HIST 108 GC History Early American History The American Promise Essay

Description

2
3
See the Difference with LearningCurve!
learningcurveworks.com
LearningCurve is a winning solution for everyone: students come to class better prepared and
instructors have more flexibility to go beyond the basic facts and concepts in class.
LearningCurve’s game-like quizzes are bookspecific and link back to the textbook in LaunchPad
so that students can brush up on the reading when they get stumped by a question. The reporting
features help instructors track overall class trends and spot topics that are giving students trouble
so that they can adjust lectures and class activities.
LearningCurve is easy to assign, easy to customize, and easy to complete. See the difference
LearningCurve makes in teaching and learning history.
4
VA L U E E D I T I O N
The American Promise
A History of the United States
5
VA L U E E D I T I O N
The American Promise
A History of the United States
Seventh Edition
Volume 1
To 1877
James L. Roark
Emory University
Michael P. Johnson
Johns Hopkins University
Patricia Cline Cohen
University of California, Santa Barbara
Sarah Stage
Arizona State University
Susan M. Hartmann
The Ohio State University
Boston | New York
6
FOR BEDFORD/ST. MARTIN’S
Vice President, Editorial, Macmillan Learning Humanities: Edwin Hill
Publisher for History: Michael Rosenberg
Senior Executive Editor for History: William J. Lombardo
Director of Development for History: Jane Knetzger
Developmental Editor: Robin Soule
Associate Editor: Tess Fletcher
Assistant Editor: Mary Posman
Editorial Assistant: Lexi DeConti
Senior Production Editor: Rosemary Jaffe
Media Producer: Michelle Camisa
Media Editor: Jennifer Jovin
Production Manager: Joe Ford
History Marketing Manager: Melissa Famiglietti
Copy Editor: Lisa Wehrle
Indexer: Mary White
Cartography: Mapping Specialists, Ltd.
Photo Editor: Cecilia Varas
Photo Researcher: Naomi Kornhauser
Permissions Editor: Eve Lehmann
Senior Art Director: Anna Palchik
Text Design: Cenveo Publisher Services
Cover Design: William Boardman
Cover Photo: Freedmen by the Canal, Richmond, Virginia, April 1865. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Reproduction
number LC-DIG-cwpb-00468.
Composition: Cenveo Publisher Services
Printing and Binding: LSC Communications
Copyright © 2017, 2015, 2012, 2009 by Bedford/St. Martin’s.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the
Publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
1 0 9 8 7 6
f e d c b a
For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000)
ISBN 978-1-319-06198-2 (Combined Edition)
ISBN 978-1-319-06199-9 (Volume 1)
ISBN 978-1-319-07010-6 (Loose-leaf Edition, Volume 1)
ISBN 978-1-319-06200-2 (Volume 2)
ISBN 978-1-319-07012-0 (Loose-leaf Edition, Volume 2)
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the text and art selections they cover; these acknowledgments and copyrights
constitute an extension of the copyright page.
7
8
Preface
Why This Book This Way
What is the best way to engage and teach students in their history survey course? From the beginning, The
American Promise has been shaped by our firsthand knowledge that the survey course is one of the most
difficult to teach and, for many, also the most difficult to take. From the outset we have met this challenge by
providing a story students enjoy for its readability, clear chronology, and lively voices of ordinary Americans,
and by providing a full-featured text that instructors prize for its full narrative with political backbone and the
overall support for teaching. We continue to feature these qualities in the Value Edition of The American
Promise in which we provide the core of the high-quality material included in the Seventh Edition — the full
narrative and select images, maps, and pedagogical tools — in a two-color, trade-sized format at a low price.
We know that many students today are on a budget and that instructors want greater flexibility and more
digital options in their choice of course materials. We are proud to offer a low-cost text that presents the
engaging and readable narrative with a rich abundance of digital tools. Free when packaged with the print
text, LaunchPad makes meeting the challenges of the survey course a great deal easier by providing an
intuitive, interactive e-Book and course space with a wealth of primary sources. Ready to assign as is with key
assessment resources built into each chapter, LaunchPad can also be edited and customized as instructors’
imaginations and innovations dictate. LaunchPad grants students and teachers access to a wealth of online
tools and resources built specifically for our text to enhance reading comprehension and promote in-depth
study. LaunchPad is loaded with the full-color e-Book with all of the features, maps, and illustrations of the
full-sized edition, plus LearningCurve, an adaptive learning tool; the popular Reading the American Past
primary documents collection; additional primary sources; special skills-based assessment activities; videos;
chapter summative quizzes; and more.
