Chapter 1
Many Cultures Meet
US History
Prehistory to 1550
Which statement do you agree with
below?
 A) When two cultures meet, one will
be changed by the other.
 B) When two cultures meet, conflict is
inevitable.
 C) When two cultures meet, both will
be changed because each will learn new
practices.
In this Chapter you will read about:
 American Indian culture
 African culture
 European culture
 Chapter Focus Question: How did the
interaction of many cultures after 1492 affect the
Americas?
 Standard Essential Question: What was the
impact of the interaction between European
settlers and the Native Americans?
Let’s Preview Chapter 1…..
 Pages 2 and 3
 Read aloud “Witness History”
 Question: According to Smith, why were
the discoveries of America and a passage to
the East Indies important?
Let’s Analyze the Visuals….
 On page 2 – What do the European and Native American
boats reveal about the technological differences between
these two peoples?
 One page 3 –What does each artifact reveal about the people
who created them?
Chapter 1 Vocabulary & Key Terms
 Section One
Section 3___________

Aztecs
Ghana

Mayans
Mali (Mansa Musa)

Beringia
Songhai (Askia Muhammad)

Timbuktu
 Section 2
Section 4____________

Renaissance
Christopher Columbus

Prince Henry the Navigator
Columbian Exchange

Bartolomeu Dias
Ferdinand Magellan

Vasco da Gama
Hernan Cortes

John Cabot
Moctezuma

Amerigo Vespucci
Conquistadors

Pedro Cabral
Section One Vocabulary
 Aztecs – Native American people that settled in the Valley
of Mexico in the 1200’s A.D. and later developed a powerful
empire.
Section One Vocabulary
 Mayans – Native American people whose civilization
flourished in Guatemala and the Yucatan Peninsula between
about A.D. 250 and 900.
 The Mayans are credited for creating several calendars.
One such calendar is what our modern day calendar was
based until 12/21/12, the predicted dated that world was
supposed to end.
Section One Vocabulary
 Incas – Native American people that around A.D. 1400
created an empire reaching nearly 2,500 miles along the west
coast of South America.
Section One Vocabulary
 Ice Age – A time lasting thousands of years during which
the Earth was covered by ice and glaciers.
 Much of the Earth’s seawater was frozen in polar ice caps
which caused the sea level to fall as much as 360 ft below
today’s level.
Section One Study Questions
 The frozen land bridge which was in place during the last Ice
Age was called Beringia.
 This land bridge spanned from Asian Siberia to North
American Alaska.
 Native American hunters crossed this land bridge in pursuit
of their prey-immense mammals such as mammoths,
mastodons, and giant bison.
Section One Study Questions
 The earliest Americans were big game hunters
who hunted for mammoths, mastodons, bison
and caribou.
 However some scholars do theorize that the first
Americans migrated here from Asia and were
coastal people who gathered wild plants and
hunted seals and small whales.
Section One Study Questions
 Early Americans began hunting small animals as temperatures
began to change after the last Ice Age.
 Temperatures became warmer, glaciers melted, sea levels
began to rise causing hardships for hunting large animals.
 Another primary reason for the change in hunting styles and
types of animals hunted was because the larger animals such
as mammoths, giant bison, mastodons started to become
extinct.
Section One Study Questions
 About 3,500 years ago, Native Americans developed three
important crops.
 Maize – Corn
 Squashes
 Beans
Section One Study Questions
 The Yucatan Peninsula is located in Guatemala, Mexico.
 The Mayan civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization noted
for the only fully developed written language system of the
Pre-Columbian Americas. This civilization is also known for
its art,architecture, mathematical and astronomical systems.
Section One Study Questions
 In the 1200’s the Aztecs lived in the Valley of Mexico.
 They were known as a powerful warrior-like people who
built the beautiful and powerful city of Tenochtitlan which
was captured by Hernan Cortes and Spanish conquistadores.
Section 2 Vocabulary
 Prince Henry the Navigator – In 1419 he
directed Portuguese efforts to sail into the Atlantic, spread
Christianity and outflank Muslim domination of trade.
 He founded a school of navigation and sponsored several
expeditions down the West African Coast.
 These expeditions were attempts to find gold, ivory, and
slaves that Muslim merchants transported across the Sahara
Desert.
Section 2 Vocabulary
 Renaissance – A 200 hundred year period of “rebirth”
or renewing of the kind of interest in the physical world that
