All right, good morning, evening, whatever time it is that you're watching this right now. Hello, and we're going to start covering chapter one, or unit one, okay. So chapter one is a new world, right? So let's just jump straight into lecture, okay?
Now remember, if anyone has any questions about any of the material... please email me and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Okay?
Alright, with that being said, let's get into it. Alright, so America as we know it today was not always the same geographically, socially, or politically. Okay?
North America existed, but the United States did not, right? So Europeans and Americans did not occupy the land until much, much later on, okay? There would eventually be three societies that would make contact with each other in North America, but the first Americans were natives who already lived on the land, okay?
Now the land that comprises of... North, South, and Central America are going to be natives. First and foremost, you have Native Americans living on this land before anyone else.
Okay? All right. So with that being said, let's get started. talk a little bit more about Native America. Alright, so Paleo Indians, okay, were the first people to settle in North America and then later on as the years go by these Paleo-Indians are going to start spreading into the lower regions of the continent.
Okay, now this is going to be about 10,000 to 60,000 years ago. Usually, we refer to this as the Bering Strait Theory, right? Now, for anyone who does not know, the Bering Strait Theory is a theory of...
that scientists and historians and archaeologists came up with to explain how humans ended up on the American continent. So the theory is that a giant land bridge or land mass existed in the Ice Age, okay? And during the Ice Age, the waters from froze between Russia and Antarctica, okay, and well into that, you know, Alaskan region of the U.S., okay, and so all of that was frozen together, which means native tribes, peoples, could travel from Russia over the bridge into North America, okay, through Antarctica, okay.
And so with that migration of people coming over the land bridge during the Ice Age, they were able to get to the Americas, and then when the Ice Age ended, the landmass, you know, thawed out, it disappeared, okay, as the waters got warmer, and those people were now, quote, you know, Paleo-Indian natives, right? Okay. So that's the Bering Strait theory. That big landmass that existed that aided the crossing of the natives into North America was called the Bering Strait.
Okay. All right. So now we also have the Kenwick Man. Okay. So the Kenwick Man was discovered in 1996. Right.
And the Kenwick Man was a full... bodied skeleton that was discovered in Washington, right? So when this body was first discovered, right, most people assumed that the skeleton was European in origin, okay? And this posed a sort of claim questioning the validity of Europeans arriving in North America much later than we think they did.
So people thought that because they found this skeleton that appeared European, that it meant... that Europeans had been in North America far longer than people assumed or thought. Alright, now scientists using their newfangled scientific carbon dating and, you know, ability to test human remains, okay, found that the DNA of the skeleton matched Native American DNA okay this would mean that the Bering Strait theory was correct right or that they had proved that the Bering Strait theory was in fact how things happened okay so the Kenwick man is important because it allowed scientists and historians and archaeologists to understand that native Americans did in fact arrive in North America before Europeans. Okay.
All right. Now, let's talk Paleo-Indian settlements, okay? So, Paleo-Indian settlements reached as far as South America, okay? This is going to last anywhere between 10,000 to 10,000 years.
thousand to fifteen thousand years. So this is a very, very long time span, okay? Now, there are different settlements of natives that is going to lead to different vastly diverse ways of living in accommodation to the environment. Okay. So when we think about Native Americans, we tend to think of them as perhaps a single unit, right?
We think of Native Americans as one tribe. All Native Americans are the same, right? However, that would be severely, severely wrong.
Okay. That is a bad thing. bad assumption to make because Native Americans in general were very very different uh based on their tribe okay and every tribe was different because geographically they would settle in very different locations and different locations mean that these tribes have to adapt to certain environments so that they can live Okay, so for example, right, if you have a Native American tribe that finds its settlement in Alaska, right, they settle in Alaska, or they settle somewhere very up north in Canada, right, where it's very cold, and there's winter most of the year.
Remember, those people are going to have very different customs and ways of life compared to a Native American tribe. tribe who settles in South America where it's very very hot and humid right so the ways that these native tribes live and the cultures that develop out of them are going to be vastly different so Native Americans cannot be seen as one you know whole unit of the same kind of people they're not they're very very different Okay. Now, because of their need to adapt to the environment, okay, that they decide to settle in, you're going to see the development of three different types of Native American tribes.
