AP U.S. History · Lesson 1

Native societies and European exploration

Know Know it

Before 1492, North America held hundreds of societies with different languages, beliefs and economies. The best single key to how a people lived is the environment: what the land, water and climate allowed.

Where maize could grow, many peoples became farmers. Maize cultivation spread north from Mesoamerica and supported settled towns: the Pueblo peoples of the dry Southwest farmed with careful use of scarce water, often by irrigation, and lived in stone and adobe towns, and Mississippian towns such as Cahokia raised great earthen mounds in the river valleys.

Where farming was hard, people moved. In the dry Great Basin and on parts of the Great Plains, many groups lived by mobile hunting and gathering, following game and wild plants with the seasons. Before horses arrived, Plains hunters tracked bison on foot.

Some peoples settled without farming. On the Northwest Coast, rich salmon runs and forests let people build permanent villages of cedar plank houses with ranked social classes. In the Eastern Woodlands, people mixed farming of maize, beans and squash with hunting and fishing.

In Europe, several forces pushed sailors outward in the 1400s. Merchants wanted a direct sea route to the spices and silk of Asia. Rulers wanted gold and glory. Christians wanted converts, and in Spain the Reconquista, completed with the fall of Granada in 1492, fed a crusading spirit. New ships such as the caravel, along with tools such as the compass and astrolabe, made long voyages practical.

Portugal moved first, setting up trading posts down the West African coast; Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa in 1488, and Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498. Spain backed Columbus, who sailed west and reached the Caribbean in 1492. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) split new claims between the two crowns.

Trap One continent, many ways of life

Do not describe "Native Americans" as if they shared one culture. A question about the Pueblo, the Great Basin or the Northwest Coast is testing whether you can link a specific people to a specific environment. Farming was also not the only road to settled life: Northwest Coast villages were permanent because of fish, not crops.

Worked example Easy

Many peoples of the Great Basin moved from place to place with the seasons instead of farming in one spot. What best explains this pattern?

  1. European settlers had already taken their best farmland
  2. Little rain made steady farming difficult thereAnswer
  3. Their religion forbade the planting of crops
  4. Horses let them cover long distances quickly

How to solve it

  1. Ask what the land allowed: the Great Basin gets very little rain.
  2. Without enough water for crops, people followed wild foods through the seasons.
  3. Rule out choices that depend on Europeans or horses, which came later.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Incorrect. Europeans had not yet arrived in the Great Basin, so settlers could not have taken farmland before contact.
  • B. Correct. The Great Basin is very dry, so people moved to where seeds, nuts and game could be found in each season.
  • C. Incorrect. No religious ban on planting explains the pattern; the limit was water, not belief.
  • D. Incorrect. Horses came only with the Spanish after 1492, so they cannot explain a way of life that existed long before.

Explain Explain it

Task verbs: explain, compare

To explain a cause, name the factor and then show the link with because or so: the Northwest Coast had huge salmon runs, so people could stay in one place without farming. To compare, say what is the same and what is different in one sentence each, and keep each claim specific to a named people or place.

Worked example Medium

Which statement correctly compares the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest with the peoples of the Northwest Coast before 1492?

  1. Both depended mainly on maize grown in dry country
  2. Both had settled villages, but only the Pueblo depended on farmingAnswer
  3. Both moved from place to place to follow the great bison herds
  4. Only the Northwest Coast peoples built homes meant to last for years

How to solve it

  1. First find what the two share: both lived in permanent villages.
  2. Then find the difference: the Pueblo grew maize, while Northwest Coast villages lived on salmon.
  3. Check each choice against both halves of the comparison.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Incorrect. Maize farming with careful water use describes the Pueblo, but Northwest Coast peoples lived mainly on salmon and other wild foods.
  • B. Correct. Both lived in permanent villages, but the Pueblo farmed while Northwest Coast peoples relied on fishing and gathering.
  • C. Incorrect. Following bison herds describes some Plains hunters, not either of these settled peoples.
  • D. Incorrect. Pueblo adobe and stone towns were also built to last, so only the Northwest Coast is wrong.

Explain Your turn

Give one goal that pushed Spain or Portugal to pay for long ocean voyages in the late 1400s. Then explain how that goal led the crown to pay for the voyages.

Write it, then compare. Nothing you type here is saved or graded.

Compare with a model answer

A full answer does this

  • Names one real goal behind Spanish or Portuguese voyages in the late 1400s
  • Explains how that goal led the crown to pay for ocean voyages

Model answer

One goal was a sea route to Asia. Spices and silk reached Europe overland through Muslim and Italian traders, who raised the price at every step, so a crown whose ships could sail straight to Asia would cut out those middlemen and keep the profits. That is why Portugal paid for voyages down and around Africa and why Spain backed Columbus's plan to sail west.

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