Native American Societies Before European Contact

• Native American societies organized into diverse cultures before European contact, ranging from fishing villages to cities.

Central and South America

• Included large urban centers, complex political systems, and well-formed religions.
• The Aztecs resided in Central America with their capital city being Tenochtitlan, populated with 300,000 people, had a written language, irrigation, cult of fertility upheld by human sacrifice.
• The Maya were on the Yucatan peninsula with large cities, complex irrigation, water storage, and giant stone temples.
• The Inca people lived in the Andes mountains in Peru and had mountain fortress Machu Picchu, their massive empire was dependent on fertile mountain valleys watered by potatoes and other crops.
• Maize cultivation spread north into the American Southwest, which supported the inhabitation of the region.

Southwest America

• Pueblo people stayed in one place, farmed maize, built homes in open areas and into the sides of cliffs, and organized society with government.
• Great plains and great basin regions inhabitants were hunter gatherers needing a lot of land to hunt and gather, Ute people.

Pacific Northwest

• People resided in fishing villages by the sea and relied on elk, Chinook people relied on cedar trees to construct giant houses.
• Chumash lived on the Pacific coast of California as hunters and gatherers in permanent settlements.

Mississippi River Valley

• Larger and more complex societies developed due to the fertile soil, which allowed people to farm and develop.
• Hopewell lived in towns of 4,000-6,000 and traded extensively.
• Cahokia people numbered 10,000-30,000, led by powerful chiefs, and engaged in trade.

Northeast

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

Reasons for European Expansion

• Population increase, political unification with powerful monarchs presiding over centralized government, and a desire for luxury goods imported from Asia
• Land-based trade routes were controlled by Muslims, preventing Europeans from establishing trade-based with Europe on their own terms, which necessitated a water passage.
• Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal sought a water passage to Asia and sailed around Africa, establishing a trading post empire.
• Portugal found dominance in the lucrative Indian Ocean trade through updated technology, including caravels, updated marital and astronomical tools, and added astrolabes and rudders.
• Spain desired trade's economic benefits and Isabella and Ferdinand aimed to spread Christianity and generate Income.
• Christopher Columbus sought a trading route to Asia by sailing west to prove that the world was round, and in 1492 he encountered North America.
• Columbus thought he was in the East Indies but was actually in the Carribens (San Salvador).
• Columbus sailed back to Spain, displaying gold jewelry and enslaved natives, which prompted more Spaniards to set sail to obtain wealth.

Columbian Exchange

• Consisted of the transfer of food, animals, minerals, people, and diseases between Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
• Disease: Tenochtitlan had 300,000 inhabitants; Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés conquered the city with 1,000 men as a result of the spread of smallpox.
• Smallpox devastated the Native American populations as they had no immunity.
• Food: From Americas → Europe/Africa, nutritional food like maize, tomatoes, potatoes, cacao, tobacco.
• Europe/Africa shared rice, wheat, soybeans, (grain crops became staple) and circus fruits as well as animals like horses, pigs, cattle, and chickens.
• Minerals: gold and silver that Spain plundered from South American colonies for gold and silver, made Spain wealthy beyond belief.
• Western Europe experienced unprecedented economic growth causing feudalism, where peasants lived and worked on noble's land in exchange for protections, to shift toward capitalism, private ownership and free and open exchange of goods.
• People: Native Americans were enslaved and taken to Spain; enslaved people were taken off the African coast, crammed in ships, endured the middle passage, and sold into bondage to the highest bidder.
• Spanish colonization efforts were driven by mercantilism economic policies (heavy governmental direction and intervention) that later transitions to joint-stock companies (privatized exploration).

Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System

• African Slave Trade changed as Europeans developed forts to trade guns to powerful tribes in exchange for slaves.
• European purchasers of enslaved people used the inferiority of black people to justify their actions.
• Noah cursed Ham's son Canan, and Canaan would be a servant rest of the days, Europeans argued that “servants” were African Americans.
• The Spanish brought African Americans to the New World to solve labor shortages, because they viewed Native Americans as ineffective slaves.
• Encomienda system: encomenderos gained land portions, and all natives on that land became slaves.
• The Spanish empire released requerimiento, granting Spanish monarchs the authority to claim land in the Americas, convert the people, and send priests.
• Natives were protected if they converted but penalized if they resisted
• This system failed as natives died from European diseases and knew the land, so they could escape resulting to replaced slaves with black slaves.
• Spanish imposed caste system in the Americas because the government needed a way to impose taxes, and the lower you are the more you're taxed.
• Peninsulares - whites born in Spain.
• Criollos - Spaniards born in America.
• Mestizos - mixed Spanish and Native American.
• Mulattoes - mixed Spanish and African.
• Enslaved African Americans
• Native Americans

Cultural Interactions Between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans

• Spanish sought to dominate the natives and African Americans with a new mission system where missionaries were sent to convert natives to Christianity.
• Varying beliefs existed between Natives and Spanish with Natives being pantheists and animists, while the Spanish were Catholic.
• Natives believed land was not a commodity; conversely, the Spanish believed land existed for private ownership.
• Natives were held together by kinship networks, whereas the Spanish focused on the nuclear family.
• Both adopted helpful components of other culture; natives wanted metal tools (farming and hunting) and horses (war), Europeans wanted fur trade (marriages for trading rights).
• Pueblo Revolt - 1610, Spanish forced conversion by many of Pueblo, Pueblo underwent many hardships and correlated them with Spanish, Pueblo rose up, killed up 400 Spanish colonizers, and burned all churches to the ground
• Spanish returned 12 years later, reconquered land and people
• News reached Spain of events in America, group of people discussing the moral and legal fallout of Spanish conquest and the Americas.
• Some felt that conquest was good for natives, brought them Western ways and some felt that conquest violated dignity of Americans (Bartolome de las cases, felt that with trajectory of brutality, natives would either die or hate Christianity, opposed the encomienda system for natives but supported it for Africans for biblical reasons).