Okay. The first one are the hunter-gatherers. Okay. Your hunter-gatherers are your Native American tribes who do a lot of hunting for their food and gathering. So they plant things and they harvest them, okay?
Or they go around following other resources and collect those, right? So they hunt and they gather. Second type are your agriculturalists, okay? So your agriculturalists are your Native American tribes who learn how to grow crops.
Okay, and then harvest those crops. And then third, your third type are going to be your fishermen. Okay, so these are your tribes who focus mainly on Fishing okay, so those are your three types hunter-gatherers Agriculturalists and fishermen, all right All right Now paleo Indian civilizations are going to develop from settlements. Okay, like we said before Native Americans are not one single people. They are hundreds of different types of people, right?
There are going to be thousands of individual tribes all over the Americas, and all of them are going to have unique languages, as well as religions, okay, belief systems, okay, ways of life, everything is going to be different. There are thousands of Native American languages, okay? So again, we cannot assume that all Native Americans understand each other because they probably don't, okay? A lot of them had their own language, all right?
Now, we can credit Native Americans with the invention... of things such as roads, irrigation systems, temples, trade networks, okay? And a lot of these trade networks were established well before Europeans arrived in the Americas to quote, civilize Native people, right? So before the Europeans arrived, Native Americans already had very advanced ways of life. They had trade systems, they had trade routes, they had irrigation, they had roads, they had their own temples and, you know, gods and goddesses before the Europeans arrived.
Okay? All right. Now, the capital of the Aztec Empire in modern day Mexico was one of the world's largest cities.
Right. And this is something we don't really talk about too much in history. We always talk about Rome and we always talk about, you know, the Persians. But we never talk about the Aztec people. Right.
The Aztec people did, in fact, have... One of the largest cities in the world at the time. Okay.
Alright. Also, in Peru, we have other very noteworthy civilizations. Right?
The Inca. Right? The Maya. We have the Maya. So we have all of these Native American civilizations that were very grand, very developed.
And they're Native American. Okay. Alright. Okay, moving on. Now we're going to talk about two specific eras in Native American history, right?
The first one is the Archaic Era. Okay, so the Archaic Era is going to be anywhere from 2500, excuse me, to 10,000 years ago. Oh, excuse me.
Oh. All right, so 2,500 to 10,000 years ago. Okay, so the archaic era is going to be when agriculture gradually becomes more and more of a primary source of sustenance.
for most people in Native North America. So during the Archaic Era, agriculture becomes more and more common, of course, depending on the tribe and where they are located geographically. okay now the important thing about agriculture okay is that you know if you are growing things if you are able to grow your own food for example what do you not need to do anymore If you can grow your own food, you don't have to constantly move around. So this is different from hunter-gathering lifestyle.
If you're a hunter-gatherer, you have to follow your food. You have to constantly be moving in order to follow your food, in order to catch it, right? In order to kill it, right? If you're an agricultural civilization, then you can grow your own food.
You know how to raise livestock, which means you no longer are dependent on following the food. You can grow it and you can upkeep it in one place. That means you no longer have to constantly move.
Okay, so agriculture is going to be very important for Native Americans in that they no longer have to constantly be moving from place to place. Okay. this means that they can have permanent homes.
They can actually stay in one place for generations and have long-lasting generational homes. Okay? Alright. Now, during this archaic era, okay, one of the fundamental crops of Native Americans is going to be corn, okay?
The corn is going to become a key of agriculture and existence for Native Americans. Corn as a crop is going to be developed about 6,000 years ago, specifically in Mexico. And then from Mexico, it's going to start growing into other locations throughout the Americas. Now, this is a very fundamental early period for Native American tribes, okay? So, for the Archaic Era, most of the first tribes...
that settle in North America during this time period, are eventually going to disappear. For one reason or another, a lot of these tribes in the Archaic Era are going to disappear. And they're going to become the immediate...
parents of tribes that we are now familiar with today, okay? So tribes that we have nowadays, like Navajo and Cherokee and Pueblo, things like that, they are the direct descendants of, you know, tribes that existed during the Archaic Era, all right? Okay, moving on, okay?
