CHAPTER 1
Native Peoples of America, to 1500
CHAPTER THEMES
The earliest Americans arrived in multiple migrations, either crossing the land bridge between Siberia
and Alaska, or by boat, following the then-continuous coast to Alaska and south. The original arrivals
moved farther south as others also made the crossing. After the Ice Age, about 10,500 B.C., these
Paleo-Indians learned to use jasper or flint for tools and weapons for hunting. A warming climate
altered the food chain, ending many of the big game species. By 4000 B.C. this change caused the sea
level to rise and the glaciers to recede, filling the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River basin, and other
waterways with glacial runoff. Treeless plains and evergreen forests gave way to deciduous forests in
the East, grassland prairies on the Plains, and desert in much of the West.
In response to these climatic changes, Paleo-Indians began to modify their ways of life and develop
new societies, called Archaic by archeologists. Archaic peoples of about 8000 B.C. to about 2 500 B.C.
lived off smaller mammals, fish, and wild plants. In the East and Midwest many dwelled in year-round
villages. Over time Archiac Indians began to experiment with agriculture, tending wild plants and
cultivating specific crops.
After 2500 B.C. many Native American societies moved beyond archaic ways of life. The most farreaching transformation occurred among peoples who depended on cultivated crops. In Mesoamerica
and South America selective breeding of crops, particularly maize, led to surpluses that enabled the
development of large urban centers. Several closely clustered communities would form a chiefdom
ruled by hereditary leaders. A few states arose by 100 A.D., with centralized, hierarchical power and
institutions that extended across broad spans of territory. The most extensive was Teotihuacán which
dominated the Valley of Mexico until 700. By the fifteenth century, two mighty empires: the Aztecs of
Mesoamerica and the Incas of the South American Andes had emerged. The arrival of Spanish crushed
both empires in the sixteenth century.
In the Southwest, full-time farming did not begin until after 400 B.C., when a more drought-resistant
strain of maize made possible increased population throughout the region. During the third century
B.C., the Hohokam peoples began farming in the river valleys of southern Arizona, building elaborate
irrigation canals and living in permanent villages. The Anasazis originated in the first century B.C. and
expanded over much of what is today the region where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah
meet. They established towns that were major trading centers. Drought at the end of the twelfth and in
the early thirteenth centuries brought an end to the Anasazi culture and cleared the way for the arrival
of Apaches and Navajos.
In the Eastern Woodlands—the land from the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic Ocean—Indians
established complex political organizations before developing a flourishing agriculture. As early as
1200 B.C. a mound-building culture existed on the Mississippi River in Louisiana. Another moundbuilding culture, the Adena, emerged in the Ohio Valley in the fifth century B.C. The Adena people
spread over a wide area and built hundreds of mounds. During the first century B.C., the Adena culture
developed into an even more complex and widespread culture known as Hopewell. It covered a wider
area, including the Illinois River valley, and built more complex ceremonial centers with a greater
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2
Chapter 1: Native Peoples of America, to 1500
variety and quantity of goods. Through trade networks the Hopewell influence spread over much of the
Eastern Woodlands to Wisconsin, Florida, and New York.
Agriculture became a dietary mainstay for woodlands people only between the seventh and twelfth
centuries A.D. The first full-time farmers in the East lived on the floodplains of the Mississippi and its
major tributaries. They developed a new culture, the Mississippian, that combined elements of
Hopewell culture with new ideas from Mexico. Mississippian towns with hundreds and even thousands
of people were built around open plazas like those of central Mexico. By the tenth century most
Mississippian centers were linked in a single system with its center at the city of Cahokia, located near
contemporary St. Louis. Beginning in the thirteenth century the Mississippian centers underwent
decline. Although that decline ended a trend toward political centralization, the Mississippians had
affected native culture profoundly, spreading new strains of maize and beans along with techniques and
tools to cultivate these crops.
