Native Americans Before European Contact
The main takeaway here is to understand that Native Americans adapted to their diverse surroundings and developed complex societies through innovations in agriculture, resource use, and social structures. Here are the different regions to know about:
- Southwest (present day Mexico and above):
- Maize cultivation!!!
- They had advanced irrigation and advanced societies
- Great Basin/Great Plains:
- Largely mobile lifestyles
- Predominantly hunting region because of the lack of natural resources
- Northeast:
- Mix of agriculture and hunter-gatherers
- The region favored permanent villages
- West:
- Hunter-gatherers
- Natives settled in certain areas because the ocean provided an abundance of resources
European Contact
- Motivation:
- God: spread christianity
- Glory: compete with other countries for power and status
- Greed: want more gold/wealth
- Other Reasons:
- Technology such as the sextant (which measured longitude and latitude) as well as the development of joint-stock companies allowed for easier and well funded exploration
Columbian Exchange
- The Columbian Exchange was the exchange of goods, ideas, people, and diseases between the Americas, Africa, and Europe
- Effects of the Columbian Exchange:
- Europe: got more food, causing an increase in population; and new sources of wealth led to the shift from feudalism to capitalism
- Natives: many died from diseases brought by the Europeans; hunting/warfare became easier because of the horses and guns introduced by the Europeans
- Africa: there was an increase in slave trade
Spanish Colonial System
- Encomienda System: the Spanish crown granted Spaniards the labor of some Natives. The Natives (who were forced) paid the Spaniards to protect them and christianize them.
- It became more like slavery, which the Spanish justified by claiming superiority and claiming that they were helping "uncivilized" people by christianizing them
- The encomienda system was eventually replaced by slave labor
- Caste System: this was used by Spain to determine the social hierarchy in the American colonies based on how Spanish a person was (there was a lot of interracial relationships)
- Mestizos were Spanish and Native American
- Mulattos were Spanish and African
Cultural Interactions
- Increased conflict between the Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans led to divergent world views
- Europeans wanted to christianize the "uncivilized" people
- Natives and Africans wanted to preserve their autonomy
- There was a debate among Europeans over the treatment of non-Europeans
- Bartolomé de las Casas was one of the few who argued for better treatment
Sources:
Great review! Here’s some more information on the treatment of the natives by the French. The French colonies in North America were primarily driven by fur trade, rather than agricultural settlement. They did not take substantial amounts of Indian land and instead created diplomatic relations with the Indians. There was a substantial amount of cultural exchange, including intermarriage and conversion to Christianity.
ReplyDeleteSource: GML