Okay, so your second era that we're going to talk about... is the pre-Columbian era. Okay.
Now the pre-Columbian era is going to last from about 500 BCE to 1492. All right. So. When we talk about the pre-Columbian era, obviously we're talking pre-Christopher Columbus, okay? We'll talk specifically about Christopher Columbus later on, okay? But...
Do we all know the poem? In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, right? So we're gonna cover from 500 BC all the way up till Columbus crosses. as the ocean blue in 1492. Okay. All right.
So during this period of time, some of the big native civilizations that existed are going to base their economy on agriculture. Okay. And for that reason, these civilizations are going to be able to establish very large, very complex societies. Okay, and these societies are going to have very strong trade routes and systems that are going to last a very long time.
Okay, because if these tribes are producing their own food and their own material, they sometimes can have excess. And if they have excess, that means they can trade to get things from other tribes that they perhaps can't make. Okay, so that means that they're trading. trade systems are very strong. Alright, now the Inca tribe.
The Inca tribe is going to be your largest civilization of this era. The Inca tribe is going to be coming from about the western coast of South America, all the way down to the southern tip of Cuba. Now, the Maya are another very big, very important Native American tribe. And the Maya are going to occupy Guatemala and the Yucatan Peninsula. Okay, now the Maya are going to find their unfortunate ending due to internal warfare and internal division within the civilization.
So within the tribe, there was a lot of infighting. There was a lot of strife between factions. And so the Maya are unfortunately going to meet their end because of all of this infighting. Okay. And then last but not least of our major pre-Columbian civilizations of Native Americans are the Aztecs.
Okay. So the Aztecs are going to be primarily located in central Mexico from the 9th to the 15th centuries. So they are going to perhaps spend one of the longer amounts of time in existence.
Okay? Alright. Now all of these were very complex societies that had scientific knowledge. They knew how to govern their... own people, they had artistic and architectural developments, and these artistic and architectural developments are going to rival any in the world at the time of their particular strength.
So Native Americans by no means were behind in any way. They had knowledge, they had art. There was nothing about these civilizations that would make them perhaps less than others okay and i think that is something important to realize that perhaps we don't really think about when we talk about these ancient native civilizations all right Now we're going to go on and we're going to start a sort of new section about North American tribes in specific.
Okay. And we're going to talk about some of the more important Native American tribes. We're going to keep it brief for now.
So let's just get through these and then we'll come back to it later in greater detail. All right. So some of the important Native American tribes that I want us to be familiar with going forward, right, are number one, the Hopi, H-O-P-I, okay? So the Hopi are... mostly located in northeastern Arizona.
Okay. And then, number two, we have the Zuni. The Zuni, Z-U-N-I, are usually located from around northeastern Arizona into parts of New Mexico.
Now, the Hopi and the Zuni, geographically, they're quite close to each other. And they did share some similarities in their ways of life. In that both the Hopi and the Zuni planned their communities into little towns with multi-family buildings.
And these multi-family buildings were usually called... carved into the side of canyons or cliffs, okay? So if you have a cliff, right, the cliff side, they would kind of dig into it, carve it out, and turn that into where they build their houses, okay? Now, when the Spanish do eventually arrive to colonize, okay, they're going to see that both the Hopi and the Zuni have made these very intricate, very detailed towns. And these little houses carved into the cliffs and the rocks, okay, and they're going to start calling them Pueblo people.
Okay, pueblo obviously meaning, you know, towns or little cities, right? And so collectively, the Spaniards are responsible for the Hopi and the Zuni being combined. into one and calling them both Pueblo people. Okay, so when we talk about Pueblo tribes, we mean Hopi and we mean Zuni. but no one refers to them separately anymore, even though they were two different tribes.
Because of the Spanish influence, both of them got lumped together and called Pueblo. Alright, so let's just keep in mind that when we say Pueblo, it's kind of a mismatch of both Hopi and Zuni. Okay?
