Chapter One APUSH
disease
(Colombian Exchange) Deadlier than all the guns was the European importation of germs and diseases, such as smallpox and measles, to which the natives had no immunity. Millions died (there was a morality rate of 90%), including entire tribal communities. As Europeans diseases and brutality reduced the native population, the Spanish brought enslaved people from West Africa under the Asiento system. The Spanish who settled in mexico and Peru encountered the highly organized Aztec and Inca empires. Even after diseases killed most natives, millions remained in these empires that the Spanish could not incorporate as laborers in their own empire. Many natives who did not die from disease died from forced labor.
horses
(Great Plains) Not until the 17th century did American Indians acquire horses by trading or stealing them from Spanish settlers. With horses, tribes such as Lakota Sioux moved away from farming to hunting and easily following the buffalo across the plains.
Adena-Hopewell
(Midwest Settlements) The Adena-Hopewell culture, centered in what is now Ohio, is famous for the large earthen mounds it created, some as large as 300 feet long. (Northeast Settlements) Some descendants of the Adena-Hopewell culture spread from the Ohio Valley into New York. Their culture combined hunting and farming. However, their farming techniques exhausted the soil quickly, so people had to move to fresh land frequently.
Hokokam, Anasazi, and Pueblos
(Southwest Settlements) In this dry region that now includes New Mexico and Arizona, groups such as Hokokam, Anasazi, and Pueblos evolved NOT DONE
encomienda system
After seizing the wealth of the Indian empires, the Spanish instituted an encomienda system, with the king of Spain giving grants of land and natives to individual Spaniards. These Indians had to farm or work in the mines. The fruits of their labors went to their Spanish masters, who in turn had to "care" for them. (led to asiento system because too many natives died)
asiento system
As Europeans diseases and brutality reduced the native population, the Spanish brought enslaved people from West Africa under the Asiento system. This required the Spanish to pay a tax to their king on each slave they imported to the Americas
corn (maize)
Mayas and Aztecs cultivated corn, it supplied a stable food supply. Region north of Mexico were smaller and less sophisticated. One reason was due to the slow spread of corn northward from Mexico. The men made tools and hunted. The women gathered plants and nuts or get crops such as corn, beans and tobacco. Great Plains indians raised corn, beans, and squash while actively trading with other tribes. Due to the columbian exchange, europeans learned about many new plants and foods, including beans, corn, sweet and white potatoes, tomatoes and tobacco. American Indians taught settlers how to grow new crops such as corn and showed them how to hunt in the forests.
slavery
Since ancient times people in Europe, Africa, and Asia had enslaved people captured in wars. In the 15th century, the Portuguese began trading for slaves from West Africa. They used slaves to work newly established sugar plantations on the Madeira and Azores islands off the African coast. Producing sugar with slave labor was so profitable that when Europeans later established colonies in the Americas, they used the slave system there. Enslaved Africans resisted slavery in whatever ways they could. Though transported thousands of miles from their homelands and brutally repressed, they often ran away, sabotaged work, or revolted. And for generations they maintained aspects of their African culture, particularly in music, religion, and folkways. (More on slavery in: Bartolome de Las Casas, New Laws of 1542, Juan Gines de Sepulveda, Valladolid Debate, Asiento System)
land bridge
Some archaeologists estimate that the first people settled in North America 40,000 years ago. Migrants from Asia may have crossed a land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska (land now submerged under the Bering Sea).
