Objective:
Before the arrival of Europeans, native populations in North
America developed a wide variety of social, political and
economic structures based in part on interactions with the
environment and each other
America Takes Shape

 Pangaea theory: continents were once together
forming a mega-continent
 Glaciers covered much of North America
 As the Ice Age diminished a land bridge emerged
linking Asia & North America (The Bering Sea)
 People walked across the bridge before sea levels
rose and populated the Americas 35,000 years ago
Early Civilizations

Mayas: Yucatan
Peninsula
Aztecs: Mexico,
Human sacrifice
Incas: Peru, elaborate
network of roads and
bridges linking their
empire
Early Civilizations

 Advanced agricultural practices based on the
cultivation of maize (corn)
 Corn transformed nomadic hunters into settled
agricultural villagers, leads to the growth of
permanent settlements
Early Americans

 Pueblo Indians were the first American corn growers
 Lived in adobe houses and pueblos (“villages”) in
the Rio Grande Valley
 Elaborate irrigation systems to draw water away
from rivers to grow corn
Early Americans

Mound Builders: built
huge ceremonial
mounds located near
the Ohio Valley
Cahokia: Settlement
was home to over
25,000 people (located
near present day East
St. Louis)
Anasazi: Built
elaborate pueblo with
over 600
interconnected rooms
(Present day New
Mexico)
Early Americans

 Three Sister Farming of maize, beans, and
squash produced high population density
in the Southeast (Creek, Choctaw,
Cherokee)
 The Iroquois in Northeast America
resembled the great empires of Mexico
 Organized a military alliance of five tribes
called the Iroquois Confederacy
Indirect discovery

 First Europeans to come to America were the Vikings
 The Christian Crusades of the Middle Ages introduce
Europeans to new riches like spices and silk
 Europeans wanted to find a cheap route to Asia and its
treasures
 Marco Polo travels to China in 1295 speaking of riches
and stirs interest in exploration
Europeans Enter Africa

 Portuguese develop the caravel ship making it easier to
sail into the wind
 Trading posts set up along the shores of Africa for the
purchase of gold and slaves
 Bartholomeu Dias rounded the tip of Africa in 1488
 Vasco da Gama reached India in 1499
 Spain was eager to get its share of the wealth and began
to look to the West

Christopher Columbus

 Convinced Spanish Monarchs to fund his
expedition
 Wanted to reach the East (Indies) by sailing
west
 1492 crew member sights land in the
Bahamas
 Thinking he had reached the Indies, he
referred to the native people as Indians
 One of the most successful failures in
history
 Europe Provided the Market, Capital, and Technology
 Africa provided the Labor
 The New World provided the raw materials (gold, soil, lumber)

 Columbian Exchange: Transfer of goods, crops, and
diseases between New and Old World societies after 1492

The Exchange

 New to Old
 Corn, potatoes, beans, peppers, pumpkin, squash, tomato,
wild rice, syphilis
 Old to New
 Cows, pigs, horses, wheat, sugar cane, apples, cabbage,
carrots, smallpox, yellow fever, malaria
 New foods lead to population increase in Europe
 European diseases lead to a significant loss in Native
populations
The Spanish Conquistadors

 Treaty of Tordesillas (1494):
Signed by Spain and Portugal
dividing the territories of the New
World
 Spain dominates exploration in
the 1500s motivated by God, Gold,
and Glory
 Encomienda System established
 Indians were given to Spanish
colonists in return for the promise
to Christianize them.

Conquest of Mexico

 Hernando Cortez conquered the Aztecs at Tenochtitlan
 Aztec King Montezuma thought Cortez was a god
 Spanish attacks and disease lead to the fall of the empire
 Spanish destroy Tenochtitlan and build Mexico City
 Mestizos: mix of Spanish and Indian Blood
Spanish America

 Spanish society quickly spread through Peru and Mexico
 Don Juan de Onate explores present day New Mexico,
conquering native populations ruthlessly
 Pope’s Rebellion (1680): Pueblo Indian rebellion that
drove Spanish settlers from New Mexico
 Black Legend: False notion that Spanish conquerors did
little but butcher the Indians and steal their gold in the
name of Christ