Study Guide to accompany Jones • Wood • Borstelmann • May • Ruiz CREATED EQUAL A Social and Political History of the United States Volume One Second Edition William Pelz Elgin Community College New York Boston San Francisco London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore Madrid Mexico City Munich Paris Cape Town Hong Kong Montreal Study Guide to accompany Jones/Wood/Borstelmann/May/Ruiz, Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States, Volume One, Second Edition Copyright ©2006 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Instructors may reproduce portions of this book for classroom use only. All other reproductions are strictly prohibited without prior permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. ISBN: 0-321-33311-X 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10–ML–08 07 06 05 Contents Chapter 1 First Founders 1 Chapter 2 European Footholds on the Fringes of North America, 1600-1660 15 Chapter 3 Controlling the Edges of the Continent, 1660-1715 27 Chapter 4 African Enslavement: The Terrible Transformation 42 Chapter 5 An American Babel, 1713-1763 57 Chapter 6 The Limits of Imperial Control, 1763-1775 71 Chapter 7 Revolutionaries at War, 1775-1783 87 Chapter 8 New Beginnings: The 1780s 101 Chapter 9 Revolutionary Legacies, 1789-1803 116 Chapter 10 Defending and Expanding the New Nation, 1803-1818 130 Chapter 11 Moving Westward: Society and Politics in the “Age of the Common Man,” 1819-1832 141 Chapter 12 Peoples in Motion, 1832-1848 155 Chapter 13 The Crisis over Slavery, 1848-1860 169 Chapter 14 “To Fight to Gain a Country”: The Civil War 182 Chapter 15 In the Wake of War: Consolidating a Triumphant Union, 1865-1877 196 Chapter 1 First Founders Learning Objectives: After reading Chapter 1, you should be able to: 1. Discuss the origins of the first peoples to live in America. 2. Explain the most recent evidence as to the origins of the first inhabitants of America. 3. Understand how human groups adapted to changes in the climate. 4. Detail the Mesoamerican Empires that existed from A.D. 300 to 900. 5. Analyze why the great urban centers of Peru and Mesoamerica had no northern counterparts. 6. Explain the significance of the Cahokia and Moundville. 7. Discuss early European travel to the Western Hemisphere. 8. Understand the reasons behind the beginnings of globalization. 9. Analyze the reasons for the mistakes that led Columbus to mistake America for Asia. 10. Comprehend the importance of the Spanish devastation of the Indies. 11. Understand how the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs was achieved. 12. Discuss the various European expeditions that came to America in the sixteenth century. 13. Analyze how the Protestant Reformation affected America. 14. Discuss the reasons for increased English attention to America. Time Line 300 A.D. Rise of Mayan Culture 800 A.D. Moche Empire collapsed 1000 A.D. Vikings reached North American coast 1492 Columbus reached Hispaniola 1497 John Cabot reached Newfoundland 1 1522 Cortes conquered the Aztec Empire 1533 Francisco Pizarro conquered Incas in Peru 1534 Jacques Cartier reached the Gulf of the St. Lawrence 1537 Hernando de Soto granted right to conquer Florida by Spanish crown 1590 Roanoke colony site found deserted I. Ancient America A. The Question of Origins The ancestors of Indian societies have lived in America for at least 14,000 years. Although scientific research increasingly documents the general story of human origins and migration, nothing can diminish the powerful creation stories passed down from ancestors. These serve an important cultural purpose. Modern humans developed in Africa, but 50,000 to 70,000 years ago, they began to migrate. Bands of northern hunters migrated east across Siberia in search of game. Arriving at the Bering land bridge, then exposed because of arctic ice caps, some hunters made the trip from Asia to America. As the climate warmed, the land bridge was flooded while passages to the south opened up. Scholars suspect that the newcomers followed game southward, reaching the tip of South America in a few thousand years. B. The Newest Approaches Some scientists have found evidence that some peoples may have traveled from Asia to America by sea. While it is unclear whether humans took to boats before as well as after arriving, the DNA evidence shows that the first population of America came primarily from Asia. C. The Archaic World Some 10,000 years ago, the Paleo-Indian eras gave way to the different Archaic era as climate changes and more than 100 of America’s largest species disappeared. Human groups had to adapt to new conditions. Although genetically similar, far-flung bands of Archaic Indians developed diverse cultures in reaction to very different environments. A few early languages 2 branched into numerous language families, and similar cultural variations emerged in everything from lifestyle