AMSCO 1.2:Native American Societies Before European Contact Notes

Overview

AMSCO Topic 1.2, Native American Societies Before European Contact (AMSCO p.3-p.7), covers the diverse civilizations that developed across the Americas before 1492, from the Maya, Aztec, and Inca empires to the regional cultures of North America. The chapter's core argument is that environment shaped society. Where maize cultivation spread and food was abundant, people built permanent settlements and complex social structures. Where the land was dry or resources were scattered, people developed mobile lifestyles. This is the foundation of Unit 1 (Period 1: 1491-1607), and the exam loves asking how native populations interacted with their natural environment.

By 1491, the population of the Americas was probably between 50 million and 100 million people. That number matters because it pushes back on the old myth of an "empty" continent waiting for Europeans.

Migration to the Americas

The first settlement of North and South America began at least 10,000 and maybe up to 40,000 years ago. Migrants from Asia might have crossed a land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska, land that's now submerged under the Bering Sea.

• People migrated southward over time, from near the Arctic Circle all the way to the southern tip of South America.
• As groups adapted to different environments, they evolved into hundreds of tribes speaking hundreds of languages.

That last point is the chapter's through-line: adaptation to environment created enormous cultural diversity.

Cultures of Central and South America

The native population was concentrated in three highly developed civilizations: the Mayas, the Aztecs, and the Incas.

• The Mayas built remarkable cities in the rain forests of the Yucatan Peninsula (present-day Guatemala, Belize, and southern Mexico) between the years 300 and 800.
• The Aztecs, based in central Mexico, built a powerful empire several centuries after the Maya decline. Their capital, Tenochtitlan, had about 200,000 people, equivalent to the largest cities in Europe at the time.
• The Incas, based in Peru, built a vast empire in western South America while the Aztecs were dominating Mexico and Central America.

What did all three have in common? Each developed highly organized societies, carried on extensive trade, and created calendars based on accurate scientific observation. Each also cultivated a staple crop that provided a stable food supply: corn (maize) for the Mayas and Aztecs, potatoes for the Incas.

Cultures of North America

North of Mexico (present-day United States and Canada), the population in the 1490s may have been anywhere from under 1 million to more than 10 million. Societies here generally had fewer people and less complex social structures than those in Mexico and South America.

Why the difference? Maize.

The cultivation of corn (maize) spread northward from Mexico slowly. Wherever maize arrived, its nutrition supported larger, more densely settled populations, which in turn allowed people to specialize in their work and build more socially diversified societies. No maize, no big cities. That cause-and-effect chain is one of the most testable ideas in this topic.

A few other general patterns:

• Some of the most populous North American societies had disappeared by the 15th century for reasons not well understood.
• By Columbus's time, most people in what is now the U.S. and Canada lived in semipermanent settlements of seldom more than 300 people.
• In most groups, men made tools and hunted game while women gathered plants and nuts or grew crops like corn, beans, and tobacco.

Language diversity

European languages almost all belong to one language family (Indo-European). American Indian languages constituted more than 20 language families containing over 400 distinct languages. The largest families included Algonquian in the Northeast, Siouan on the Great Plains, and Athabaskan in the Southwest. This is hard evidence of how culturally diverse the continent was.

Regional Societies of North America

This is the heart of the chapter. For each region, know the environment, the food source, and the settlement pattern.

Southwest

In the dry region that's now New Mexico and Arizona, the Hohokam, Anasazi, and Pueblos built multifaceted societies. People lived in caves, under cliffs, and in multistoried buildings. The spread of maize cultivation from Mexico prompted economic growth and the development of irrigation systems, and that extra wealth created a more complex society with greater variation between social and economic classes. By the time Europeans arrived, extreme drought and hostile neighbors had weakened these groups, but their descendants still live in the region, and the arid climate preserved some of their stone and masonry dwellings.

Northwest

Along the Pacific coast from present-day Alaska to northern California, people lived in permanent longhouses or plank houses. They ate a rich diet from hunting, fishing, and gathering nuts, berries, and roots. They carved large totem poles to help people remember stories, legends, and myths. High mountain ranges isolated tribes from one another, which created barriers to development.

Great Basin and Great Plains

People responded to the dry climate of the Great Basin and the grasslands of the Great Plains by developing mobile, nomadic lifestyles. Nomadic tribes survived by hunting buffalo, which supplied food plus material for decorations, tools, knives, and clothing. They lived in tepees, pole frames covered in animal skins that could be easily taken apart and moved. Some Plains tribes lived permanently in earthen lodges along rivers, raising corn, beans, and squash and trading actively with other tribes.

One common mix-up to avoid: Plains tribes did NOT have horses before contact. American Indians acquired horses in the 17th century by trading with or stealing from Spanish settlers. Only then could tribes like the Lakota Sioux easily follow buffalo herds. Migration was common too. The Apaches, for example, gradually moved southward from Canada to Texas.

Mississippi River Valley

East of the Mississippi, the Woodland American Indians prospered on a rich food supply from hunting, fishing, and agriculture, which supported permanent settlements. The Adena-Hopewell culture, centered in present-day Ohio, is famous for large earthen mounds, some 300 feet long. Cahokia (near present-day East St. Louis, Illinois) was one of the largest settlements in the Midwest, with as many as 30,000 inhabitants. Cahokia is your go-to example that large, complex urban societies existed in North America before contact.

Northeast

Descendants of the Adena-Hopewell culture spread from the Ohio Valley into New York, combining hunting and farming. Their farming techniques exhausted the soil quickly, so groups moved to fresh land frequently. Multiple families related through the mother's lineage (a matrilineal arrangement) lived together in longhouses up to 200 feet long.

Several tribes near the Great Lakes and in New York, the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and later the Tuscarora, formed the Iroquois Confederation (Haudenosaunee), a powerful political union. From the 16th century through the American Revolution, it battled rival American Indians and Europeans alike.

Atlantic Seaboard

From New Jersey south to Florida lived Coastal Plains peoples such as the Cherokee and the Lumbee, many of them descendants of the Woodland mound builders. They built timber and bark lodgings along rivers, and the rivers and Atlantic Ocean provided a rich food supply.

The big takeaway on diversity

The huge variety of landforms and climates produced widely different cultures. Europeans often lumped these cultures together, but each tribe was very conscious of its own distinctive systems and traditions. A shared "Native American" identity developed much later in history, not before contact.

Key Terms to Know

Practice and Next Steps

Reinforce this chapter with the matching Topic 1.2 Native American Societies Before European Contact study guide, which frames the same material the way the exam tests it. The fastest way to check yourself is to pick any region and explain how its environment shaped its food source and settlement pattern.

When you're ready to test your recall, run some APUSH multiple choice practice questions, look up anything fuzzy in the APUSH key terms glossary, and browse the rest of the AMSCO notes for Unit 1 to keep moving through Period 1.