Period One: Pre-1607 [Practice Questions] Flashcards
How did Native Americans adapt to the various geographies of the Americas? What different types of cultures emerged?
- Geographic Adaptation: Native Americans adapted to diverse environments through strategies like farming, hunting, and fishing, depending on the specific geography they inhabited.
- Cultural Diversity: The varied geographies of the Americas led to the emergence of distinct Native American cultures, such as agricultural societies in the Southwest, nomadic Plains tribes, and coastal fishing communities.
- Resource Utilization: Native Americans harnessed local resources to create unique tools, housing, and clothing, tailored to their specific geographic environments.
What are some unifying characteristics of Native American cultures (think specifically about religion, land, and societies)? How were these distinct from what Europeans believed?
- Religion was a big unifier
- Brought tribes together
- This was also the case in England
- Land was shared by community
- While in England it was every man for themselves
- Hunting spaces were reserved
- Native societies were matriarchal
- Complete opposite of patriarchal England
Why was European maritime exploration so important to countries in the 15th century?
How did European nations engage in practices in Africa and in islands in the Atlantic Ocean that they later perfected in the Americas?
- They had plantations or ways of making money in each place
- The Portuguese had fortified trading posts in Benin, plantations in the Atlantic Islands
- English had sugar plantations in the West Indies
- Same colonizing behavior carried over to the Americas
Why did Columbus make his voyage when he did? What role did Spain’s political challenges play in this development?
- Exchange of people, cultures, ideas, diseases
- Shared w the Old World Native crops
Shared fatal diseases w the New World
Why did Columbus make his voyage when he did? What role did Spain’s political challenges play in this development?
- Spain was struggling with the presence of Muslim traders and growing prominence of their religion
- Columbus sent trade agreements to Asian leaders to negotiate
- Also main goal was to convert the Native Americans to Catholicism
How did Spain organize its colonial society? Why did a strict hierarchy emerge?
- Peninsulares
- People born in Europe on top
- Mestizos
- People mixed between Native and European
- Natives
- To remind everyone of their place in a Spanish colony
How did the emergence of Protestantism shape Spanish colonization efforts?
- It only further encouraged the notion of converting the Natives to “a true Christian faith” which Protestantism was not
Why did the encomienda system give way to the repartimiento system? How did they differ?
- Las Casas’s complaint about the Spanish gave way to the repartimiento system
- Encomienda system was forced enslavement of the Natives from conquered lands
- Repartimiento system was more “humane”, gave Natives more rights like wages but still had to work a fixed number of hours
Why did the Black Legend put stress on Spanish colonial efforts?
- Painted Spain as “inhumane” which allowed France, the Netherlands, and England to challenge their dominance in the Americas
How did the Pueblo Revolt challenge Spanish colonization?
- Reminded them that the Natives are not the submissive people that the world thought they were
What did the French want from their colonization of North America? How did their goals differ from that of the Spanish, Dutch, and English?
- France simply wanted gold and to find a Northwest passage, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic
- Spain wanted gold, glory, and god
- The Dutch wanted a Northwest passage to Asia and to expand the fur trade
- The English wanted to best the Spanish & everyone else whilst maintaing the most successful colonies
Why was the emergence of a “Middle Ground” so important for the fur trade and New France’s success?
- Fostered good relations with the Native Americans
How did the Dutch balance liberty with order in New Netherlands?
- Controlled by people appointed by the Dutch West India Company
- Although they enjoyed freedom of the press and freedom to practice their religion privately
Why did England not begin trans-Atlantic colonization efforts until the 1580s?
- Weren’t really focused on it until
- Elizabeth I pointed the Americas out
Even then it was abt raiding Spanish ships