Along the Pacific coast from Alaska to southern California improvements in the production and storage
of salmon and other spawning fish enabled Indians to settle into villages, which on the northwest coast
could number several hundred persons. Farther south in California, Indians began to live in small
villages and used acorns to supplement their diets.
The end of the Archaic period is less noticeable in the Great Plains to the east of the Rocky Mountains
and the Great Basin to the west, which both remained too dry to support large human settlements.
Plains Indian hunters mainly pursued buffalo.
By A.D. 1500 the North American continent presented a broad spectrum of human societies, bound
together by similar patterns of kinship, the norms of reciprocity, and communal use and control of
resources. Between 7 million and 10 million Native Americans lived north of present-day Mexico.
Trade facilitated the exchange not only of goods but also of new ideas and techniques. Indians also
shared a preference for the independent, kin-based communities that generally characterized indigenous
North America.
Native American religions held the conviction that all nature was alive, united in an unbroken web.
Most Indian peoples sought to conciliate nature’s spiritual forces and to reach spiritual power
themselves through physical ordeal and an understanding of dreams. Native American communities
demanded conformity and close cooperation. In early childhood Indians learned to be accommodating
and reserved, slow to reveal their feelings. Because Indians valued consensus building in everyday life,
their leaders’ authority depended primarily on gaining respect rather than on compulsion. All Indian
cultures possessed a strong sense of order and custom that mingled with the spiritual world at every
turn.
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
Europeans “discovered” America only in the sense that earlier they didn’t know it was there. The
Native Americans certainly knew. You may wish to expand on one or more of these societies in lecture.
See, for example, Lynda Norene Shaffer, Native Americans Before 1492: The Moundbuilding Centers
of the Eastern Woodlands (1992); Susan L. Woodward and Jerry N. McDonald, Indian Mounds of the
Middle Ohio Valley: A Guide to Mounds and Earthworks of the Adena, Hopewell, Cole, and Fort
Ancient People (2002); Jon Muller, Archaeology of the Lower Ohio Valley (1986); or Ronald J. Mason,
Rock Island: Historical Indian Archaeology in the Northern Lake Michigan Basin (1986). Consider
also Karl H. Schlesier, editor, Plains Indians, A.D. 500–1500: The Archeological Past of Historic
Groups (1995); William H. MacLeish, The Day Before America (1995); and David Roberts, In Search
of the Old Ones: Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest (1997). Perhaps a geologist or
anthropologist colleague might be invited to offer some comments on pre-Columbian North America
that would serve to illustrate, among other things, that history is related to other disciplines. Another
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Chapter 1: Native Peoples of America, to 1500
3
suggestion is a lecture dealing with the Indian past prior to European arrival in the region in which the
college or university is located using specialist resources specific to the area. For sources, consult the
history of tribal groups that has been the concern of the University of Oklahoma’s Civilization of the
American Indian series, currently nearing two hundred volumes.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONAL SUGGESTIONS
The worldview of pre-Columbian peoples was very different from that of contemporary Americans.
One possible approach to understanding may be to consider how Native Americans explained the
world. Ask students to make a selection from Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, editors, American
Indian Myths and Legends (1985), or from the videos of Indian legends listed below in Print and
Nonprint Resources that may be made available to students. Ask for a brief written summary: Restate
the story in straightforward prose. What attitudes toward nature or toward human relations or toward
social obligations does the Indian’s explanation of the world reveal? That is, what is the world’s
meaning for them? Choose a few summaries for class discussion. Another possibility is to ask students
to identify themes that are found in some of the major religions currently practiced in the United States.
Ask students to choose one tribal group of Native Americans and write a paragraph explaining the
tribe’s origins as far as they are known. You may wish to consult the University of Oklahoma’s
Civilization of the American Indian series.