9
What Makes The American Promise Special
Our experience as teachers and our frustrations with available textbooks inspired us to create a book that we
could use effectively with our own students. Our knowledge of classroom realities has informed every aspect of
each edition and version of The American Promise. We began with a clear chronological, political framework,
as we have found that students need both the structure a political narrative provides and the insights gained
from examining social and cultural experience. To write a comprehensive, balanced account of American
history, we focus on the public arena — the place where politics intersects social and cultural developments —
to show how Americans confronted the major issues of their day and created far-reaching historical change.
The unique approach of our narrative is reflected in our title, The American Promise. We emphasize human
agency and demonstrate our conviction that the essence of America has been its promise. For millions, the
nation has held out the promise of a better life, unfettered worship, equality before the law, representative
government, democratic politics, and other freedoms seldom found elsewhere. But none of these promises has
come with guarantees. Throughout the narrative we demonstrate how much of American history is a
continuing struggle over the definition and realization of the nation’s promise.
To engage students in this American story and to portray fully the diversity of the American experience,
we stitch into our narrative the voices of hundreds of contemporaries. In LaunchPad, the Value Edition is
augmented with the comprehensive edition’s four-color art and map program with visual and map activities
that prompt students to think critically about what they see. To help students of all levels understand
American history, LaunchPad offers the best in primary sources and pedagogical aids. To help instructors
teach important skills and evaluate student learning, we provide a rich assortment of assignments and
assessments in the LaunchPad format. While this edition rests solidly on our original goals and premises, it
breaks new ground in addressing the specific needs of today’s courses.
10
A New Skills Focus for the Special Features
Those using LaunchPad will have access to The American Promise’s acclaimed feature program. The program
has been revised to include more useful, skills-oriented assignments. The features offer primary sources,
visuals, essays, and discussion questions, as well as short-answer and multiple-choice questions that test
students’ critical reading skills. Making Historical Arguments (formerly Historical Question) now offers
active, skills-based activities that demonstrate to students how historians make and support historical
arguments. Analyzing Historical Evidence (formerly Documenting the American Promise) then gives
students the opportunity to practice the skills introduced in Making Historical Arguments through analysis of
text and visual sources. Experiencing the American Promise (formerly Seeking the American Promise) offers
essays that illuminate the stories of individuals who sought their dream in America, helping students evaluate
to what extent individuals make history. Finally, an enhanced Beyond America’s Borders continues to offer
students a global perspective on the narrative’s themes with essays that connect U.S. history to developments
around the globe.
Collectively these features provide a range of new topics and content that includes increased attention to
white servant women and slave men in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake; a new focus on the weak
opposition to the African slave trade in the eighteenth century; a nuanced look at urban workers’ standard of
living in the Gilded Age; a spotlight on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s use of New Deal programs to rebuild the
navy during the 1930s; an exploration of the federal government’s influence on the economy in the post–
World War II years; a study of the impact of the Voting Rights Act; an in-depth look at the use of air power
in Vietnam; an investigation of the loss of American manufacturing jobs in the twenty-first century; and much
more.
11
Evaluation of Primary Sources
Primary sources form the heart of historical study and we are pleased to offer LaunchPad users the new
Analyzing Historical Evidence feature, which asks students to use historical thinking skills to consider a range
of documents. Each feature juxtaposes two to four primary documents to reveal varying perspectives on a topic
or issue and to provide students with opportunities to build and practice their skills of historical interpretation.
Because students are so attuned to visuals and instructors deeply value their usefulness as primary sources, we
have included both text and visual sources in this new feature. Images, including artifacts of daily life in Chaco
Canyon, paintings of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, a 1920s mouthwash advertisement, political cartoons,
and more, show students how to mine visual documents for evidence about the past.
In Analyzing Historical Evidence, feature introductions and document headnotes contextualize the
sources, and short-answer questions at the end of the feature promote critical thinking about primary sources.
New topics have been added that are rich with human drama and include “Enslavement by Marriage” and
“The Nation’s First Formal Declaration of War.” These features are available both in print and online and are
easily assigned in LaunchPad, along with multiple-choice quizzes that measure student comprehension.