Great. Okay, now there are going to be hundreds of different tribes that exist along the Pacific coast of North America. Now those tribes are usually going to be more reliant on hunting and gathering more than they are agriculture. Alright, now for Native American tribes that live in the Great Plains region, okay, hunting bison is going to be very, very important to their way of life. Okay.
To tribes that lived in present day Canada. Okay. Turkey and deer and fishing are going to be super important to their way of life. Right. So, differences.
There's always differences. Alright. Now let's talk about the social customs of these indigenous people.
Okay. Now, there are going to be a lot of social similarities amongst Native American tribes. Okay.
Like I said, there are thousands of Native American tribes. And they're going to be all very different from each other. However, there are some aspects that are going to be very similar amongst all the native tribes. Okay, so let's talk about some of those similarities.
Alright. Now one, the first thing that a lot of Native American tribes have in common is that generally the these tribes are usually family oriented and community oriented. Okay so The focus of most tribes was on the survival of the entire tribe. There was no such thing as focusing on the individual.
It was all about the group. So a lot of these tribes focused on the community, focused on their families, and so there was no such thing as individualism in that one person was trying to secure their own survival. It was seen as the tribe looks out for the entire tribe all the time, okay?
Second general similarity is that most Native American tribes were mostly matrilineal. Matrilineal. Okay? This means that children usually followed their mother's clan. Okay?
And married men... moved into the houses of their wives'family. Okay, so I think in modern day society, most people would think, I suppose, that we follow sort of a male-oriented society.
Where we marry into the man's family and the women take the men's last name and family trees are traced back through the male bloodline. Okay. This is not the case for a lot of names.
Native American tribes. It was the opposite in that we followed the woman's bloodline and we see men specifically marrying into the woman's family, okay? So the men had to bring the gift for the women and they had to ask the permission for divorce and things like that, okay?
So Sort of an opposite situation, I think. Excuse me, guys. My eye is very dry today.
Okay. Okay. Now, a third similarity is that women focused usually on agriculture, right?
They focused on gathering and maintaining the social order, okay? Both within the public and the private sphere. So women were very, very involved, both at home and in the community. Okay. You did not see many tribes where women were kept.
strictly in the home sphere, right? Women participated both in public and at home, okay? Now, that being said, men generally usually hunted, fished, and then went to war, okay? Now, generally speaking, women could wield political power, okay, within tribes.
So women could actually use some sort of position of power for influence within the tribe. It was not uncommon. Another similarity, right, is that in a lot of Native American tribes, land was not claimable property. Excuse me.
Oh, what was that? Land was not. claimable property by individuals okay so in tribes land was generally seen as a community owned thing, okay?
So there was really no such thing as individuals owning things. There was no individual land ownership. There was no sense of individual possession.
So for example, if a man caught some food, some deer or bison, he would take that back to the tribe and the whole tribe would get a piece of the deer or the bison, okay? There was no such thing as, I killed the deer or I killed the bison and I get to keep the whole thing for my family only. That did not really exist, okay?
There was no such thing as, this is my land, this is my piece of land, this is my house. That did not exist, okay? Property, goods, food, everything. was usually shared amongst the tribe.
Okay? Because once again, we're talking about people who believe in the survival of the entire tribe, rather than the individual. Okay?
Alright. Alright. Now, another similarity across the board is that enslavement was common.
Usually, you know, tribes would go to war with each other. with each other and they would take prisoners after a war, bring them back, and they were slaves. Okay, so slavery was common amongst Native American tribes. All right. Now, another similarity is that a lot of Native Americans had polytheistic religious beliefs okay so what is polyism or a polytheistic religious belief okay this basically means that native americans had a religious view that involved multiple gods okay or goddesses all right so native Americans did not believe in one single god or goddess.
They believed in many. Okay, so polytheistic, poly means many. Okay, so for religion, religions that believe in one single god, we would call those monotheistic religions.
Mono meaning one. So most Native American tribes were polytheistic. And then last but not least, across the board, most Native Americans were animalistic. Most Native American tribes believed that supernatural beings could inhabit all objects and govern. all of their actions okay so they could see many different things as being gods or goddesses not just you know people but they could also see things like oh this tree has a spirit this rock has a spirit this animal houses a spirit this animal houses a god okay so native americans tended to view all things with a certain level of respect because chances are there was some kind of spiritual deity deity living in those things okay so Excuse me.
