CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA

Ice Age (34,000-30,000)-> First evidence of life in the USA.

Beringia -> across this Bering Land Bridge many human populations first passed from
Asia to populate the Americas. Beringia still exists today in the people of Northwest
Alaska and the Russian Far East.
12,000 - Alaska and Clovis, NM-> Evidences of human life, known as Clovis.
Evidence of Agriculture in 8,000 BC (Mexico)-> it was due to the lack of hunting
animals.
Evidence of irrigation system in 3,000 BC (NM & AR)->
Evidence of village life in 300 BC
1st cent AD Hokoham in Phoenix, AR -> organised settlements.
The mound builders were inhabitants of North America who, during a 5,000-year
period, constructed various styles of earthen mounds for religious and ceremonial,
burial, and elite residential purposes.
Evidence of Adenans in 600 BC. They were absolved or mixed with the Hopewellians
(South OH).
Another tribe (also mound builders) known as the Mississipians built the city of
Cahokia (Collinsville, IL). They had a sophisticated way of agriculture and economy,
hunted, traded, and practised human sacrifice. They were displaced by the Pueblo
Indians, who were more powerful.
The tribe Anazasi (Mesa Verde, CO) was an important tribe of the Pueblos and was the
ancestors of the Hopi Indians. There is evidence of them in Mesa Verde and Pueblo
Bonito (NM). They disappeared and left suddenly because they left everything there in
900 BC.
There was an abandoned tribe in the Pacific Northwest who was thought to have lots
of natural resources and was really abandoned in life. They had permanent villages
and were the most affluent

Onset of European colonisation:
When the first Europeans came there were approximately 40 million of Native Americans. The
population of Native American Indians declined a lot as the Europeans brought diseases like
the smallpox. Consequently, there was a dramatic decline of these people.
Native American cultures are extremely diverse but they've got many things in common:
Hunting, gathering, maize
Women: farming & food distribution
Men: hunting & war
Religious beliefs: they had a tight bond with nature
They are clan oriented and communal
Their culture is Oral, based on tales and dreams
The first Europeans
The first European believed to have set foot in America was Erik the Red, in 985
(Greenland). Later, his son Leif (1001) sailed to the North-East coast to Canada.
The Vikings sailed from the East Coast down to Bahamas.
John Cabot arrived in Newfoundland in 1497.
Juan Ponce de Len was the first Spaniard to settle in the USA. The first Spanish
settlement was St. Augustine, FL
Mexico 1522-> Conquest of Central America by Hernn Corts.
Amerigo Vespucci -> Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer who first
demonstrated that Brazil and the West Indies did not represent Asia's eastern outskirts
as initially conjectured from Columbus' voyages, but instead constituted an entirely
separate landmass hitherto unknown to Afro-Eurasians. Referred to as the New World,
this second super continent came to be termed "America".
1539 Hernando de Soto-> settlement in FL.
1540 Francisco Vazquez de Coronado-> there was no horses in America until he lost
some of his Spanish horses which were lately tamed by Native Americans.
1524 - Giovanni da Verrazano-> he arrived in North Carolina-
1530s Jacques Cartier-> he discovered Canada while looking for a passage to get to
Asia.
Late 1500s Pedro Menendez-> settled the first permanent European settlement.
1578 Humphrey Gilbert-> started exploring for the British Queen.
1585 Sir Walter Raleigh-> came with fast ships and looted Spanish ships and gave
half of the loot to the British Queen. He started a settlement in North Carolina.
Reasons for emigration 1600s
From the end of the 1600s onwards, a lot of people emigrated. The 1st settlements of
English immigrants long after Spanish 1st settlements were in Mexico, West Indies and
South America.
The voyage took from 6 to 12 weeks in hard conditions and people got sick of scurvy.
Political oppression in the UK(1630s-1660s)
Religious practice (Puritans, Huguenots)
Economic difficulties 1620s-1630s
Early settlements
The first official British settlement was in 1607 by king James I, called Jamestown, VA.
John Smith married a Native American princess called Pocahontas, who was only 12.
He led an expedition in 1607.
John Rolfe was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with
the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia
(1612).
The most famous British settlement was in 1620. The ship was called Mayflower and
they landed in Cape Cod, MA.
1624 New Amsterdam
1630 John Winthrop to MA
1632 Maryland (Calvert)
1636 Providence, RH (R. Williams)
1681 William Penn
1732 Georgia, Gral. James Oglethorpe


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