Topic: New World Beginnings

Aim: How did geography and

exploration impact the

development of indigenous

and European culture?

1. Describe the movement of

peoples starting in 25,000

B.C.E. across the Bering

Land Strait. (Use cardinal

directions and geographic

descriptors!)

2. Select at least two

geographic features.

Explain why Paleo-Indian

settlement sites and

civilizations developed in

those locations.

Early Amerindian Cultures

• What aspects of Incan culture

might this figurine represent?

• How did indigenous cultures in

North and South America change

and develop prior to European

arrival?

• How were indigenous cultures

in North and South American

different from those of Europe?

Similar?

• Describe the information about indigenous peoples provided by this map.

• What connections could be made between approximate population locations and modern

American place names?

Pre-Contact Concentrations of Indigenous Populations in North America

• Why was the Silk Road utilized for trade before other routes?

• What was the driving force behind European movement eastward?

• Why were the Portuguese the earliest explorers?

• How did Portuguese exploration impact the lives of Africans?

Patterns of Early

Exploration and

Trade

Marco Polo crossing the Strait of Hormuz (illustration from the

first printed edition of The Travels of Marco Polo in 1477)

Europe, Asia, and Africa: Early Global Trade

• Explain the driving forces

behind the Crusades (1095-

1291).

• How did Marco Polo’s

return from Asia in 1295

change Europeans’ lives?

• What factors drove

European trade with Asia?

• Who benefited most from

this trade? Why?

Gorée Island Slave Fortress

From this holding station off the coast of Senegal, thousands of

African captives passed through the “Door of No Return” into a

lifetime of slavery in the New World.

Topic: Spain in the

New World

Aim: What were

the origins of

Spanish

imperialism, and

how did they affect

indigenous

cultures?

•Why did the

Spanish and English

have Italian

explorers working

for them?

• Explain the impact

of the Treaty of

Tordesillas (1494)

on European

exploration.

The Columbian Exchange

• How did the Columbian Exchange transform

both Europe and the Americas in both the

short and long term?

• Was the overall impact of the Columbian

exchange positive or negative? Why?

The Unification of Spain, the Conquistadores, and Empire

• Why might young conquistadores be those most involved in the early process of

exploration and control of Spain’s holdings in the New World?

• How would the process of Spanish unification under Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of

Castile affect Spanish reasons for imperial expansion?

• What reasons would conquistadores have for returning to Spain? For staying in the New

World?

• How did the establishment of a Spanish Empire change the balance of power in Europe?

Maps representing the process of a nearly 1000 year conflict

between Christian Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms and the

Muslim “Moors.”

illustration from Köhler Codex of Nuremberg; possibly

earliest depiction of the conquistadores (1534)

an Aztec view of the Conquest (1534)

Cortés and Malinche, ca. 1540 (detail)

The Impacts of the Spanish Conquest on Indigenous Cultures

• Describe examples in the images above that depict cultural changes

for indigenous peoples after the arrival of the Spanish.

• Describe how Spain’s holdings

in the New World would have led

to economic growth in Europe.

• How might the British and

French seek to challenge Spanish

dominance?

• Explain how the early Spanish

colonial model might affect the

process of British colonization.

• How would Spain’s imperial

power influence religious and

social conflicts?

• What challenges might have

ended Spain’s Siglo de Oro

(1521–1643) leading to a long,

slow decline that stretched until

the 1820s?

• Analyze and explain the lessons

that could be learned by the

British from the decline of Spain’s

Empire.

Spain: the First “Empire on

Which the Sun Never Sets”

Lesson Summary

Be able to address these questions with specific examples

(names, dates, events, historical developments)!• Describe the

geographical development of indigenous cultures in the Americas.

• Analyze and explain the political and social forces behind Spanish colonization.

• Analyze and explain the short and long term impacts of Spanish colonization, both on Spain and the New World.