James A.

Henretta
Eric Hinderaker
Rebecca Edwards
Robert O. Self

America’s History
Eighth Edition

CHAPTER 1
Colliding Worlds
1450‒1600

Copyright © 2014 by Bedford/St. Martin’s

 I. The Native American Experience
A. The First Americans
1. Migration from Asia – First wave of Americans came from Asia during the last Ice
Age, sometime between 13,000 and 3000 B.C., over a 100-mile bridge that connected Siberia and Alaska.
Subsequent movements brought people who would be ancestors to the Navajos, Apaches, and Eskimos.

2. Hunters and Gatherers– Migrants dispersed through the American continents

from north to south, hunting and gathering available resources, creating dense populations in central Mexico and
the Andes Mountains; in North America, migration pushed eastward.

3. Agriculture – Around 6000 B.C.,

Mesoamericans began to cultivate maize, and people in the
Andes region bred potatoes. Agricultural surpluses promoted population growth and provided the foundation for
wealthy urban societies.
 I. The Native American Experience
B. American Empires
1. Aztecs – In 1325, built the city of Tenochtitlán [ten-och-teet-LAN], modern-day Mexico City; by
1500, its population was 250,000; Aztecs maintained a powerful government and forged trading routes across
the empire. Priests and warrior-nobles aggressively subjugated the peoples of central Mexico; took economic
and human tribute, including human sacrifice, from their subjects; believed that human sacrifice would sustain
the cosmos and the land.

2. Incas – Incan capital Cuzco was located in the Andes and had 60,000 residents; Incan empire was
2,000 miles long, stitched together by roads, storehouses, and administrative centers. King claiming divine
status ruled through bureaucracy of nobles, subordinating other kingdoms, and, like the Aztecs, exacting tribute.
 I. The Native American Experience

C. Chiefdoms and Confederacies

1. The Mississippi Valley – Maize agriculture spread to this region by A.D. 1000,
creating complex society of Cahokia (near St. Louis), which served as center for region with population of 20,000
to 30,000 people. Mississippian societies built mounds, worshipped the sun, and had powerful ruling class and
priesthood. Decline began by 1350 as a result of ruinous warfare and environmental factors. Mississippian
culture endured into 1500s in present-day Florida and the Southeast.

2. Eastern Woodlands – East of the Mississippi River, people adopted maize

agriculture but not other elements of Mississippian culture. Algonquian and Iroquoian speakers combined farming
with hunting, fishing, and gathering; lived in villages where women tended crops and oversaw community affairs
and men performed hunting, fishing, and warfare. Political organization varied from regional chiefdoms (e.g.,
Powhaten Chiefdom), to local chiefdoms (e.g., Lenni Lenape) to Iroquois Confederacy. Diverse cultures of
peoples in this region were impacted by European epidemic diseases brought by explorers in the 1540s;
“matrilineal” system developed among these farming peoples; by 1600, most were too weak to mount opposition
to English, Dutch, and French explorers.

3. The Great Lakes – Algonquian-speaking peoples dominated in this region and thought
of themselves as the Anishinaabe; birchbark canoes and network of lakes and rivers made these people very
mobile. Great Lakes region was porous, and political power and social identity took on multiple forms.
 I. The Native American Experience

C. Chiefdoms and Confederacies (cont.)

4. The Great Plains and Rockies – Small dispersed groups lived by
hunting and gathering; bison hunters used horses by the late sixteenth century and some groups (e.g.
Comanches and Sioux) used skill on horseback to gain control over their neighbors. Hidatsa and Mandan Indians
maintained settled agricultural villages; Numic-speaking peoples occupied the Great Basin, migrating to take
advantage of hunting and gathering opportunities.

5. The Arid Southwest – Hohokams, Mogollons, and Anasazis (all Pueblo peoples)
developed irrigation systems to manage scarce water, making large farming settlements possible; by 1000 A.D.,
people were building multi-room structures out of mud and stone (“pueblos”); culture of these varying groups of
people began to decline after 1150 due to soil exhaustion and extended drought.