had characterized ancient Greece and Rome.
 The Renaissance was classified as a time when Europeans
began investigating all aspects of the physical world.
 The Renaissance featured renewed interest in learning and
the advancement of the arts and sciences.
 During the Renaissance, trade expanded which produced
wealth.
 The spread of literature helped promote individualism and
experimentation during the Renaissance period.
Section 2 Vocabulary
Section 2 Vocabulary
 Reconquista – a battle that ended in 1492 that reestablished Spanish Christian rule on the Iberian Peninsula
after 700 years of Muslim dominance.
 The battle was between Aragon, Castile, and Portugal against
the Muslim Moors to regain control of Iberia.
 The marriage of Prince Ferdinand and Queen Isabella united
Aragon and Castile to create “Spain”.
 In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella finished the reconquista.
Section 2 Study Questions
 Renaissance- Refer to notes in definitions.
 A period in European history lasting from the 14th to the
16th Century which ushered in a more secular age and
encouraged freedom of thought, the importance of the
individual, and renewed interest in classical learning.
 The Renaissance encourage people to value human
achievements. This attitude prompted many to seek glory
through adventure, discovery and conquest. It encouraged
European trade to Jerusalem and led to the conquest of
Muslim Spain..
Section 2 Study Questions
 Prince Henry the Navigator – Refer to
vocabulary words.
 He set up a School of Navigation for students to
learn how to use new ships and instruments that
would develop trade with Africa and Asia.
 He directed Portuguese efforts to sail into the
Atlantic, spread Christianity, and outflank Muslim
domination of trade.
Section 3 Vocabulary
 Ghana – The earliest African civilization that rose to its
prominence around A.D. 800 which expanded from the
Sahara Desert to the Gulf of Guinea and from the Atlantic
Ocean to the Niger River.
 Ghana was known for its extensive supply of gold to the
Mediterranean region.
 Ghana had large towns, beautifully designed buildings, a
system of commerce, and a complex political structure.
Section 3 Vocabulary
 Mali – Around A.D. 1200 Ghana was supplanted (overtaken
as the most powerful) by Mali.
 Mali’s most famous ruler was Mansa Musa who was
responsible for expanding Mali’s domain westward to the
Atlantic coast.
 Mansa Musa was also responsible for introducing the
kingdom of Mali to Islam which later led to the founding of
the famous University of Timbuktu.
Section 3 Vocabulary
 Songhai – emerged around 1400 and was ruled by Askia
Muhammad.
 Also had Islamic roots and continued educational patterns in
the Timbuktu.
 Like Ghana and Mali, Songhai grew rich from trade.
 In 1468, Songhai conquered Mali and became the most
powerful and largest kingdom in West Africa.
Section 3 Vocabulary
 Timbuktu – first flourished as a trade center in the
kingdom of Mali, before becoming the intellectual center of
West Africa.
Section 3 Study Questions
 West Africa was located at important trade routes that linked
Europe to Asia and the Mediterranean regions.
 Slavery in West Africa differed from slavery that developed
later in the Americas because enslaved people were usually
adopted by the families in which they were sold.
 These slaves could marry and their children were not born
into the status of being a slave.
 During this time slavery was not based on the idea of racial
superiority or inferiority.
Section 3 Study Questions
 The Portuguese came into contact with the West Africans
during their voyages of discovery along the West African
coast.
Section 3 Study Questions
 Gold and salt provided important resources for trade.
Kingdoms sold their valuable resources for goods needed in
their own regions.
Section 3 Study Questions
 The Portuguese benefited from the slave trade by selling
enslaved people for money and using them to work on sugar
plantations.
Section 4 Vocabulary
 Vasco da Gama – In 1498 he exploited the
counterclockwise discovery of Bartolomeu by reaching India,
opening an immensely profitable trade route.
 Bartolomeu Dias – a Portuguese mariner who learned
how to use the counterclockwise winds in the South Atlantic
to get around southern Africa in1487.
 John Cabot – In 1497 he was a Genoese mariner who was
employed by the English, who sailed to Newfoundland.
 Pedro Alvarez Cabral – led a Portuguese fleet in
tropical waters far to the south and discovered the coast of
Brazil in 1500.
Section 4 Vocabulary
 Amerigo Vespucci – a Genoese mariner who explored
enough of South America’s coast to deem it a new continent.