PRINT AND NONPRINT RESOURCES
One must take particular care in considering nonprint materials relating to Indian archaeology. Much of
the material available was created for lower-school use. Three films may be recommended here, but
they should be used carefully. The concepts are valid, but the expected audience is younger. Indians of
the Americas, sixteen minutes, provides a sweeping survey from twenty thousand years ago. Indian
Origins: The First 50,000 Years, eighteen minutes, and Indian Cultures from 2000 B.C. to 1500 A.D.,
sixteen minutes, provide a useful summary. To obtain the films, consult the College and University
Media Review.
Films for the Humanities and Sciences has two series of eight 26-minute videos of Legends of the
Indians and More Legends of the Indians, authentic stories from various Indian tribes told by the
tribespeople themselves. It also offers two 13-minute videos, The Indians Were There First and When
the White Man Came, which tell the story of the migration across the land bridge from Asia and the
development of the major tribal groups. In a sixty-minute video, The Search for the First Americans,
the same source offers new archeological evidence that questions the Bering Sea land bridge thesis. In
Ice Age Crossings, twenty-eight minutes, artifacts from South America are considered in relation to the
Bering Strait thesis. Films for the Humanities and Sciences also offers videos that examine some
ancient North American sites: The Ancients of North America, twenty-three minutes, travels to the
Southwest to a site dated 5490 B.C.; The Anasazi of Chaco Canyon, forty-three minutes, looks at that
civilization; Spirits of the Canyon: Ancient Art of the Pecos Indians, twenty-eight minutes, takes
viewers to the canyon walls of southwest Texas; and America’s Indian Heritage: Rediscovering
Columbus (Ohio), fifty-six minutes, considers the moundbuilders and their connection to later peoples.
PBS Video offers a sixty-minute presentation of Myths and Moundbuilders that focuses on the river
valleys of the Southeast and Midwest. Several videos in the Ancient America series from the Jefferson
National Expansion Historical Association will be of interest. Indians of the Southwest, Indians of the
Northwest, and Indians of the Eastern Woodlands, each sixty minutes, are available from the
association at 10 South Broadway, St. Louis, Missouri 63102.
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4
Chapter 1: Native Peoples of America, to 1500
Although Nanook of the North was made about Eskimo people in this century, its status as one of the
original films of the documentary genre and its effort to capture the character of an earlier society are
notable. Robert Flaherty’s reputation has been challenged, but the film remains a great achievement.
Document Set 1–1
The World of Native Americans: Oral Tradition
1.
The Indians of New Netherlands Account for the Creation, ca. 1650s
2.
The Origins of Ottawa Society, as Related by Nicholas Perrot, ca. 1720
3.
The Dekanawida Myth and the Achievement of Iroquois Unity, ca. Sixteenth Century
4.
The Foundation of the Iroquois Confederacy, 1570, as Recounted in the Tuscarora Oral Tradition
Although it is impossible to provide students with traditional source material on pre-Columbian life in
North America because Native Americans did not leave a corpus of written documents, there are other
forms of evidence that will help students gain insight into the lives, thoughts, and experiences of
indigenous peoples. This document set is intended to acquaint students with the diversity of cultures
that existed in what later became the United States, prior to the arrival of Europeans. Through an
acquaintance with both the oral tradition of Native American tribes and the observations of Europeans,
students may come to recognize the depth, color, and richness of Native American history. The
documents focus particularly on tribes east of the Mississippi, because those are the tribes whose oral
traditions are most accessible to students of early America.
Because of the controversy surrounding the concept of “discovery,” instructors might wish to begin
with an exercise in semantics, asking students to explore the implications of the word discovery. By
examining the creation myths and other Native American ideas contained in this document set, students
may come to appreciate the sensitivity of today’s Native Americans to the widely held assumption that
an almost vacant continent awaited exploitation at the time of Columbus’s first encounter with an
American population.