In addition, more than 150 documents in the accompanying collection Reading the American Past are
available free to users who package the reader with the main print text, and they are automatically included in
the LaunchPad e-Book. Multiple-choice questions are also available for assignment to measure
comprehension and hold students accountable for their reading.
LaunchPad for The American Promise also comes with a collection of more than 135 additional primary
sources that instructors can choose to assign. These sources include letters, memoirs, court records,
government documents, and more, and they include items by or about such people as John Smith, William
Penn, Anne Hutchinson, Jonathan Edwards, Mary Jemison, Black Hawk, Rebecca Neugin, John C. Calhoun,
Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Mary Elizabeth Lease, William Jennings Bryan, Rose Pastor Stokes,
Theodore Roosevelt, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Paul
Robeson, Ronald Reagan, and more.
To give students ample opportunity to practice thinking critically about primary source images,
LaunchPad includes four visual activity captions per chapter. One set of questions in these activities prompts
analysis of the image, while a second set of questions helps students connect the images to main points in the
narrative.
12
Distinctive Essay Features Practice Historical Thinking Skills
To demonstrate and engage students in various methods of historical thinking, LaunchPad’s Making
Historical Arguments feature essays, which occur in every chapter, pose and interpret specific questions of
continuing interest. We pair perennial favorites such as “Was the New United States a Christian Country?,”
“How Often Were Slaves Whipped?,” “Was There a Sexual Revolution in the 1920s?,” and “Why Did the
Allies Win World War II?,” with brand-new entries including “How Did Seventeenth-Century Colonists
View Nature?” and “What Did African Americans Want from World War I, and What Did They Get?”
Short-answer questions at the end of the features prompt students to consider things such as evidence,
beliefs and values, and cause and effect as they relate to the historical question at hand. These features are
available both in print and online and can be easily assigned in LaunchPad, along with multiple-choice
quizzes that measure student comprehension.
13
Helping Students Understand the Narrative
Every instructor knows it can be a challenge to get students to complete assigned readings, and then to fully
understand what is important once they do the reading. The American Promise addresses these problems headon with a suite of tools in LaunchPad that instructors can choose from.
To help students come to class prepared, instructors who adopt LaunchPad for The American Promise can
assign the LearningCurve formative assessment activities. This online learning tool is popular with students
because it helps them rehearse content at their own pace in a nonthreatening, game-like environment.
LearningCurve is also popular with instructors because the reporting features allow them to track overall class
trends and spot topics that are giving their students trouble so they can adjust their lectures and class activities.
Encouraging active reading is another means for making content memorable and highlighting what is
truly important. To help students read actively and understand the central idea of the chapter, instructors who
use LaunchPad can also assign Guided Reading Exercises. These excercises appear at the start of each
chapter, prompting students to collect information to be used to answer a broad analytic question central to
the chapter as a whole.
To further encourage students to read and fully assimilate the text as well as measure how well they do
this, instructors can assign the multiple-choice summative quizzes in LaunchPad, where they are
automatically graded. These secure tests not only encourage students to study the book, they can be assigned
at specific intervals as higher-stakes testing and thus provide another means for analyzing class performance.
Another big challenge for survey instructors is meeting the needs of a range of students, particularly the
students who need the most support. In addition to the formative assessment of LearningCurve, which adapts
to the needs of students at any level, The American Promise offers a number of print and digital tools for the
underprepared. Each chapter opener includes Content Learning Objectives to prepare students to read the
chapter with purpose. Once into the heart of the chapter, students are reminded to think about main ideas
through Review Questions placed at the end of every major section. Some students have trouble connecting
events and ideas, particularly with special boxed features. To address this, we have added a set of Questions
for Analysis to the end of each feature in LaunchPad to help students understand the significance of the
featured topic, its context, and how it might be viewed from different angles.
With this edition we also bring back two popular sets of end-of-chapter questions that help widen
students’ focus as they consider what they have read. Making Connections questions ask students to think
about broad developments within the chapter, while Linking to the Past questions cross-reference
developments in earlier chapters, encouraging students to make comparisons, see causality, and understand
change over longer periods of time.
14
Helping Instructors Teach with Digital Resources
With requests for clear and transparent learning outcomes coming from all quarters and with students who
bring increasingly diverse levels of skills to class, even veteran teachers can find preparing for today’s courses a
trying matter. With LaunchPad we have reconceived the textbook as a suite of tools in multiple formats that
allows each format to do what it does best to capture students’ interest and help instructors create meaningful
lessons.
