Chapter 1 – Beginnings of America
Section Notes
Video
The World before 1600
European Colonies in America
Colonial Life
The World Before 1600
European Colonies in America
Colonial Life
Maps
History Close-up
Plymouth Colony
Quick Facts
The World Before 1600
European Colonies in the
Americas
Native American Culture Areas
Columbian Exchange
European Exploration of the
Americas, 1492-1682
Thirteen Colonies, 1750
Triangular Trade
European Claims in North America
Images
Artifacts
Spanish Explorers
Jamestown, 1607
The Great Awakening
The World before 1600
The Big Idea
Diverse cultures existed in the Americas, Europe, and Africa before
1600.
Main Ideas
• Who were the first people in the early Americas?
• In what ways were North American cultures before 1500
different, and in what ways were they similar?
• What characterized African cultures before 1500?
• How did European exploration begin?
Nomadic Siberian hunter-gatherers crossed into the
Americas, began farming, and settled in villages.
Nomads
• During the Ice Age, a land
bridge called Beringia
connected Asia and North
America.
• Between 12,000 and 40,000
years ago, Siberians crossed
this land bridge into North
America.
• These early Americans were
nomads. They moved from
place to place and followed a
hunter-gatherer way of life.
Villagers
• About 10,000 years ago
many of the large North
American animals died off.
• Early Americans began to
hunt smaller prey and
gather more plants.
• About 7,000 years ago,
some groups started
planting seeds. Farming
allowed them to settle into
villages.
• This change is called the
Agricultural Revolution.
Empires of Mesoamerica
Empires rose up in Mesoamerica, a region that is today Mexico and
Central America.
Olmec
• Olmec culture first began around 1200 BC.
• The Olmec people had a tremendous influence on later cultures.
Maya
• The Maya began their rise around 400 BC.
• They built pyramids and developed writing and number systems.
Aztec
• In the 1400s the militaristic Aztec formed a large empire in present-day
Mexico. The Aztec capital was Tenochtitlán, today’s Mexico City.
Early Cultures of North America
• Early Native Americans encountered varied environments,
including forests, deserts, and fertile land.
• In each region, different kinds of societies developed. For
example:
• The Hohokam people farmed with irrigation systems in
the Southwest.
• The Anasazi, ancestors of today’s Pueblo Indians, built
adobe dwellings called pueblos in the Southwest.
• The Adena and Hopewell, known as the Mound Builders,
buried their dead in large earth mounds.
• The Mississippians were the most advanced farmers north
of Mexico. They built towns across the Southeast and
southern Midwest.
Native American groups varied by region but
shared many customs and traditions.
Native Americans in North America before the 1500s established
diverse cultures based on geography and resources.
Southwest:
Lived in pueblos
governed by
council of
religious elders
Northwest
Coast: Had an
abundance of
natural
resources
California:
Many animals
and plants were
available yearround.
Far North:
Lived in the
freezing tundra
and hunted
wildlife
Great Basin
and Plateau:
Lived in dry
areas behind the
Pacific Coast
mountain
ranges.
Great Plains:
Plains Indians
lived west of the
Mississippi River
and hunted
buffalo.
Eastern
Woodlands:
Groups in this
dense forest
region used
forest resources
to build homes.
Southeast:
Most Native
Americans lived
in settled
farming villages
for hundreds of
years.
Shared Customs and Traditions
• Native North Americans had diverse social systems and
traditions, but shared a number of customs, practices, and
religious ideas.
– Most villages and nations organized into clans by kinship,
or blood relations
– Many shared the concept of a spiritual connection to the
natural world.
• Trade brought Native Americans together. By the 1400s
thousands of miles of trade networks crossed North America.
– From their earliest days in North America, bands of
hunters exchanged gifts and spear points
– Later, people traveled to exchange food, raw materials,
and luxury goods.
North Americans and Europeans traded
goods, and eventually slaves, with African
trading kingdoms.
• Africa’s Sahara Desert was a fearsome barrier to travel.
Despite the dangers, many trading caravans have crossed
it since ancient times.
• Besides goods, desert traders brought the religious
teachings of Islam to Africa, which some accepted.
• Several African trading kingdoms developed in West Africa
starting around AD 300, including,
Ghana and Mali - grew wealthy by taxing traders
Songhai - A large capital of Islamic learning
Benin and Kongo - Coastal kingdoms; many European traders
The Demand for Slave Labor
Gold and trade first attracted European sailors to Africa, but
it was the demand for labor that caused Europeans to join
in the African slave trade.
– The Portuguese, Spanish, and other Europeans built
plantations off the African coast and in the Caribbean,
Brazil, and North America.