Another fruitful avenue for discussion would be an exploration of commonalities in creation myths to
determine whether there were linkages between separate Native American tribes, at least in their belief
systems. Students might be asked to discuss similarities and differences between Native American and
Judeo-Christian beliefs. This exercise could easily incorporate an analysis of European influence on
Native American religious thought. A careful examination of the documents will reveal not only
evidence of European modification of traditional oral accounts of Native American history and myth
but also the subversive and potentially dangerous impact of European assumptions concerning the
intrinsic worth of the respective cultures involved in the exchange of ideas. This discussion might
revolve around student exploration of ethnocentrism, as well as the merits and shortcomings of cultural
relativism. Students might be asked to approach this topic through discussion of the values and
lifestyles of Native Americans and Europeans in the first centuries after initial contact.
The value of the oral tradition as evidence could also be explored through discussion of the research
problems presented by a culture that left few records. Students might be asked to consider the ways in
which the modern scholar reconstructs the lives and thoughts of Native Americans in the preColumbian era. As students grapple with the limitations imposed on the scholar by the absence of
written documents, they should begin to see why oral accounts assume significance as historical
sources. Equally valuable would be a discussion of the precautions necessary when the scholar relies on
oral tradition.
Finally, this chapter should provide the springboard from which instructors may launch an examination
of the Columbian exchange. Alfred W. Crosby’s conceptual framework might be introduced by a short
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Chapter 1: Native Peoples of America, to 1500
5
preliminary lecture in which the Native Americans are portrayed as part of an incipient global
interaction soon to alter the course of history. An awareness of the reciprocal nature of this exchange
may begin with an analysis of the highly sophisticated cultures present in North America and their
potential for influence as well as absorption.
Recommended Readings for Document Set 1–1
James Axtell. The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America (1985).
Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr. The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the
Present (1978).
Alfred W. Crosby. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (1972).
William Denevan. The Native American Population of the Americas in 1492 (1976).
H. Dobryns. The Number Became Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North
America (1983).
Ake Hulkvantz. The Religions of the American Indians (1979).
Francis Jennings. The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Indian
Tribes from Its Beginnings to the London Treaty of 1744 (1984).
Daniel K. Richter. The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The People of the Iroquois League in the Era of
European Expansion (1992).
Elizabeth Tooker, ed. Native North American Spirituality of the Eastern Woodlands (1979).
Christopher Vecsey. Imagine Ourselves Richly: Mythic Narratives of North American Indians (1988).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 1–1
The Early Americans (film—41 min.). Shell Film Library, 1433 Sadlier Circle West Drive,
Indianapolis, Ind. 46239.
The Indians Were There First (videotape—13 min.). Films for the Humanities and Sciences, P.O. Box
2053, Princeton, N.J. 08543-2053.
Glooscap (How Humans and Animals Were Created to Live in Peace and Plenty and How Evil
Intervened) (videotape—26 min.). Films for the Humanities and Sciences, P.O. Box 2053, Princeton,
N.J. 08543-2053.
Myths and Mound Builders (videotape—60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va.
22314-1698.
The New Found Land (videotape—53 min.). Episode 1, America Series. Time-Life Films, 110
Eisenhower Drive, Paramus, N.J. 07652.
Popul Vuh: The Creation Myth of the Maya (videotape—60 min.). University of California Extension,
Center for Media and Independent Learning, 2176 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, Calif. 94704.
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6
Chapter 1: Native Peoples of America, to 1500
Document Set 1–2
Native American Life: European Observations on Social Institutions and Ecological
Change
1.
Jesuit Observations on the “Enslavement” of Native American Women, 1633, 1710
2.
Father Pierre de Charlevoix Describes the Female Role in Iroquois Governance, 1721
3.
Sir William Johnson Confronts the Iroquois Women, 1758
4.
A Challenge to European Stereotypes of Native American Gender Relations, 1819
5.
Aspects of Native American Life
6.
Indian Agriculture and Nature’s Balance, Seventeenth Century
7.
A Narragansett Leader Complains of English Encroachment, 1642
8.
Mohegan Indians Describe Effects of White Settlement, 1789
9.