to spiritual beliefs. The various Archaic American groups had one important thing in common: their lack of domesticated animals. Although they did have dogs and, in the Andes, llamas, there remained no other large mammal that could give humans milk, meat, hides, or hauling power. With regard to the domestication of plants, Americans had more options. Unlike wheat in Eurasia which offers a high yield from the start, American crops like maize took thousands of years to develop into a productive food source. About 3,000 years ago, the Olmecs emerged as the first of several powerful Mesoamerican cultures. They developed a complex calendar, revered the jaguar, and built large mounds and pyramids. They traded widely with people across Mesoamerica and passed on their cultural traits, as shown by the possibility that they influenced the Poverty Point culture of the lower Mississippi River. II. A Thousand Years of Change: A.D. 500 to 1500 A. Valleys of the Sun: The Mesoamerican Empires The Mayans controlled an area half the size of Texas in what is today southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador between A.D. 300 and 900. Getting their elaborate calendar from the Olmecs as well as other cultural traits, the Mayans also built huge stone temples and conducted ritual blood sacrifice to their gods. The Mayans declined mysteriously as did the Moches in Peru and were replaced by the people of Teotihuacan, who in turn were replaced by the Toltecs and then the Aztecs. The Aztecs migrated to the valley of Mexico in the twelfth century. Although they were at first looked down on as uncultured, the Aztecs rose quickly to power because of skillful alliances and military might. They founded their capital of Tenochtitlan on a swampy island in Lake Texococ, and by the 1400s, the Aztecs had transformed their city into an imposing urban center. The Aztecs were molded by hardship, pessimism, and violence, seeing themselves as living in a final human era destined to end in cataclysm. Launching fierce wars against their neighbors, the Aztecs demanded tribute and took prisoners who they then sacrificed at pyramid temples to please their gods. This harsh treatment of conquered peoples left the Aztecs vulnerable to external attack. 3 B. The Anasazi: Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde Although there are no counterparts to the great urban centers of Peru and Mesoamerica farther north, three clearly different cultures were well-established in the American Southwest by A.D. 500. The Mogollons lived in sunken pit houses in what is now eastern Arizona and southern New Mexico. Their neighbors to the west, the Hohokams, constructed extensive canal and floodgate systems to irrigate their fields. To the north where Utah and Colorado now meet Arizona and New Mexico, lived the Anasazi, or “ancient ones,” and violence and warfare played a important part in their life. In the end, however, environmental changes exerted the greatest force as a drought gripped the Colorado Plateau for half a century after 1130. C. The Mississippians: Cahokia and Moundville The Hopewell people had prospered in the Mississippi valley for the first 500 years A.D. Their trading laid the groundwork for later, larger mound-building societies, known as the Mississippian cultures. Living in southern Ohio and western Illinois, the Hopewell established a network of trade that covered much of North America. Spreading after A.D. 500, a more elaborate and widespread culture flourished for six centuries after A.D. 900. Maize went from a marginal crop to a central staple, and by 1300, maize and bean agriculture reached all the way to the Iroquoian people around Lake Ontario. As food supplies expanded, Indian peoples began to settle in these fertile areas, and developed patterns of bureaucracy and hierarchy. With increased productivity, commercial and religious elites gained greater control over farmers. Mississippian mound-building cultures were diverse and widespread. Although much is still not known about them, the largest complex developed at Cahokia in the floodplain below where the Illinois and Missouri rivers flow into the Mississippi. Cahokia rose quickly around A.D. 1050, as small villages were reorganized into a strong regional chiefdom. The centralized elite controlled food, labor, trade, and religion, as well as life and death, as shown by the evidence of human sacrifice. Cahokia declined and other regional chiefdoms arose along other rivers. The most important appears to be Moundville in west-central Alabama, which remained powerful until around 1400. III. Linking the Continents A. Oceanic Travel: The Norse and the Chinese Around A.D. 1000, Scandinavian Vikings explored and then settled a region near the Gulf of St. Lawrence that they called Vinland. A tiny colony of 160 Vikings lived and grazed livestock in Vinland for several years until driven out by native peoples.