Period 1: 1491–1607

Notes

Native American societies before contact

Native societies were diverse and adapted to their environments.

• Maize cultivation spread north from Mexico, supporting large, settled societies in the Southwest (Pueblo irrigation) and the Mississippi River Valley (Cahokia's mound-building culture).
• In the Great Basin and Great Plains, many groups were mobile hunter-gatherers.
• In the Northeast and Mississippi Valley, groups mixed agriculture with hunting and lived in permanent villages (Iroquois longhouses).
• In the Pacific Northwest and California, plentiful fish and plants supported permanent villages without much farming.

European exploration

Europeans sought new sources of wealth, trade routes to Asia, and to spread Christianity. Portugal's navigation advances (caravels, the compass, astrolabe) and Spain's goal of "gold, glory and God" drove voyages. Columbus reached the Caribbean in 1492.

The Columbian Exchange

The transfer of plants, animals, people and diseases between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

• To the Americas: horses, cattle, pigs, wheat, sugar cane, and diseases like smallpox that killed huge numbers of Native people.
• To Europe, Africa and Asia: maize, potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco and silver. New crops fed population growth.
• American silver fueled European economies and the shift toward capitalism.

Spanish colonization

• The encomienda system gave Spanish colonists the right to Native labor and tribute, leading to brutal exploitation.
• Spain developed a caste system (casta) based on race and birthplace.
• The Valladolid debate (1550–1551): Bartolomé de las Casas argued Native people were fully human and should not be enslaved; Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda argued the opposite.
• As Native populations fell, the Spanish and Portuguese turned to enslaved Africans.
• Native resistance, like the later Pueblo Revolt (1680), and also adaptation and blending of cultures.