Transcript Pre-Columbian Societies, European Exploration and Transatlantic

Essential Questions
1. What were the Americas like prior to
Columbus arriving?
2. What motivated European exploration and
what new technology made it possible?
3. What are some effects of colonization in the
Americas?
Pre-Columbian Societies:
What were the Americas
like prior to Columbus?
The First Americans
• Siberian hunters crossed
Bering Land Bridge
– Nomadic people who
followed herds of animals
• Agricultural Revolution
begins in the Americas
7,000 years ago
– Settle into villages
– Domesticate animals
Cultures of Central and South America
• Maya 400 BCE-1500 CE
– Known for developing
“zero,” their own writing
system, and religious
pyramids
• Aztec 1400-1521 CE
– Known for their large
empire and tributary
system, huge capital
Tenochtitlan, and human
sacrifices
Aztec Sacrifice
Earliest North American Cultures
• Different environments
led to different types of
societies
• Anasazi 200 BCE-1300 CE
– Multistory adobe
buildings called pueblos
North American Cultures in the 1400s
• Over 2,000 different tribes
• Population between 1- 10M
• Villages organized by
kinship
• Some villages headed by
chiefs, others by a council
of elders
• Shared land
• Spiritual connection to
natural world
• Large trade network based
on bartering system
Native-American Trade
Those living in fertile regions traded surplus food…
Native-Americans in the southwest
traded cotton seed and cloth…
Some traded desirable minerals like
flint, copper, turquoise…
Others would trade crafts like baskets
and pottery…
Native-Americans living near
oceans traded shells and pearls…
Talk to your neighbor:
What were the Americas like prior to Columbus
arriving?
European Exploration:
What motivated European
exploration and what new
technology made it possible?
The Crusades Spark Curiosity
• Fears of sea monsters
and boiling seas
• The Crusades 11-13th C
– Pope Urban II calls on
Christian kings and
princes to recapture
the Holy Land
– Effects: open eyes to
world outside Europe,
increased trade with
ME
• Spices, sugar, silk,
carpets, fruits, perfumes
The Age of Exploration Begins
• Desire to explore
– Rulers want to increase power and wealth
– Marco Polo travels to China and writes “Travels”
– Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal funds
voyages to find sea route to India
• Better sailing technology
– Caravel, astrolabe, improved magnetic compass
Searching for a Sea Route to India
• Overland trip too
long
• Progress is made
w/ courageous
explorers from
Portugal
– Bartolomeu Dias
rounds Cape of
Good Hope
– Vasco da Gama
lands on Indian
coast
“IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T
SUCCEED, TRY, TRY AGAIN”
Talk to your neighbor:
What motivated European exploration and
what new technology made it possible?
Transatlantic Encounters:
What are some effects of
colonization in the Americas?
Christopher Columbus
• Vikings are first Europeans to
land in N.A., not Columbus
– Greenland in late 900s, Canada
in 1000
– Settlers left after three years
• Christopher Columbus
– Before Vasco Da Gama’s success
– Dreams of reaching India by
crossing Atlantic
– Convinces Ferdinand and Isabella
of Spain to fund voyage
Columbus cont.
• Miscalculates the diameter
of the world and distance
to India
• In Oct 1492 his crew lands
on an island in the
Caribbean
– Names the island San
Salvador
– He believes he is in India
“in 1492 Columbus
sailed the ocean blue”
Columbus cont.
• Founds the colony La
Navidad in Hispaniola and
leaves for Spain
• Upon his return learns men
acted wildly in his absence
and have been killed by
Indians
• Some Indians are enslaved,
others sent to Europe to be
slave labor
Columbian Exchange:
Exchange of products and species
between old world and new world
How is this picture evidence of the Columbian Exchange?
Biological Exchange
• Spread of European
diseases to New World
– Native Americans had no
resistance
– Influenza, measles,
chicken pox, mumps,
typhus
– Smallpox killed millions
– 95% of entire Aztec
population died within a
few years of contact
Talk to your neighbor
What are some effects of colonization in the
Americas?