6. The Pacific Coast – Hunter-gatherers dominated in this region; 300,000 people divided
into small, localized groups that shared clearly defined social hierarchies separating elites from commoners.
Pacific Northwest people also had strong warrior traditions and built large longhouses and totem poles.
 I. The Native American Experience
D. Patterns of Trade
1. Regional trade networks – Trade goods included food and raw materials,
tools, ritual artifacts, and decorative goods; regional trade networks allowed groups to exchange their
specialized products for another groups’ resources (e.g., Navajos and Apaches exchanged meat with
Pueblos to acquire maize, pottery, and blankets) to enrich diets and enhance economies; sometimes groups
conducted regional trade in war captives as well.

2. Long-distance trade – Rare and valuable objects (e.g., copper, mica, seashells,
grizzly bear claws, eagle feathers) traveled through networks that spanned the continent.

3. Generosity and authority – Powerful leaders who controlled wealth

redistributed it to prove their generosity and strengthen authority; generosity was a mark of good leadership.
 I. The Native American Experience

E. Sacred Power
1. Animism – Most Native North Americans believed the natural world was suffused with spiritual
power; they sought to understand it by interpreting dreams and visions; their rituals appeased guardian
spirits to ensure successful hunts and other forms of good fortune.

2. Women’s spiritual roles – Native American women grew crops and maintained
hearth, home, and village; conceptions of female power linked their bodies’ generative functions with the
earth’s fertility.

3. Men’s spiritual roles – Spiritual power for men was involved in hunting and war;
men’s rituals acknowledged animals’ spirits; success in hunting and war were interpreted as signs of sacred
protection and power.

4. Warfare – Wars were fought for geopolitical reasons but also to provide crucial rites of passage
for young men.
 II. Western Europe: The Edge of the
Old World
A. Hierarchy and Authority
1. Monarchs and nobles – Kings and princes owned large tracts of land; local nobles
owned estates in which large numbers of peasants lived and toiled; nobles held both military and political
power through legislative institutions (e.g., French parlements and English House of Lords); the
established institutions of nobility, church, and village provided a sense of security despite tremendous
class differences, violence, and instability.

2. Men governed families – Society was patriarchal and households were headed
by males no matter the economic class of family; Christian teachings justified the man’s position; upon
husband’s death woman received a dower, which usually gave her use of one-third of the family’s land
and goods for the remainder of her life.

3. Importance of eldest son – Children worked for their fathers into their middle
to late twenties; fathers chose spouses for children based on wealth and status; fathers bestowed land to
eldest son (a practice known as primogeniture), which left many men landless and poor; position of eldest
son meant that many men and women had no individual identify or personal freedom because they had
no land.
 II. Western Europe: The Edge of the
Old World
B. Peasant Society
1. The Peasantry – People who lived in small agricultural villages; farmed cooperatively; on
manorial lands, there were tillage rights in exchange for labor on the lord’s estates (serfdom); output produced
surpluses that fed a local market economy; farming cycle was largely dictated by the seasons and weather with
busiest times of year being spring and fall.

2. The Peasant’s Fate – Constant labor with primitive tools; compared to today,
output was very small – 1/12 of present-day yields; malnourished mothers fed babies sparingly (boys preferred
to girls); half of peasant children died before age 21, victims of disease and malnourishment; had strong ties to

religion as a result of this hardship in daily life.

 II. Western Europe: The Edge of the
Old World
C. Expanding Trade Networks
1. Byzantine civilization – In the first millennium A.D., Europe was extremely
backward and Arab scholars in the Mediterranean basin preserved the achievements of the Greeks and
Romans in medicine, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and geography; Arab merchants controlled
trade in the Mediterranean, Africa, and the Near East; they had access to spices, silks, compasses,
water-powered mills, and mechanical clocks.

2. The Italian Renaissance – In the twelfth century, Italian merchants pushed

into Arab-dominated trade routes and carried Asian luxuries into European markets; commerce created
wealthy merchants, bankers, and manufacturers who expanded trade; wealthy Italian elites governed
city-states as republics; they celebrated civic humanism and sponsored artists including Michelangelo,
Leonardo da Vinci, and others.