Alright. Alright. Let's take a break, take a deep breath. We still good? All right.
Let's keep going. So we're going to start a new section based on regional variations of different Native American tribes. Okay.
So. We're going to start with the Northeast. Okay.
The Northeast is what we generally refer to as New England. Okay. So the different Native American tribes that we do find in New England include the Massachusetts tribe, the Mohawk tribe, the Oneida tribe, and the Pequot tribe. Okay. Knowing how to spell...
these. Not super important, just kind of remember the names and know what they sound like because I might ask you about them, okay? So... Native American tribes in the Northeast generally focused specifically on hunting and agriculture. Okay.
Now, the New England area can be very different from region to region. So in the New England area, if you lived more in the forests, then you are more for hunting and agriculture. If you lived more along the coast, then...
you probably did more fishing. So it kind of depended on where in the New England area you were. That kind of dictated what your focus was.
Okay? Now, forests offered protection from attacks from enemy tribes. Okay? And you could get raw material for wooden houses.
Okay? So you could chop down trees. you're in a forest.
There's plenty of trees. So you can chop those down and turn them into nice houses. Okay. Now, most of these tribes in the Northeast are going to remain relatively small, and they're going to trade with each other. Occasionally.
There's not going to be a whole lot of communication between these small tribes. Okay, next we have the Mid-Atlantic. Okay, so the Mid-Atlantic is going to consist of states such as New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia. Okay, so the Mid-Atlantic is going to be a mixture of agriculture, fishing, and hunting. These tribes kind of did it all, right?
As a result, these tribes were generally semi-semi-sedentary okay meaning they had semi-permanent homes right they did move around but they did also settled down in areas for a couple of seasons and then moved on. Okay. Now, the Mid-Atlantic tribes usually had a lot of disputes over boundaries that are going to lead to violence.
Alright, next we have the Southeast, okay? So the Southeast includes Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama. Mississippi.
Okay. So the Southeast is going to be the single most heavily populated area at the time of contact with Europeans. for the first time, okay? So when the Europeans do arrive in the Americas and they get to the Southeast, they're going to find more Native Americans in the Southeast than in any other location in North America, okay? Now, significant tribes that are found in the Southeast include the Cherokee.
The Choctaw, the Creek, and the Chick Saw. Someone is talking about me. My nose is itchy. Okay. Has anyone ever heard that saying?
If your nose is super itchy, it means someone's talking about you? Goodness. Okay. Anyway, right? Now the Native American tribes in the southeast are going to primarily subside on agriculture and fishing, which means this tribe or this group of tribes generally are going to be sedentary.
They don't move around very much. Now, the Southeast tribes are going to have very strong traditions in making ceramics and basket weaving. And these things are going to be very popular for...
Okay. The Southeast natives also are going to develop very important trade routes that are going to be able to allow them to trade over very long distances. Okay. Why? Oh, we'll stop pitching.
Okay. All right. Next, we have the prairies.
Okay. So the prairies is going to go all the way from the Dakotas south to... Oklahoma. Okay. So the prairie tribes are going to be the tribes that mostly hunt bison.
Okay. Bison is going to be the main staple. of life for a lot of these tribes, okay? Without bison, a lot of these tribes would not be able to survive, okay? Now, some of the important tribes from the prairies include the Omaha, the Wichita, and that's all you need to know, okay?
All right. Now, prairie tribes lived mostly on the edges of... plains.
Okay. And because they had to constantly hunt the bison, this means that they were semi-sedentary. Okay.
So they did move around quite a bit. Okay. Now, because these tribes moved around more often because of the bison, this means that they could not really spend a whole lot of time producing anything.
So unlike other tribes, they did not produce pottery or weave any baskets. Okay. That being said, these tribes were not as big on things like trade because they did not produce anything to trade. Okay. All right.
Next we have the High Plains. Okay. So the High Plains are going to be all the way from Montana to Northwest Texas. Okay.
