APUSH Unit 1

• 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
• The time period covered is 1491 to 1607, also known as Period 1 in the 8th push world
• Native American societies before European contact

  • Migrated and settled across North America over time
  • Developed distinct and increasingly complex societies by adapting to and transforming their diverse environments
  • Used the term 'pre-Columbian societies' for the period before Columbus in 1492
• Spread of maize cultivation

  1. Originated in present-day Mexico

  2. Spread northward into the present-day American Southwest and beyond

  3. Supported economic development, settlement, advanced irrigation, and social diversification among societies
• Pueblo people of the American Southwest

  • Crafted Adobe structures
  • Relied on irrigation to grow maize, squash, and beans
  • Utilized the 'three sisters' technique of planting
• Societies in the Great Basin and western Great Plains

  • Developed largely mobile, nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles due to lack of natural resources and fertile soil
• Societies in the northwest, Mississippi River Valley, and along the Atlantic seaboard

  • Developed mixed agricultural and hunter-gatherer economies that favoured the development of permanent villages
• Societies in the northwest and present-day California supported themselves by hunting, gathering, and fishing, and developed settled communities
• European exploration and conquest of the Americas was driven by a search for new sources of wealth, economic and military competition, and a desire to spread Christianity
• Spain and Portugal were the first European nations to explore and colonize the Americas
• Technological advancements and innovations that enabled European exploration

  • Improved maritime technology like the caravel
  • Sextant for determining latitude
  • Emergence of joint-stock companies to fund exploration and colonization
• Columbian Exchange

  The transfer of people, animals, plants, technology, disease, culture, and ideas between the Americas, Africa, and Europe
• The Columbian Exchange led to population growth in Europe, the introduction of new crops, and the transition from feudalism to capitalism
• Spanish exploration and conquest of the Americas were accompanied by widespread deadly epidemics that devastated native populations
• The introduction of horses by the Spanish was a game-changer for many tribes, especially on the Great Plains
• The rise of sugar plantations in the Americas led to a rapid growth of African slavery
• Spanish colonial system

  • Encomienda system - grants of land that included indigenous people as enslaved manual labor
  • Importation of enslaved Africans to labor in plantation agriculture and mining
• Caste system in Spanish colonies

  Incorporated and defined the status of Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans, with race dictating social status
• Colonization by European powers was built on the belief that European civilization was superior
• Interactions between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans

  1. Mutual misunderstandings and divergent worldviews regarding issues like religion, gender roles, family, land-use, and power

  2. Over time, some useful aspects of each other's cultures were adopted