But one of the best benefits is that instructors using LaunchPad will find they have a number of
assessment tools that allow them to see what it is their students do and don’t know and measure student
achievement all in one convenient space. For example, LaunchPad comes with LearningCurve, an adaptive
learning tool that garners more than a 90 percent student satisfaction rate and helps students master book
content. When LearningCurve is assigned, the grade book results show instructors where the entire class or
individual students may be struggling, and this information in turn allows instructors to adjust lectures and
course activities accordingly — a benefit not only for traditional classes but invaluable for hybrid, online, and
newer “flipped” classes as well. In addition, not only can instructors assign all of the questions that appear in
the print book and view the responses in the grade book, they have the option to assign automatically graded
multiple-choice questions for all of the book features.
With LaunchPad for The American Promise we make the tough job of teaching simpler by providing
everything instructors need in one convenient space so they can set and achieve the learning outcomes they
desire. To learn more about the benefits of LearningCurve and LaunchPad, see the “Versions and
Supplements” section on page xiv.
15
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge all of the helpful suggestions from those who have read and taught from previous
editions of The American Promise, and we hope that our many classroom collaborators will be pleased to see
their influence in the seventh edition. In particular, we wish to thank the talented scholars and teachers who
gave generously of their time and knowledge to review the previous edition in preparation for its revision:
LeNie Adolphson, Sauk Valley Community College; Daniel Anderson, Cincinnati State Technical and
Community College; Ian Baldwin, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Veronica Bale, MiraCosta College; Karen
Cook Bell, Bowie State University; Dustin Black, El Camino College; Nawana Britenriker, Pikes Peak
Community College; Elizabeth Broen, South Florida State College; Robert Browning, University of Texas, San
Antonio; Robert Bush, Front Range Community College; Brian David Collins, El Centro College; Alexandra
Cornelius, Florida International University; Sondra Cosgrove, College of Southern Nevada; Rodney E. Dillon,
Jr., Palm Beach State College; Wayne Drews, Georgia Institute of Technology; Edward J. Dudlo, Brookhaven
College; E. J. Fabyan, Vincennes University; Randy Finley, Georgia Perimeter College; Cecilia Gowdy-Wygant,
Front Range Community College; Elizabeth Green, University of South Alabama; William Grose, Wytheville
Community College; Steven Heise, Holyoke Community College; Jeff Janowick, Lansing Community College;
Juneann Klees, Bay College; Leonard V. Larsen, Des Moines Area Community College; Charles Levine, Mesa
Community College; Kerima Lewis, Bridgewater State University; Mary Linehan, University of Texas at Tyler;
Annie Liss, South Texas College; Patricia Loughlin, University of Central Oklahoma; Veronica McComb,
Lenoir-Rhyne University; Walter Miszczenko, College of Western Idaho; Rick Murray, Los Angeles Valley College;
Richard Owens, West Liberty University; Stacey Pendleton, University of Colorado Denver; Michael J. Pfeifer,
John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Robert Lynn Rainard, Tidewater Community College; Chris Rasmussen,
Fairleigh Dickinson University; George D. Salaita, Eastern Tennessee University; Robert Sawvel, University of
Northern Colorado; Benjamin G. Scharff, West Virginia University; Mark Simon, Queens College of the City of
New York; Christopher Sleeper, MiraCosta College; Janet P. Smith, East Tennessee State University; John
Howard Smith, Texas A&M University–Commerce; William Z. Tannenbaum, Missouri Southern State
University; Ramon C. Veloso, Palomar College; Kenneth A. Watras, Paradise Valley Community College; and
Eric Weinberg, Viterbo University.
A project as complex as this requires the talents of many individuals. First, we would like to acknowledge
our families for their support, forbearance, and toleration of our textbook responsibilities. Naomi Kornhauser
contributed her vast knowledge, tireless energy, and diligent research to make possible the useful and
attractive illustration program. We would also like to thank the many people at Bedford/St. Martin’s and
Macmillan Learning who have been crucial to this project. Thanks are due to Robin Soule, developmental
editor; Edwin Hill, vice president; Michael Rosenberg, publisher; William J. Lombardo, senior executive
editor for history; and Jane Knetzger, director of development for history for their support and guidance.