Father Sebastian Rasles Comments on the Hunting Practices of the Illinois, 1692
Discussion of these materials might be preceded by a lecture dealing with the cultural assumptions
Europeans brought to North America with them. The documents containing observations on Native
American families and communities will be better understood by students who are aware of European
models of behavior in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Moreover, this background session
should enable instructors and students to explore the nature and definition of ethnocentrism. As a result,
it should be possible to question some traditional shortcomings in instructional and scholarly
interpretation of the Indian-European cultural exchange.
An excellent point of entry into this discussion would be an examination of the relationship between
social institutions, gender roles, and the sexual division of labor on the one hand and the conditions
imposed by the cultures and societies in which they appeared on the other hand. This topic also gives
instructors an opportunity to introduce an interdisciplinary approach to the study of history. The topic is
ideally suited to introducing into class discussion some anthropological, archaeological, and
ethnohistorical insights into the Indian way of life. As a result, students may develop an appreciation of
indigenous cultures and an understanding of cultural relativism as a tenable analytical assumption.
In this respect, students might be asked why the economic roles and responsibilities described in the
documents had evolved as they had by the seventeenth century. This exercise will encourage students to
think about the rationale behind a set of social relationships. A critical approach to the documents can
also lead students to identify cultural bias and hidden assumptions in the observations of European
commentators on Native American social, economic, and political relationships. By urging students to
arrive at the “truth” concerning the Indian way of life and to consider the validity of that “truth,”
instructors may help students understand the complexities of historical analysis.
Another point of emphasis in acquainting students with Native American cultures is discussion of the
principles of equilibrium, reciprocity, and ecological balance as central to the Native American
worldview. The textbook conclusion stresses the Indians’ assumption that they participated in a “natural
and spiritual order that pervaded the universe.” Students will find much to contemplate in evaluating
the Indians’ value systems, including their attitude toward nature and the role of humans in the natural
order. The question of Native Americans’ ecological sensitivity offers instructors an excellent
opportunity to establish past-present linkage through discussion of the clash between Indian ecology
and European capitalist expansionism. Moreover, instructors might also spark debate by introducing the
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Chapter 1: Native Peoples of America, to 1500
7
modern scholarly controversy over the extent of the Indians’ commitment to ecological principles (see
“Recommended Readings”). In any case, the documents may be employed to demonstrate early
evidence of the unquestionably disruptive effect of unrestrained European development.
Recommended Readings for Document Set 1–2
James Axtell. The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial America (1985).
Cheryl Claassen and Rosemary A. Joyce, eds. Women in Prehistory: North American and Mesoamerica
(1997).
William Cronon. Changes in the Land (1983).
Francis Jennings. The Invasion of America: Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest (1975).
Karen Kupperman. Settling with the Indians: The Meeting of English and Indian Cultures, 1580–1640
(1981).
James H. Merrell. The Indians’ New World: Catawbas and Their Neighbors from European Settlement
Through the Era of Removal (1989).
Calvin Martin. Keepers of the Game: Indian-Animal Relationships and the Fur Trade (1978).
Neal Salisbury. Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans and the Making of New England, 1500–
1643 (1982).
Timothy Silver. A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists and Slaves in South Atlantic
Forests, 1500–1800 (1990).
Bruce G. Trigger. The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 (1976).
Richard White. The Middle Ground: Indian Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–
1815 (1991).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 1–2
1492 Revisited (videotape—28 min.). University of California Extension, Center for Media and
Independent Learning, 2176 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, Calif. 94704.
An Introduction to the Indians of America, Part 4 (Indians of the Northeast); Part 5 (Indians of the
Southeast) (slides—18 min. each). Morey Associates, Kansas City, Mo.
The Indians Were Here First (videotape—13 min.). Films for the Humanities and Sciences, P.O. Box
2053, Princeton, N.J. 08543-2053.
In Search of the Long World (film—52 min.). Films, Inc., 5574 Ravenswood Avenue, Chicago, Ill.
60640-1199.
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