3. Economic revolution in northern and Western

Europe – Italy’s economic and cultural revolution spread slowly to northern and Western Europe,
which traded in wool, timber, furs, wheat and rye, honey, wax, and amber; rise of commerce favored
kings over nobility; they established courts and bureaucracies that allow them to centralize power.
 II. Western Europe: The Edge of the
Old World
D. Myths, Religions, and Holy Warriors
1. The Rise of Christianity – Oldest European religions were animistic; pagan
traditions of Greece and Rome overlaid animism with myths about gods interacting directly in humans’ affairs.
Christianity grew out of Jewish monotheism; Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in A.D. 312 and
made it Rome’s official religion; Roman Catholic Church became great unifying institution in Western Europe;
Pope in Rome sat atop a hierarchy of cardinals, bishops, and priests; every village had a church; Christians
shared a common view of God and history through the church’s scholarship and teachings. Priests taught pagans
that there was a supernatural God who sent his son (Jesus Christ) to save humanity from sin; pagan festivals were
transformed into religious holidays and services; people offered prayers to Christ instead of ritual offerings to
nature. Church also taught that Satan was a lesser and wicked supernatural being who constantly challenged God
by tempting the people to sin; the spread of “heresies” (teachings inconsistent with the Church) by prophets was
seen as the work of Satan.
 II. Western Europe: The Edge of the
Old World
D. Myths, Religions, and Holy Warriors (cont.)
2. The Crusades – In . . 632, the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad saw the
AD
conversion of Arab peoples to Islam and the desire then to spread Muslim teachings; between 1096 and 1291,
Christian crusaders (armies) sought to reverse the spread of Islam and win back the lands where Christ lived;
Crusades solidified Europe’s Christian identity and spurred persecution and expulsion of Jews; Crusades also
introduced Western European merchants to trade routes from Constantinople to China along the Silk Road, and
crusaders encountered sugar for the first time.

3. The Reformation – In 1517, German monk Martin Luther wrote Ninety-five Theses
which condemned corruption in Roman Catholic Church and called for Christians to look to the Bible, not the
clergy, for spiritual authority; John Calvin’s writings stressed human weakness, God’s omnipotence, and doctrine
of predestination (God chooses certain people for salvation and condemns the rest to eternal damnation);
thousands of Europeans converted to Protestantism and the Protestant Reformation triggered a Counter-
Reformation and wars between Catholic and Protestant nations; religious competition and conflict shaped
European colonization of the Americas in the 1600s and beyond.
 III. West and Central Africa: Origins of
the Atlantic Slave Trade
A. Empires, Kingdoms, and Ministates
1. Sudanic civilization – Emerged 9000 . . in eastern West Africa and traveled
BC
westward; based on domesticated cattle (8500–7500 B.C.), cultivation of sorghum and millet (7500–7000 B.C.),
cultivation of cotton and production of cotton cloth (6500–3500 B.C.), and copper and iron production (2500–
1000 B.C.); states were stratified and ruled by kings and princes; monotheistic religion was distinct from
Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

2. West African empires – Three great empires grew from Sudanic origins: around
A.D. 800, the Ghana Empire used domesticated camels to pioneer trade routes across the Sahara to North
Africa; Mali Empire emerged in thirteenth century and Songhai Empire in fifteenth century; these empires were
similar to Aztecs and Incas, relying in military might to control trade routes.

3. Importance of gold – Abundant in West Africa, gold was cornerstone of international

trade and constituted one-half to two-thirds of all the gold in circulation in Europe, North Africa, and Asia by
1450.

4. Kingdoms and ministates – West Africa’s resource-rich lower savanna and

tropical rain forest regions were home to many kingdoms; comparable to Italy’s city-states, these densely
populated kingdoms relied on yam cultivation and gathering; they also fought frequently in a competition for
local power.
 III. West and Central Africa: Origins of
the Atlantic Slave Trade
B. Trans-Saharan Africa and Coastal Trade
1. European trade in Africa – For centuries, smaller states along the West
African coast had few trading options; by the mid-fifteenth century, a new coastal trade with Europeans brought
new options; European traders had to negotiate contracts on local terms, but they welcomed the chance to
trade Asian and European goods for West Africa’s resources, including gold, grain, and ivory.

