APUSH Unit 1: 1491-1607

• These notes cover the period of APUSH Unit 1, from 1491-1607.

Native American Societies Before Contact

• Native Americans organized into diverse cultures based on their geographic location prior to European arrival.
• Lifestyles ranged from fishing villages to nomadic hunter-gatherers, agriculture-based communities, and cities.

Central and South American Civilizations

• The Aztecs were in Central America whose capital, Tenochtitlan, housed 300,000 people.
• The Aztec civilization had a written language, irrigation systems, and a cult of fertility upheld by human sacrifice.
• The Maya were on the Yucatan peninsula and known for large cities, irrigation, water storage, and stone temples.
• The Inca people were in the Andes Mountains having a massive empire and mountain fortress of Machu Picchu.
• The Inca civilization relied on fertile mountain valleys watered by potatoes and other crops.
• Maize cultivation spread into the American Southwest and supported the habitation of that region.

Southwest America

• The Pueblo people were farmers of maize, lived in one place and built homes in the open and into sides of cliffs.
• Pueblo societies had organized governments.

Great Plains and Great Basin Regions

• The Ute people were hunter-gatherers needing much land for hunting and gathering.

Pacific Northwest

• People lived in fishing villages, relying on elk and cedar trees.
• The Chinook people used cedar trees to construct giant houses.
• The Chumash lived on the Pacific coast of California, were hunter-gatherers, and lived in permeant settlements.

Mississippi River Valley

• Fertile soil allowed for larger, more complex societies to develop.
• The Hopewell lived in towns of 4,000-6,000 and traded extensively.
• The Cahokia people, numbering 10,000-30,000, were led by chiefs and engaged in trade.

Northeast

• The Iroquois lived in villages of hundreds, grew maize and beans, and lived in longhouses with family.

European Exploration in the Americas

• European expansion was driven by population increase, political unification under monarchs, and desire for Asian goods
• Land-based trade routes controlled by Muslims led Europeans to seek water passages to Asia.
• Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal sought a water passage to Asia.
• Portugal sailed around Africa, establishing a trading post empire and dominating Indian Ocean trade due to updated technology.
• Updated technology include caravels, updated marital and astronomical tools, added astrolabes and rudders
• Spain sought economic benefits from trade and the desire to spread Christianity.
• Christopher Columbus sought a westward trading route to Asia, believing the world was round.
• In 1492, Columbus encountered North America, specifically the Carribean (San Salvador)

Columbian Exchange, Spanish Exploration, and Conquest

• The Columbian Exchange involved the transfer of food, animals, minerals, people, and diseases between Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
• Disease: Hernán Cortés conquered Tenochtitlan with 1,000 men due to the spread of smallpox, which devastated indigenous populations.
• The transfer of foods included maize, tomatoes, potatoes, cacao, and tobacco from the Americas to Europe/Africa.
• Rice, wheat, soybeans, citrus fruits, horses, pigs, cattle, and chickens went from Europe/Africa to the Americas.
• Spain plundered gold and silver from South American colonies, leading to unprecedented economic growth in Western Europe.
• The influx of wealth shifted Europe from feudalism to capitalism, characterized by private ownership and free exchange of goods.
• Native Americans were enslaved and taken to Spain; enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas via the Middle Passage.
• Spanish colonization was driven by mercantilism, later transitioning to joint-stock companies.

Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System

• European involvement transformed the African Slave Trade, trading guns for enslaved peoples.
• Europeans used alleged racial inferiority to justify enslavement.
• Encomienda system granted land and enslaved natives to Spanish colonists.
• The Spanish released the requerimiento, granting authority to claim land and convert natives.
• African Americans were imported to replace natives who were dying or escaping.
• The Spanish imposed a caste system in the Americas for taxation purposes.
• Peninsulares were whites born in Spain.
• Criollos were Spaniards born in America.
• Mestizos were of mixed Spanish and Native American descent.
• Mulattoes were of mixed Spanish and African descent.
• There were also African Americans and Native Americans.

Cultural Interactions Between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans

• Spain dominated the natives and African Americans.
• Spanish conquest shifted from military to missionary efforts (mission system).
• Natives were pantheists and animists, while the Spanish were Catholic.
• Natives believed land was not a commodity, while the Spanish believed land existed for private ownership.
• Natives were organized by kinship networks, while the Spanish focused on nuclear families.
• Both groups adopted helpful components of each other's culture such as metal tools, horses, and trade marriages.
• Pueblo Revolt (1610): Pueblo people rose up against Spanish colonizers due to forced conversion and hardships
• They killed 400 Spanish colonizers and burned churches.
• The Spanish returned 12 years later, reconquering the land and people.
• Some Spaniards felt conquest was good, bringing Western ways; others, like Bartolome de las Casas, opposed the encomienda system for natives but supported it for Africans for biblical reasons.