Early American Societies and Encounters

Overview

This chapter examines the origins of contact among Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans up to 1650, highlighting their distinctive societies, early encounters, and the consequences of European exploration, colonization, labor systems, and the Columbian Exchange.

The First Americans

• Early Americans arrived via the Beringia land bridge from Asia, later settling throughout North and South America.
• Mesoamerican civilizations like the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec developed advanced agriculture, cities, calendars, and writing.
• The Inca built a vast Andean empire with a complex road system, terrace farming, and the quipu record-keeping device.
• North American Indigenous groups adapted to diverse environments with hunting, fishing, gathering, and some farming.
• Southwestern Pueblo peoples built permanent villages, cliff dwellings, and irrigation systems.
• Mississippi Valley cultures like Cahokia created large urban centers and trade networks.
• Eastern Woodland societies were organized in matriarchal clans with communal land usage.

Portuguese Exploration and Spanish Conquest

• Portuguese explorers established Atlantic island colonies and initiated the European-African slave trade.
• Spanish monarchs sponsored Atlantic exploration, leading to Columbus’s voyage and subsequent conquests by Cortés (Aztecs) and Pizarro (Inca).
• Spanish expansion was driven by wealth, religious conversion, and rivalry with Portugal.
• Spanish colonization resulted in widespread disease and population decline among Native Americans.

Challenges to Spain’s Supremacy

• England, France, and the Dutch began exploring and establishing colonies, seeking wealth and imperial power.
• England founded Jamestown (1607) and colonies in the Caribbean, often using joint stock companies for funding.
• English religious dissenters (Pilgrims, Puritans) established settlements in New England.
• French explorers claimed “New France,” focusing on fur trade and alliances with Indigenous peoples.
• The Dutch set up commercial colonies in the Hudson Valley and the Caribbean, establishing trade hubs.

Enforced Labor, Commerce, and the Columbian Exchange

• The Spanish encomienda system and later African slavery provided labor for American colonies.
• Slavery became race-based and hereditary in the Americas, with Africans supplying most of the labor by the late 1500s.
• Mercantilism shaped colonial economies, channeling wealth to European mother countries.
• Commodification transformed American products into global commodities, including silver, tobacco, and sugar.
• The Columbian Exchange saw the transfer of plants, animals, and diseases, devastating Native populations and altering Old and New World societies.

Key Terms & Definitions

• Beringia — the ancient land bridge between Asia and North America.
• Chinampas — floating Aztec gardens for agriculture.
• Chasquis — Incan relay runners for communication.
• Quipu — Incan knotted string device for record-keeping.
• Mita — Incan system of communal labor tribute.
• Hispaniola — the Caribbean island where Columbus first established a Spanish colony.
• Privateers — government-sanctioned sea captains who raided enemy ships.
• Roanoke — the lost first English colony in Virginia.
• Joint stock company — investment group funding colonization ventures.
• Puritans — English religious reformers seeking to purify the Church.
• Pilgrims — Puritan separatists who founded Plymouth Colony.
• Separatists — Puritans seeking complete separation from the Church of England.
• Black Legend — reputation of Spanish as brutal conquerors.
• Sugarcane — labor-intensive crop central to the slave economy.
• Mercantilism — economic theory promoting colonial wealth extraction for the mother country.
• Commodification — converting items into tradeable commodities.
• Columbian Exchange — transfer of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old and New Worlds.
• Smallpox — deadly European disease devastating Native Americans.

Action Items / Next Steps

• Review summary timelines, self-test, and key term crossword at end of chapter for further study.
• Watch suggested Crash Course History videos for visual reinforcement.
• Reflect on reading questions to deepen understanding of the material.