• This led Europeans to seek out sea-based routes for trade, with Portugal establishing a trading post empire around Africa and the Indian Ocean
• Maritime technologies used by the Portuguese


  • Updated astronomical charts, astrolabe, new ship designs, Latin sail, stern post rudder
• Spain also entered the maritime game after the Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors
• Christopher Columbus


  Italian sailor who sailed west across the Atlantic in 1492 and landed in the Caribbean, sparking European exploration and colonization of the Americas
• 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, cattle, pigs, horses

  Gold and silver from the Americas to Europe

  Enslaved Africans brought to the Americas

  Smallpox from Europe decimated native populations
• The influx of wealth from the Americas induced a shift in Europe from feudalism to a more capitalistic system, with the rise of joint stock companies to fund exploration
• Encomienda system


  Economic system where Spaniards forced natives to work on plantations and extract resources
• The Spaniards encountered problems with the encomienda system, including native resistance and high mortality rates, leading them to import African slave labor
• Casta system


  Social class system introduced by the Spanish in the Americas, categorizing people based on racial ancestry
• Europeans developed belief systems to justify the exploitation of native Americans and Africans, such as the idea that Africans were cursed descendants of Ham
• Despite the difficult and brutal relationship, the Europeans and natives also adopted practices and customs from each other