Ch 1: Exchange in the Atlantic World
to 1590
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“An unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates
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"Nowhere in North America did Indian cultures
develop a concept of the private ownership of
land or other resources." Faragher text
"Columbus did not discover a new world. He
established contact between two worlds, both
already old." Historian J. H. Perry
Recommended Readings
 James Axtell, The Invasion Within: The
Contest of Cultures in Colonial North
America (1986).
 Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and
Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
(1997) and Collapse [2005]
 Barry Fell, America, B.C. (1976) &
Saga America (1970).
 Tim Flannery. The Eternal Frontier:
An Ecological History of North
America and its People (2001), The
Weather Makers (2006)
 Winthrop Jordan, White over Black
(1986).
 Richard Leakey. The Sixth Extinction
(1995).
 Peter Nabokov and Robert Easton,
Native American Architecture (1989).
 Gary Nash, Red, White, and Black
(2000).
 Ivan Van Sertima, They Came Before
Columbus (1976).
 John Thornton, Africa and Africans in
the Making of the Atlantic World, 14001680 (1992).
Chapter Essay Questions:
1. How important was religion to the
conquest of the “New World”?
2. Explain differences between 3
“American Indian” cultures.
Sample Review Questions


Describe the cultural characteristics of
Native American society focusing on religion,
family, and kinship traits and gender roles.
Describe the cultural characteristics of West
African society focusing on the political
systems, the economy, family and kinship
traits, religion, and the tradition of slavery.

What were the similarities and differences
between men’s and women’s roles in Native
American, West African and European
societies?
How did the French, English, and Spanish
fare in their early efforts in the New World?
What were the consequences of contact
between the Old and New World?
Introduction
 “When I use a word it means what I
want it to mean and nothing else.”
Humpty Dumpty
 Lecture style [story telling] versus
“dialogue”
 Historiography, paradigm, pre-history
 Private ownership [privatization] v.
public [gov’t]
 Liberal v. conservative
 Marginalization, concision, straw man
 China Lake petroglyphs
 Pangaega
 Olmec, Maya, Chac-mool,Teotihuacan,
Toltec,Tula, Aztlan, Aztec,
Mexica,Tenochtitlan, Huitzilopochtli,
Quetzalcoatl
 Bible: “Subdue the earth; have dominion
over. . .”
 Historians Barry Fell, Tim Flannery
U.S. Historical Theories
 David Hackett Fischer (seed/germ -Albion's Seed)
 Gary Nash (multiculture/immigrant)
 Frederick Jackson Turner (environment)
 Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (Cycles)
 Michael Kammen (People of Paradox)
 David Potter (People of Plenty, role of
influence)
 Karl Marx (economic determinism)
Text Terms
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Cahokia
Columbian Exchange
Predestination, Calvinism
Protestants v. Catholics
Reconquista [1492 Islam from Spain]
Reformation [Martin Luther, 1517]
Treaty of Tordesillas
Chronology
65 million B.C. Chicxulub asteriod
25,000 B.C. Oldest fossil evidence of humans in
Americas [Beringian]
13.000 B.C. Global warming trend begins
10,000 B.C. Clovis technology, then Folsom
9,000 B.C.
8,000 B.C.
5.000 B.C.
4,000 B.C.
3.000 B.C.
2,000 B.C.
1,000 B.C.
250 B.C.
A.D. 500
A.D. 650
1000
1276
1400-1600
1430s
1451
1492
1494
1497
1517
1519-1521
1540-1542
1558
1565
1587
1588
1598
Extinction of big-game animals
Beginning of Archaic period
Corn cultivation in Mexico [1997]
1st Athapascan migrations to Amer.
1st settled communities Pac. coast
Inupiat and Aleut migrations begin
Mex. crops introduced - Southwest
Beginning of Mogollon and Adena
cultures; 1st urban cities in Mexico
Hohokams found Snaketown
High point of Hopewell culture
Bow and arrow, flint hoes, corn in
the Northeast,
Palenque
Tobacco in use throughout NA
High point of Mississippian and
Anasazi cultures
Spread of Islam in West Africa
Severe drought begins in
Southwest
Athapascans arrive in Southwest
Renaissance in Europe
Portuguese slave trade, Prince
Henry
Founding of Iroquois Confederacy
End of Reconquista in Spain,
Columbus voyage 1
Treaty of Tordesilles
Vasco da Gama around Africa to
India
Protestant Reformation, Martin
Luther
Cortes conquers Aztecs
Coronado explores southwestern
North America
Queen Elizabeth I becomes queen
of England
Spanish outpost at St. Augustine
[FLA]
Founding of “Lost Colony” of
Roanoke
Spanish Armada defeated by
England
Spanish found colony in today’s
New Mexico
The First Americans
Native American Societies Before Contact
American Indians, Olmec, Maya,
Teotihuacan, Tula, Tenochtitlan/Aztec
Beginning of European Overseas
Expansion
Trade with the East
Portugal Explores the West African
Coast
New Technology
Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade
West African Cultures
The Atlantic Slave Trade Begins
Spain and Portugal Divide the Globe
Columbus Sails West
Spanish and Portuguese “Spheres”
An Expanding World
The Spanish Empire in America
Spanish Invasion
Cortez, Balboa, Pizarro,
Exploration of Florida and the American
Southwest
Demographic Catastrophe and Cultural
Exchange
Religion
Spanish Imperial Government
Spanish Mercantilism
Forced Labor Systems
Protestant Northern Europeans
Challenge Catholic Spain
The Protestant Reformation
French Huguenots and English Sea Dogs
Conclusions:
Relevance to Kern County, CA?
Relevance to your personal lives?