North America in the 1400s

Section 1.2

Main Idea

• A variety of complex societies existed in different regions of North America before European explorers arrived in the early 1500s.

1400s

• North America (NA) was home to many diverse groups and languages.

• Archeologists estimate that between 1 to 10 million American Indians lived before Columbus.

Southwest• The Anasazi people

mysteriously disappeared before European arrival.

• The Navajo and Apache people moved into the area and adapted many of the ways of life of the Anasazi.

• They lived in pueblos, and raised corn, squash, and beans near rivers.

Evidence of Anasazi

Pacific Coast• This area was much richer

in resources than the SW.• American Indians (AI)

hunted whale, salmon, bear, moose, and deer.

• There was plenty of wood to build study houses and totem poles.

• These AI enjoyed far more luxuries than people living elsewhere in NA.

Totem Poles

Canada and Alaska• Why would people in

the north be unable to rely on farming?

• Instead the hunted for seals, beaver, musk ox, and bear.

• Today AI living in this region are known as Inuit, but we mistakenly call them Eskimos.

Inuit Culture

Great Plains• Groups of nomadic

people that roamed the plains following buffalo herds.

• Farming here was difficult, but the abundance of animals made for a stable life.

• The Sioux and Cheyenne were well established by the time of European arrival.

Bison

• Uses for buffalo:– Food– Canteen (bladder)– Dipping spoon (scrotum

and testicles)– Clothing – Shelter– Tools (bones)– Torch (horns)

Northeast• The Northeast was home to

the Iroquois, the AI group that developed the first American democracy.

• These AI had a legislative body similar to our Congress, where representatives voted on laws.

• Large numbers of forests allowed the Iroquois to construct permanent wooded homes called longhouses.

American Indian Culture• What is a generalization?• The diversity of the

population makes generalizations risky.

• Many AI societies were organized around family, these are called clans.

• Some were matrilineal, meaning the women, not men, help property and passed on their names.

• Land was not bought and sold, instead most AI groups believed that the land belonged to everyone in the clan.

• Rival groups would fight over control of good hunting grounds.

• Division of labor usually called for women to farm and gather and men to hunt.

Trade • Although AI groups were

separated by distance and languages they still traded between each other.

• Coastal groups might trade shells to mountain people in exchange for iron.

• The most well know trading path was from the Iroquois lands in New York down to the Cherokee in NC.– The path ran right

through Thomasville!