 Ferdinand Magellan - Made a voyage between1519 and
1522 that encircled the entire globe.
Section 4 Vocabulary
 Christopher Columbus – an Italian mariner from
Genoa who lived from 1451 to 1506. He was seeking a
route to China to try and revive the Christian religion against
Islam. By converting the Chinese to Christianity he hoped to
recruit them and use their wealth to assist Europeans in a
new crusade.
 Columbus dared to circle the world because he
underestimated the circumference of the Earth to be 18,000
miles around rather than 25, 000.
 In 1492, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain rather
than his own king, Alphonso V, funded Columbus’ voyage.
Section 4 Vocabulary
 Queen Isabella and Ferdinand provided Columbus with 3
ships (Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria), 90 men, and most of the
funding for Columbus’s voyage west in search of China.
 He reached the Bahamas after 32 days and then turned
southward and reached land which he thought was the East
Indies. He made a settlement on the island of Hispanola.
 Columbus returned to Spain to obtain more funding for the
new settlement he founded, leaving crew members to carry
on his settlement. When he returned he found that his crew
had been murdered and this angered him.
Section 4 Vocabulary
Section 4 Vocabulary
 Columbian Exchange – The exchange of plants, animals,
and diseases between Europe and the Americas. The
exchange also included the continents of Africa and Asia.
 The exchange of people, products, animals and ideas
increased.
Section 4 Vocabulary
 Conquistadors – Spanish soldiers who explored Mexico
and learned of a spectacular Indian empire in central Mexico.
These soldiers defeated the Indian civilization called the
Aztec civilization.
 Hernan Cortes’ – A brilliant and ruthless conquistador
led a group of about 600 volunteer soldiers from Cuba to
Mexico where he invaded the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.
Section 4 Vocabulary
 Moctezuma (Montezuma) – the Aztec ruler who was
defeated and killed by Hernan Cortes when the Aztec
civilization was invaded by the Spanish conquistadors.
Section 4 Study Questions
 Columbus sailed west to find a route to China in order to
convert the Chinese to the Christian religion as an attempt to
bring down the rapid spread of the Islamic religion.
 Columbus was also in search of gold, valuable jewels and
wealth.
 He also sailed for glory or the desire to stake a claim of fame
for finding new land in the Americas.
Section 4 Study Questions
 Columbus’s trips were sponsored by Queen
Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain.
Section 4 Study Questions
 Influential people spoke on the behalf of Columbus because:
 It allowed Spain to improve the knowledge of geography and
mapmaking.
 It helped with the expansion of European power and
influence. (Spain)
Section 4 Study Questions
 Columbus’ three ships which were supplied by
King Ferdinand and Isabella were the:
 Nina
 Pinta
 Santa Maria
Section 4 Study Questions
 Columbus called the people he
encountered in the New World as the
“tianos”. This word means “noble ones”.
These people were Native Americans.
Section 4 Study Questions
 The elements that helped the Spanish overcome
the Aztec and Inca Empires was the advantage of
the Spanish soldiers, weapons, frightening
technology and the introduction of diseases
deadly to the native peoples.
Section 4 Study Questions
 Cortes was a Spanish conquistador who led
Spanish forces and overwhelmed the Aztec
Empire, capturing the major city of Tenochtitlan
and killing the Aztec King Moctezuma
(Montezuma).
Section 4 Study Questions
 The Europeans brought the following diseases:
 Smallpox
 Influenza
 Typhus
 Malaria
 Diptheria
 These disease killed many Native Americans, greatly reducing
their ability to withstand European challenges to their lands
and culture.
Section 4 Study Questions
 The Columbian Exchange was a transfer of plants, animals,
and diseases from Europe to the Americas. It began with
Columbus’s first voyage and continues today. This transfer
was between the Eastern Hemisphere (Old World) and the
Western Hemisphere (New World).
 From America: Pumpkin, squash, sweet potatoes, avacado,
peanuts, potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, pineapple, cacoa beans,
vanilla, peppers and turkey.
 From Europe: Coffee beans, olives, onions, citrus fruits,
bananas, grapes, peaches, pears, turnips, sugar cane, wheat,
rice, barley, oats, cattle, pigs, sheep and horses.
Section 4 Study Questions
 Horses improved the ability of the American
Indian to travel quickly, to hunt bison and to
forcefully resist colonization.