– European planters began importing slaves to work the
large plantations.
– The slave trade expanded as American planters began
importing slaves to the Americas.
– The slave trade devastated society in West Africa for 400
years. During this time an estimated 20 million enslaved
Africans landed in the Americas.
Europeans made political, cultural, and
religious changes and explored new lands.
The Middle Ages
•
1096: The
Crusades began in
Palestine, opening
European eyes to
new lands.
•
1400s: European
countries began
to consolidate
under monarchs,
forming nationstates.
•
The Magna Carta
was signed,
placing limits on
royal powers.
The Renaissance
and Reformation
The Age of
Exploration
• 1300s:
Prosperity led to
better education
and cultural and
scientific
advances.
• Scientific
advances led
European nationstates to find new
lands and trade
sources.
• Discontent grew
in the Roman
Catholic church.
• Marco Polo
traveled to China.
• Martin Luther’s
challenges began
the Reformation
and the birth of
Protestantism.
• Prince Henry of
Portugal sought a
sea route to Asia.
Vasco de Gama
found one in 1498.
Columbus and America
• Born in 1451 in the trading city of Genoa, Italy
Christopher • While visiting Portugal, decided to attempt sailing west to
reach Asia
Columbus
• Called this mission “Enterprise of the Indies”
Enterprise
of the
Indies
• Finally won support from Spanish monarchs Isabella and
Ferdinand
• Began on August 3, 1492, with three ships: Niña, Pinta,
and Santa Maria – Columbus’s flagship
• Landed at dawn on October 12, 1492, on a small island in
the Bahamas, which Columbus mistook for the Indies in
Asia
Voyage
Impacts
• European colonization in America and the downfall of the
Native American people
• New plants and animals exchanged between continents,
known as the Columbian Exchange
• This exchange brought European diseases to the Americas.
European Colonies in America
The Main Idea
Spain began colonizing America, and later, England built a diverse
group of colonies on the Atlantic seaboard.
Reading Focus
• Which European nations explored the Americas, and where?
• Did the English in Virginia succeed in creating settlements?
• What were the characteristics of the northern colonies?
• What were the characteristics of the middle and southern colonies?
The Spanish and Portuguese claimed the
Americas, but other European powers
challenged those claims.
• After Columbus returned from the Americas, the Spanish and the
Portuguese debated claims to newly discovered lands. The Treaty
of Tordesillas settled the dispute, granting Spain a much bigger
land claim.
• A wave of exploration followed the Treaty of Tordesillas, and the
Spanish conquistadors, or conquerors, led the way in the 1500s.
Their goals were “God, gold, and glory.”
Juan Ponce de Léon claimed Florida for Spain.
Hernán Cortés conquered the wealthy Aztec Empire in 1521.
Hernando de Soto discovered the Mississippi River.
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado discovered the Grand
Canyon.
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo: explored the coast of California.
Spain’s Empire in the Americas
Politics
• Aspects of colonial government
– Viceroyalties, provinces ruled
by viceroys representing
monarchs
– The ecomienda system, which
granted landowners the right to
control people of a certain area
• Social hierarchy based on ancestry
– Peninsulares, people from Spain
– Creoles, people born in
Americas of European descent
– Mestizos, people of Spanish and
Native American descent
– People of mixed Spanish and
African descent, Africans, and
Indians
Religion
• In addition to finding gold, the
Spanish wanted to spread
Christianity.
• Spain sent missionaries,
people who convert others to a
religion.
• Missionaries converted Native
Americans to Christianity. Their
work continued for centuries in
the West and Southwest.
• In 1769 Fray Junípero Serra,
a Franciscan friar known for his
self-discipline, started the first
California mission in San Diego
and later headed eight more
missions in California.
Other Nations Explore the Americas
• During the late 1400s and 1500s, explorers from England,
France and the Netherlands began to explore America.
• English explorers Francis Drake and John Cabot challenged
Spain’s claim to the Americas.
• Queen Elizabeth I built England into a sea power, which
began a key chain of events:
– Religious issues caused Spain and England to go to war.
– In 1588 the Spanish king sent a fleet of 130 ships,
called the Spanish Armada, to invade England.
– England’s superior navy defeated the Spanish Armada,
leaving England free to build American colonies.
The English defeated the Spanish Armada and
established several North American colonies.
• After the defeat of the Spanish Armada, English colonists
came to America for many reasons, including economic
opportunity and adventure.
• King James I issued a charter dividing North America
between two groups of investors, the London Company
and the Plymouth Company.
• These companies were joint-stock ventures in which
investors pooled their money, hoping to make a profit.