2. The slave trade – East of Africa’s Gold Coast, the Bight of Benin, an early center of the
slave trade, came to be called the Slave Coast.
 III. West and Central Africa: Origins of
the Atlantic Slave Trade
C. The Spirit World
1. Islam – West Africans immediately south of the Sahara learned about Islam from Arab merchants and
Muslim leaders called imams; they knew the Koran and built centers of Islamic learning and instruction in cities like
Timbuktu.

2. African animism – Most West Africans acknowledged multiple gods as well as animistic
spirits; kings were seen as divine, and ancestor worship was important; rituals celebrated male virility and female
fertility.
 IV. Exploration and Conquest

A. Portuguese Expansion
1. Prince Henry’s efforts – In 1420, Prince Henry of Portugal founded a center for
sea navigation in the south of Portugal; from there, he hoped his explorers would find a way around North
Africa to the south and east; explorers from Henry’s center designed new, better-handling vessels
(caravels) and claimed the Madeira and Azore islands for Portugal. In 1435, they sailed to Sierra Leone
and exchanged salt, wine, and fish for African ivory and gold.

2. Italian explorers – Genoese traders cooperated with Portuguese and Castilians and
discovered the Canary and Cape Verde Islands to which they exported Mediterranean agriculture and
familiar cash crops.

3. The sugar islands – Europeans conquered the Canaries, the Cape Verde Islands, and
São Tomé and enslaved the local populations; planters transformed local ecosystems to agricultural
colonies where they produced wheat, wine grapes, and, where the climate permitted, sugar.
 IV. Exploration and Conquest
B. The African Slave Trade
1. Slavery in Africa – Slavery was widespread in Africa, and slaves, used as agricultural
laborers, concubines, or military recruits, were a key commodity of exchange; slaves were central to the trans-
Saharan trade. Between A.D. 700 and 1900, an estimated nine million Africans were sold in the trans-Saharan
slave trade.

2. Europeans’ entry into the slave trade – In 1482, Portuguese

merchants exploited and redirected the existing African slave trade. First, they enslaved Africans to work on
sugar plantations; they also sold slaves in Lisbon, which soon had an African population of 9,000. After 1550,
the Atlantic slave trade expanded enormously as Europeans established sugar plantations in Brazil and the
West Indies.
 IV. Exploration and Conquest

C. Sixteenth-Century Incursions
1. Columbus and the Caribbean – Castilian monarchs Ferdinand II and
Isabella subsidized Christopher Columbus’s (supported by Genoa investors) exploration of the west. In August
1492, three ships traveled 3,000 miles to present-day Bahamas, which Columbus believed was part of Asia; he
called the region “the West Indies” and the people “Indians.” Columbus returned to report to the Spanish
monarchs that, while he had found no gold, he had heard stories of gold on other islands; three more trips to the
New World saw Columbus colonize the so-named West Indies for Spain, but no golden fortune for the king and
queen. German geographer labeled the continents “America” after Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who
had argued that this region was not part of Asia but a nuevo mundo, or a “new world.”

2. The Spanish Invasion – Spanish explorers probed the mainland for gold and
slaves. In 1513, Juan Ponce de León and Vasco Núñez de Balboa reported on explorations and encouraged
veterans of the reconquista to invade the mainland; 1519–1521 Hernán Cortés and his army (aided by
European diseases) conquer the Aztec Empire and the Mayan city-states of the Yucatan Peninsula; 1524–1532
Francisco Pizarro and his small army conquered the already weakened Inca Empire, making Spain the master
of the New World.

3. Cabral and Brazil – In 1500, Pedro Alvares Cabral and his fleet discovered Brazil; by
the 1530s, Portuguese settlers began to create sugar plantations worked by Native Americans, but African
slaves gradually replaced them. Brazil became the first American example of the plantation system.