Exploration and the Colonial EraChapter 1 Section 1

Ancient Cultures in the Americas

Ice age allows land bridge to form between Asia and Alaska so people cross into Americas

As climate warms, large game disappear, people hunt smaller animals and gather nuts and berries

Between 10,000-5,000 years ago, agriculture develops in central Mexico

Farming spreads throughout Americas

Ancient Agricultural civilizations

Olmecs—1,200 B.C.—Mexico

Mayans—A.D. 250-900—Guatamala/Yucatan peninsula

Aztec—A.D. 1200—Valley of Mexico—what is today, Mexico City

Incas—A.D. 1400—Western mountain coast of South America

Hohokam and Anasazi—A.D. 300-1400—Western North America

Native American Societies of the 1400’s

Group Region Goods traded

Algonquin Eastern Woodlands

Colored feathers, copper

Apaches Plains Meat, hides, salt

Navajo Southwest Pottery, blankets, crops

Kwakiuti Northwest Coast Fish oil

Ute Great Basin Hides, buffalo robes

Choctaw Southeast Deerskins, bear oil

West African societies of the 1400’s

3 Powerful Kingdoms grew rich by taxing goods that passed through territories

Songhai: controlled the trade across the Sahara

Benin: controlled forest region around the Niger Delta

Kongo: controlled along the lower Congo (Zaire) River

• City of Timbuktu was hub of a well-established trading network between West Africa and ports of North Africa along Mediterranean Sea

• Traders from North Africa also brought Islam to West African cultures

• The Portuguese opened West Africa to direct trade with Europe in 1440’s**enslaved mainland Africans to work sugarcane plantations on two islands off coast**began European trade of enslaved West Africans

European societies of the 1400’s

Social Hierarchy of society

Monarchs

Aristocracy

Clergy

Artisan/Merchants

Agricultural Labor/Peasants

Main religion: Christianity

*Leader is the Pope

*1096-Crusades-military expeditions to rid the Holy Lands of Islam

~failed

~did open trade routes between Europe and Asia

~weakened nobles

1400’s—Renaissance-rebirth of interest in physical world-applied to arts, writings, paintings

1450-John Gutenberg invents the printing press

Publishes works of explorers, writers, new ideas

1500’s—Reformation

*Pope’s authority being challenged due to corruption within the Catholic Church.

*Martin Luther posts 95 Theses

*Henry VIII breaks away/starts Church of England

*Splits Church into Catholics and Protestants

Sailing Technolgy improves

Compass and Astrolabe

Explorers:

Henry the Navigator adds experienced mariners, geographers, cartographers, navigators to crew

Bartolameu Dias sails around the tip of Africa

Vasco de Cama reaches India 10 years later

Christopher Columbus thinks there has to be an easier and faster way…