• The companies governed and maintained the colonies and
received most of the profit.
The English in Virginia
Roanoke
• In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh sent a group to America. They
claimed land along the Atlantic seaboard and named it
Virginia. In 1587 they founded the colony of Roanoke.
• In 1590 when the colony’s leader returned from England,
he found the colony mysteriously empty of people.
Jamestown
• Settled in 1607, this was the first English colony to
survive, despite disease, contaminated water and lack of
food.
• John Smith, who imposed military discipline on the
colonists, helped them survive hardships.
• John Rolfe, who discovered tobacco and learned to cure it
from his wife Pocahontas, made the colony profitable.
Key
Events in
Virginia
History
• Formation of the House of Burgess, which was America’s
first legislature, or law-making body
• Use of indentured servants, who worked for a number
of years in exchange for food, shelter and paid passage to
America
• Transition to slave labor by the late 1600s
The Puritans, seeking religious freedom,
founded the Northern Colonies.
• English Protestants who thought the Reformation did not go far
enough were known as Puritans.
• Some Puritans, known as Separatists, wanted total separation
from the established church.
• Separatists who left for America were known as the Pilgrims.
• In 1620 a group of Separatists sailed to America on a ship called
the Mayflower. Two months later, they reached present-day
Massachusetts.
• The Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact, a legal contract
agreeing to make laws to protect the people. It was one of the
first attempts at self-government in the English colonies.
Northern Colonies
Plymouth Colony
• The pilgrims who signed the Mayflower Compact established this colony.
They grew their own food and built their own houses.
• Harsh conditions, which killed many of the colonists, included cold, hunger,
and sickness.
• Those who survived had help from the friendly local Indians.
Massachusetts Bay Colony
• This colony was established as both a religious haven and the headquarters
of the Massachusetts Bay Company.
• The colony’s success inspired the Great Migration, when 16,000 English
settlers crossed the Atlantic Ocean and settled in New England.
Other Northern Colonies
• In time, the strict rules of the Puritan colonies caused dissenters to leave
and settle new towns in other parts of New England.
• These new colonies included: Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New
Hampshire.
King Charles II granted friends and family
land to rule, and they formed the Middle and
Southern Colonies.
• In the late 1600s, a new and different phase of colonization
began in the middle and southern regions.
• A new king, Charles II, owed money and favors to many people.
He repaid them with American land grants.
• The colonies created
– New York
– New Jersey
– Pennsylvania
– Carolina
• Unlike joint-stock colonies, these were not ruled by investors or
colonial legislatures, but by their owners.
The Southern and Middle Colonies
•
•
•
•
New York
Granted to James, duke of York
Already belonged to the Dutch
Conquered by the English in
1674 and renamed New York
Later, a large tract James gave
to two proprietors became
New Jersey.
The Carolinas and Georgia
• Carolina co-owned by eight
men
• Split into North and South due
to tensions over farm size and
slavery
• Georgia was formed as a
military buffer between English
and Spanish colonies.
Pennsylvania
• Given to William Penn
• Founded as a haven for Quakers
and called a “Holy Experiment”
• Decreased in size when Penn
agreed to give Native Americans
present-day Delaware
Maryland
• Founded by George Calvert, the
first Lord Baltimore
• Was a haven for Catholics after
Church of England became
England’s official church
• Was a source of personal wealth for
Lord Baltimore
Colonial Life
The Big Idea
The American colonies developed politically, culturally, and
economically.
Reading Focus
• How did political and economic events lead to the
beginnings of self-government in the colonies?
• How did the colonial economy differ in the North and South?
• How did the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening
contribute to America’s emerging culture?
• What were the causes and effects of the French and Indian
War?
The British governed the colonies loosely and
taxed them heavily, so American colonists
began to self-govern.
• Colonists began smuggling goods because they felt Great Britain
taxed them unfairly.
• Britain, however, had established the colonies to obtain wealth.
• Great Britain and the American colonies were divided on several
issues, including

Economic principles called mercantilism held that a nation’s
power was directly related to its wealth. But colonial merchants
wanted to make money for themselves, not for Britain.
–
Britain passed the Navigation Acts, laws that restricted colonial
trade, to ensure that the colonies stayed profitable.
–
For greater control, the king merged colonies and sent a royal
governor, Edmund Andros. Colonists arrested and banished him.
The Colonists Begin to Self-Govern
• Local rebellions helped some colonies regain elected assemblies.
Others were ruled more strictly as a result.
• Several colonies formed the United Colonies of New England, or
the New England Confederation in 1643.