Now... Important tribes are the Blackfeet, the Cheyenne, and the Comanche. Now these tribes, just like the other ones, are going to be very dependent on bison. Okay? Now, these tribes are going to be super, super...
in bad condition when the Europeans arrive, okay? Because when the Europeans do arrive, the Europeans are going to be driving bison away. Right?
The Europeans are going to drive the bison further and further away, meaning that these tribes are going to have a harder and harder time finding bison to hunt. Okay? So they're going to have a pretty big time struggling with their food source. Okay?
Now, these tribes only have one crop. All they've got. That crop is tobacco.
And the tribes in the high plains do not use tobacco for trade. Instead, these tribes are producing tobacco for their own religious practices. So I think a lot of us already know that Europeans eventually become very profitable. using tobacco.
But for these native tribes they don't realize that that's possible and so they are not producing tobacco for trade. They're doing it for their religious practices. Okay. Next, we have the Southwest. So the Southwest tribes are going to be from New Mexico to Arizona.
Okay, and these are going to include the Apache and the Navajo, the Hopi. the Tao, the Zuni, quote unquote, the Pueblo, all right? Now, these tribes were sedentary.
They did not move, okay? Because they focused primarily on agriculture, okay? So they spent all of their time producing crops, producing livestock, okay? They raised animals, they grew crops, they harvested, okay? These people were agriculturalists, okay?
And because they grew things, they did not have to constantly move from place to place. Now... A lot of people give the Southwest Native American tribes a lot of credit because it was considered very impressive to be able to grow anything in an area where there was so little rainfall in the region, right?
These are very desert-like areas that receive not a whole lot of rain, right? There's not a lot of water. There's not a lot of... lot of rain. And so growing anything can be very difficult if you don't have water, right?
So the fact that these tribes lived off of crops that they had to grow somehow with using very little water was very impressive, okay? Now... These tribes are very good at creating irrigation systems. So they took advantage of the water when it did come.
So they had their ingenuities. Right. Now the southwest tribes also were very, very good at making ceramic pots.
And these ceramic pots were considered very beautiful, very pretty. And they used them for trade. Okay. Now because these tribes were generally more agricultural, both men and women did a lot of the farm work. Okay.
Alright. Our last region, right, is the Northwest. This consists of Oregon and Washington.
Excuse me. Okay. Now... the northwest tribes are going to focus a lot on fishing and gathering okay so they are going to have a lot of fish a lot of shellfish A lot of fruit, nuts, berries, okay?
Things that they gather from the land. They don't necessarily grow a lot of it, but they do know what's good to pick and what's good to harvest from what the land already provides. Okay?
Now, the Northwestern tribes are known more as artistic types, okay? They are very good at carving. at painting they make these really beautiful masks okay so these tribes are mostly known for their very exquisite artistry okay all right We're going to switch gears here.
We've been talking about Native America, right? So Native Americans. We're going to switch to our next section, okay?
Because at the beginning of this... chapter, we talked about there are three societies that eventually converged and formed the basis of what became the United States, right? One of those was Native Americans.
Does anyone remember what the other two were? One of them was Africans. Okay?
So we have Native Americans and now we're going to talk about Africans. Okay? Now...
In order to sort of talk about Africans, we are going to jump our story out of North America and into Africa first. So let's leave behind North America for a second and let's talk about Africa proper. Because the best way to understand the African influence and the African migration that eventually creates part of the United States is to talk about... out where it starts, right? In Africa.
All right. So. Roughly, okay, rough number, 250,000 of the immigrants that come to North America between the 16th and 18th centuries are going to come as slaves from Africa.
Okay, so when we talk about immigrants entering the United States from Africa, they're not coming in of their own volition. They're not coming because they want to. They're coming because they're being forced to.
Okay? So the first Africans who do make contact in North America are there because they are slaves. Okay? They do not want to be there.
They did not sign up for it. Alright? They were picked up, put in chains, right?
And forced. to take the journey to the Americas, right? Now...
Like Native Americans, Africans are going to be very different from one another, okay? Africa contains hundreds and thousands of unique tribes, okay? So we tend to think of Africa as a single country or a single continent, right?