Thanks are also due to Heidi Hood, senior editor; Jennifer Jovin, media editor; Tess Fletcher, associate editor;
Mary Posman, assistant editor; and Lexi DeConti, editorial assistant. For their imaginative and tireless efforts
to promote the book, we want to thank executive marketing manager Melissa Famiglietti, and marketing
assistant Morgan Ratner. With great skill and professionalism, senior production editor Rosemary Jaffe pulled
16
together the many pieces related to copyediting, design, and composition. Production manager Joe Ford
oversaw the manufacturing of the book. Designer Jerilyn Bockorick, copy editor Lisa Wehrle, and
proofreaders Roberta Sobotka and Linda McLatchie attended to the myriad details that help make the book
shine. Mary White provided an outstanding index. The covers for the book’s many versions were researched
and designed by William Boardman. Media producer Michelle Camisa oversaw the timely and complex
production of digital components of The American Promise.
17
Versions and Supplements
Adopters of The American Promise, Value Edition and their students have access to abundant print and digital
resources and tools, the acclaimed Bedford Series in History and Culture volumes, and much more. The
LaunchPad course space for The American Promise provides access to the narrative as well as a wealth of
primary sources and other features, along with assignment and assessment opportunities. See below for more
information, visit the book’s catalog site at macmillanlearning.com, or contact your local Bedford/St. Martin’s
sales representative.
18
Get the Right Version for Your Class
The American Promise franchise offers a variety of versions to best suit your course needs. The comprehensive
The American Promise features a full-color art program and a robust set of features. Understanding the American
Promise, with a more modest feature program, enhances the full narrative with a question-driven approach and
innovative active learning pedagogy. The American Promise: A Concise History also provides the full narrative,
with a streamlined art and feature program, at a lower price. The American Promise, Value Edition offers a
trade-sized two-color option with the full narrative and selected art and maps at a steeper discount. The Value
Edition is also offered at the lowest price point in loose-leaf, and all versions are available as low-priced PDF
e-Books. For the best value of all, package a new print book with LaunchPad at no additional charge to get
the best each format offers — a print version for easy portability with a LaunchPad interactive e-Book and
course space with LearningCurve and loads of additional assignment and assessment options.
Combined Volume (Chapters 1–31): available in the comprehensive, Understanding, Concise, Value,
loose-leaf, and e-Book formats and in LaunchPad
Volume 1, To 1877 (Chapters 1–16): available in the comprehensive, Understanding, Concise, Value,
loose-leaf, and e-Book formats and in LaunchPad
Volume 2, From 1865 (Chapters 16–31): available in the comprehensive, Understanding, Concise, Value,
loose-leaf, and e-Book formats and in LaunchPad
As noted below, any of these volumes can be packaged with additional titles for a discount. To get ISBNs for
discount packages, visit macmillanlearning.com or contact your Bedford/St. Martin’s representative.
19
Assign LaunchPad — an Assessment-Ready Interactive eBook and Course Space
Available for discount purchase on its own or for packaging with new books at no additional charge,
LaunchPad is a breakthrough solution for history courses. Intuitive and easy-to-use for students and
instructors alike, LaunchPad is ready to use as is, and can be edited, customized with your own material, and
assigned quickly. LaunchPad for The American Promise includes Bedford/St. Martin’s high-quality content all
in one place, including the full interactive e-Book with all of the full-color maps and images and features of
the comprehensive edition and the companion reader Reading the American Past, plus LearningCurve
formative quizzing, guided reading activities designed to help students read actively for key concepts,
autograded quizzes for each primary source, and chapter summative quizzes.
Through a wealth of formative and summative assessments, including the adaptive learning program of
LearningCurve (see the full description ahead), students gain confidence and get into their reading before
class. These features, plus additional primary-source documents, video sources and tools for making video
assignments, map activities, flashcards, and customizable test banks, make LaunchPad an invaluable asset for
any instructor. For more information, visit launchpadworks.com or to arrange a demo, contact us at
history@macmillan.com.
20
Assign LearningCurve So Your Students Come to Class
Prepared
Students using LaunchPad receive access to LearningCurve for The American Promise. Assigning
LearningCurve in place of reading quizzes is easy for instructors, and the reporting features help instructors
track overall class trends and spot topics that are giving students trouble so they can adjust their lectures and
class activities. This online learning tool is popular with students because it was designed to help them
comprehend content at their own pace in a nonthreatening, game-like environment. The feedback for wrong
answers provides instructional coaching and sends students back to the book for review. Students answer as
many questions as necessary to reach a target score, with repeated chances to revisit material they haven’t
mastered. When LearningCurve is assigned, students come to class better prepared.
