Before Columbus

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Before Columbus

• Native Americans

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Old History vs. New History

• Traditional history White men, fleeing from
  rigid customs, social hierarchies, and the
  constrained resources of Europe to a land of
  opportunity
• New history Many colonists failed to prosper
  due to disease, crop problems, predators, and
  hostile Native Americans those who did do well
  did so at the expense of Indians, indentured
  servants, and slaves

3
Go West?

• Not all of America was the English going west
• Spanish were heading north from Mexico
• Russians coming east from Siberia
• French coming south through the Great Lakes and
  down the Mississippi River

4

• You cannot simply say there were Europeans,
  Africans, and Indians converging together because
  it was far more complex than that.
• When thrown together in the New World, each had
  to find a new commonality to aid in their
  survival in the new world.
• VIP All three groupsEuropeans, Africans,
  Indians were in a flux when they encountered each
  other in the colonies.

5

• Pre-Columbian time period.
• First Americans came from Asia
• Crossed the Bering Strait during the Ice Age
• Following a food source
• Gradual migration

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Settlement
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Early Human Migrations
1st Migration, 38,000-1800 BCE 2nd Migration, c.
10,000-4,000 BCE 3rd Migration, c. 8,000-3,000 BCE
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Paleo-Indians
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Paleo-Indians
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Archaic Indians
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Horticulture

• Horticulture evolved over generations from the
  practices of gathering wild plants
• Indians developed hybrids of increasing
  reliability and productivity
• They developed the three great crops of North
  Americans horticulture maize, squash, and beans
• As plants became more important in their diet,
  less time was devoted to hunting, gathering, and
  fishing.

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Hohokam Anasazi
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Hohokam
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Anasazi
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Mound Builders
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Indians in America
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Beliefs

• Indians had a more complex understanding of the
  interdependent relationship between the natural
  and the supernatural.
• Indians believed that they lived within a
  contentious world of spiritual power that
  sometimes demanded human restraint and at other
  times offered opportunities for exploitation.

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CULTURAL CLASHES

• WHITE EUROPEANS
• Used the land for economic needs
• Clearing the land, destroying hunting areas and
  fencing it off into private property
• Divided the land and selling it for monetary
  value.
•   
• NATIVE AMERICANS
• Relationship with environment as part of their
  religion
• Need to hunt for survival
• Ownership meant access to the things the land
  produced, not ownership of the land itself.

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