Where everyone shares similar religious beliefs, similar languages, similar... ideas, right? And that is absolutely not the case, okay?
Africa, just like North America with the Native Americans, has hundreds and thousands of different tribes. And each tribe in Africa is vastly different from one another. Okay, so all these different African tribes have different languages have different religions Have different ways of life. Okay, so not all African tribes are the same.
Okay? Very important to keep that in mind. Okay? So Africa does not have one collective unified identity.
Okay? Okay? Now, Africa is going to go through a period of radical transition, okay?
And this is going to be caused by the spread of Islam, okay, in Africa. So the spread of Islam is going to transform a lot of the major cities and the major areas like Ghana and Mali, right? Where agriculture and trade are prominent.
parts of the local economy. Okay. Now in cities and in regions that are not as major, okay, for trade, right?
In lower Guinea, the Congo, right? These areas are not going to be as affected by the spread of Islam because they are not as involved in trade. So these cities that are not involved in trade are not really going to be influenced by the entry of Islamic religious beliefs. Okay.
So Islam is going to change a lot of cities based on how much contact it has. Okay. All right. Now, in the areas where Islam does not really affect the change of cities, okay, in the areas of Africa where there's not much trade.
as economy. These are the areas that are going to be where most slaves are taken from. Okay. This is where most of the slaves are going to be collected from and then shipped to the major cities or major regions and then shipped off to Europe or the Americas.
Okay. All right. Now, who can kind of guess which country established the first trading posts along the west coast of Africa? So the country that first establishes trading posts along the coast of Africa is going to be Portugal. Okay, so Portugal is going to Come into Africa and begin the first colonization efforts of the continent.
So Portugal begins colonizing small islands in Africa. Africa or along the African continent and along the coast. Okay. And after the Portuguese, we're going to see tons of other Europeans rushing in to join in and to take advantage of what is going to become the slave trade.
Now. On the topic of slavery, okay, I just want to sort of put a emphasis on something before we get into it, right? Slavery is without a doubt a bad, bad...
thing, okay? It's horrendous how slaves were treated, the institution of it all. There's nothing that makes slavery okay.
Okay, absolutely nothing can make slavery okay, right? So let's just get that out there. right however let's talk about slavery in africa so in africa slavery long existed before the arrival of europeans okay so europeans did not bring slavery to Africa.
Okay, let's throw that out of your head, right? Slavery existed in Africa before European colonization started, right? That's very important to understand, okay? Within African culture itself, slavery was very common. That existed.
And it was common. It was very much a normal part of life. Usually, slaves were criminals. People who could not pay off any debts. Or they were war captives.
So we talked about Africa being made up of different tribes. Same thing with Native Americans. These Africans were not just slaves.
African tribes would start wars with enemy tribes, take prisoners, and those prisoners would become slaves. Right? Common.
Right? After Europeans made contact with Africans is when the slave trade just explodes. It just takes off.
Okay? So after Europeans... make contact, the slave trade is going to become one of their most lucrative, most, you know, money-absorbing economies, right?
And many local African tribe leaders are going to lead expeditions specifically to capture rival tribes'peoples and to sell those people as slaves to European slaves. slaveholders or slave traders. Okay. So once the people of Africa, the leaders rather, the leaders of African tribes find out how much money they could be making off of the slave trade, they are going to go absolutely crazy in snatching people, turning around and then giving them to Europeans for a very lucrative profit. Okay.
Again, that's not right. It doesn't make it a good thing. It doesn't absolve anyone of any wrongdoing because this is very much a wrong thing to do. But these tribes were making money.
They were making profit. And therefore, their way of life was, in a lot of ways, improving. Okay? Not for the slaves, of course, but for the tribes who did sell the slaves to the Europeans.
their way of life generally got better. Okay? So let's just kind of try to understand how the slave trade started and developed.
Okay? Alright. Alright, so we're going to leave that as that for today.
Alright, for this video specifically. Now, if you would like to continue on with this chapter, I'm going to upload a part two. And you can watch part two there.
Okay? Alright, if you have any questions, let me know. And I will upload the next video very soon. Alright.