• Salutary neglect, which was the British officials’ tendency to rule
the colonies leniently, benefited the colonies.
• Local governments (town meetings, counties, parishes and local
governors) ruled daily life for colonists.
• Colonists elected assemblies that were based on the British
Parliament’s bicameral (two house) system, with
– A governor's council with executive and legislative powers
– An elected assembly like the Parliament’s House of Commons
• When the House of Commons in England gained more power, so
did the colonial assemblies, winning rights such as freedom of
speech in debate and the right to pass money bills.
Different regional economies developed in the North
and South.
Northern Colonial Economies
Southern Colonial Economies
• Commerce-based economy
• Agricultural-based economy
• Crops did not grow well, so
farmers only grew enough for
themselves.
• Produced valuable cash crops
such as tobacco, rice, tar, and
indigo.
• The most valuable Northern
resources were dense forests
– Timber exports
– Wood for shipbuilding
• Northerners produced rum,
textiles, ironworks, and other
goods.
• Good harbors and inexpensive
ships encouraged commerce in
the North; it was concentrated in
the port cities.
• These cities became part of trade
routes that linked the world.
• Two agricultural systems
developed:
– Plantations were large,
warm-climate farms that
grew one cash crop and
depending largely on slave
labor.
– Small independent farms
raised livestock and
exported beef and pork.
They grew corn, wheat,
fruit and vegetables for the
home market.
The Impact of Slavery
• Plantation owners needed more and more workers.
• Settlers gradually stopped using Native American workers and
indentured servants in favor of enslaved Africans.
• The slave trade caused massive human suffering.
– The difficult trip across the Atlantic from Africa was called the
Middle Passage.
– Kidnapped Africans were chained together in dark, filthy
quarters below the decks and many died.
– The African population in America grew quickly.
• Slavery existed in both the North and South, but the South’s
agricultural economy depended more on slave labor.
• Slaves developed strong cultural and religious communities.
America’s Emerging Culture
The Enlightenment
• A period in Europe that was known for its use of logic and reason to
improve government, law, and society
• The ideas of the Enlightenment began in the European upper classes
but soon traveled to the American colonies.
• John Locke believed the government should protect citizens’ “natural
rights.” His ideas influenced Americans such as Jefferson and
Franklin.
• Locke’s ideas are found in the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution, including limited government and divided powers.
The Great Awakening
• The Enlightenment led some colonists to question religious beliefs.
• In 1730, the clergy, trying to bring people back to church, began
the Great Awakening, a major religious revival in the colonies.
• Jonathan Edwards was an influential religious leader of this
period.
• The Great Awakening made religion accessible to the people and
church membership grew. It’s new ideas influenced the growing
colonies.
Life in the Colonies
• The colonies came of age culturally in the 1700s.
• Non-British colonists, including Scots, Scots-Irish, Germans,
French and Jewish people began to arrive.
• The newcomers, along with British settlers, created a new
American culture.
• Colonial cities were lively: paved streets lit by oil lamps,
anchored ships from foreign ports, libraries, bookshops, and
impressive public buildings added to colony life.
• Colonial printers printed and distributed newspapers, books,
ads, and political announcements.
– Influential newspapers were published in Boston, New
York, and Philadelphia.
The French and Indian War
The Cause
The Course
• In the 1700s Britain and
France struggled for territory.
• The British army, new to
the territory, made easy
targets.
• The French built forts and
allied with Native Americans
to protect their fur trade.
• The British built forts and
alliances of their own, which
led to many frontier battles.
• In 1754 the French joined
with the Native Americans to
attack the English, which is
why it is called the French
and Indian War.
• Britain’s William Pitt took
over and forced colonists
into the army.
• The British took the
French city of Quebec in
1759.
• The French surrendered
the following year and
the Treaty of Paris ended
the war in 1763.
Impacts of the French and Indian War
To avoid more conflict with the Native Americans, British officials tried to stop
colonists from moving west of the Appalachian Mountains. The
Proclamation of 1763 reserved the land for the Native Americans, but
colonists ignored it.
Some say this war led to the American Revolution. Its effects include
–
Colonial unity: Ben Franklin proposed the Albany Plan of Union,
which was the first plan to unify the colonies. It was never adopted.
–
New boundaries: Britain gained lands east of the Mississippi and
much of Canada from the French, and Florida from the Spanish.
Spain gained the Louisiana Territory from France for joining the war.
–
War Debts: The war cost England a lot of money. King George III
thought colonists should pay some of the costs of the war. These
policies drove Britain and the colonies further apart.
–
Effects on Native Americans: Chief Pontiac allied the Midwestern
Native Americans and started a bloody rebellion.
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