1. Chapter One: New World Beginnings
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

2. 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

3. Early Civilizations Mayas: Yucatan Peninsula
Aztecs: Mexico, Human sacrifice
Incas: Peru, elaborate network of roads and bridges linking their empire

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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)

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

11. 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

12. Europe Provided the Market, Capital, and Technology
Africa provided the Labor
The New World provided the raw materials (gold, soil, lumber)

13. Columbian Exchange: Transfer of goods, crops, and diseases between New and Old World societies after 1492

14. 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

15. 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.

17. 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

18. 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