Native Peoples of America, to 1500 Ch. 1 Notes

Using SOAPSTone, please analyze the following quote. The Spaniards are perfectly right to govern these barbarians of the New World and adjacent islands; they are in prudence, ingenuity, virtue, and humanity as inferior to the Spaniards as children are to adults and women are to men, there being as much difference between them as that between wild and cruel and very merciful persons, the prodigiously intemperate and the continent and tempered, and I daresay from apes to men’ - Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1547)

Story of Hiawatha  Used to explain birth of Iroquois Confederacy  Some events confirmed historically – basis of oral history

Paleo-Indians: 1 st Americans  13,000 BCE arrival  Created beginnings of Native American life: bands and reciprocity  Winners of the Ice Age

Archaic Societies  Warming created more resources; populations rose  Fished, gathered plants – learned how to domesticate plants and animals  Maize dominates  Most live in Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica/S. America  Farming important, created food surpluses  Chiefdoms created, sometimes states emerged  Teotihuacan emerged – 100,000 people – influenced the Maya – created books, numerical system, calendar

New Empires - Aztecs  1428 emerged on shores of Lake Texcoco  Bloody sacrifices to over 200 gods  Trade important through pochteca

New Empires - Incas  1438 emerged in Andes region  Power came from surplus crops  Created irrigation, preservation, bridges and roads Both overcome by Spanish explorers

Southwest Two important tribes emerged  Hokokam – 300 CE  Irrigation canals for 2 harvests  Large towns, central village life; overcome by drought  Ancestral Pueblo – 1 CE  Permanent extensive villages, massive road system  Trade important, but also overcome by drought

Eastern Woodlands Populous villages and complex confederations  Poverty Point – 1200 BCE  Adena – 400 BCE  Hopewell – 100 BCE  Mississippian – 700 CE – 1 st full time farmers  Cahokia – 900 CE – became Cherokee, Creeks Were environmentally sound, rotated crops, introduced new strains of squash, maize and beans – called Three Sisters Are considered Mound BuildersMound Builders

Non-Farming Societies  NW – fishing, eventually settled  Coast villages – multifamily houses, traded, acorns staple in diet  Plains and deserts – mobile hunting bands; buffalo important  Plains – began to farm  Great Basin – gathered, hunting improved with bow and arrow  Inuits and Aleuts – spear and hunt Columbus was not first contact, Scandinavians were

Eve of European Contact  75 million in Western Hemisphere  7-10 million in North America with diverse patterns of life  All based on extended families, kinship lines as way to maintain order, women with important roles in society Woodlands

Spiritual and Social Values  Tried to conciliate spiritual forces in world  Dreams, vision quests, initiations, Sun Dance  Public shaming and consensus to maintain order and social conformity  Importance of reciprocity to maintain balance

Thesis Development What values and practices did Native Americans share despite their diversity? Skill Addressed: Comparison