21
Take Advantage of Instructor Resources
Bedford/St. Martin’s has developed a rich array of teaching resources for this book and for this course. They
range from lecture and presentation materials and assessment tools to course management options. Most can
be found in LaunchPad or can be downloaded or ordered from the Instructor Resources tab of the book’s
catalog site at macmillanlearning.com.
Bedford Coursepack for Blackboard, Canvas, Brightspace by D2L, or Moodle. We can help you integrate
our rich content into your course management system. Registered instructors can download coursepacks that
include our popular free resources and book-specific content for The American Promise.
Instructor’s Resource Manual. The instructor’s manual offers both experienced and first-time instructors tools
for presenting textbook materials in engaging ways. It includes chapter content learning objectives, annotated
chapter outlines, and strategies for teaching with the textbook, plus suggestions on how to get the most out of
LearningCurve, and a survival guide for first-time teaching assistants.
Guide to Changing Editions. Designed to facilitate an instructor’s transition from the previous edition of The
American Promise, Value Edition to this new edition, this guide presents an overview of major changes as well
as of changes in each chapter.
Online Test Bank. The test bank includes a mix of fresh, carefully crafted multiple-choice, matching, shortanswer, and essay questions for each chapter. Many of the multiple-choice questions feature a map, an image,
or a primary-source excerpt as the prompt. All questions appear in easy-to-use test bank software that allows
instructors to add, edit, resequence, filter by question type or learning objective, and print questions and
answers. Instructors can also export questions into a variety of course management systems.
The Bedford Lecture Kit: Lecture Outlines, Maps, and Images. Look good and save time with The Bedford
Lecture Kit. These presentation materials include fully customizable multimedia presentations built around
chapter outlines that are embedded with maps, figures, and images from the textbook and are supplemented
by more detailed instructor notes on key points and concepts.
America in Motion: Video Clips for U.S. History. Set history in motion with America in Motion, an instructor
DVD containing dozens of short digital movie files of events in twentieth-century American history. From
the wreckage of the battleship Maine to FDR’s fireside chats to Ronald Reagan speaking before the
Brandenburg Gate, America in Motion engages students with dynamic scenes from key events and challenges
them to think critically. All files are classroom-ready, edited for brevity, and easily integrated with
presentation slides or other software for electronic lectures or assignments. An accompanying guide provides
each clip’s historical context, ideas for use, and suggested questions.
22
Print, Digital, and Custom Options for More Choice and Value
For information on free packages and discounts up to 50 percent, visit macmillanlearning.com or contact your
local Bedford/St. Martin’s sales representative.
Reading the American Past, Fifth Edition. Edited by Michael P. Johnson, one of the authors of The American
Promise, and designed to complement the textbook, Reading the American Past provides a broad selection of
more than 150 primary-source documents, as well as editorial apparatus to help students understand the
sources. Available free when packaged with the print text and included in the LaunchPad e-Book. Also
available on its own as a downloadable PDF e-Book.
NEW Bedford Custom Tutorials for History. Designed to customize textbooks with resources relevant to
individual courses, this collection of brief units, each sixteen pages long and loaded with examples, guides
students through basic skills such as using historical evidence effectively, working with primary sources, taking
effective notes, avoiding plagiarism and citing sources, and more. Up to two tutorials can be added to a
Bedford/St. Martin’s history survey title at no additional charge, freeing you to spend your class time focusing
on content and interpretation. For more information, visit macmillanlearning.com/historytutorials.
NEW Bedford Digital Collections for U.S. History. This source collection provides a flexible and
affordable online repository of discovery-oriented primary-source projects ready to assign. Each curated
project — written by a historian about a favorite topic — poses a historical question and guides students step
by step through analysis of primary sources. Examples include “What Caused the Civil War?”; “The
California Gold Rush: A Trans-Pacific Phenomenon”; and “War Stories: Black Soldiers and the Long Civil
Rights Movement.” For more information, visit macmillanlearning.com/bdc/ushistory/catalog. Available free
when packaged.
NEW Bedford Digital Collections Custom Print Modules. Choose one or two document projects from the
collection (see above) and add them in print to a Bedford/St. Martin’s title, or select several to be bound
together in a custom reader created specifically for your course. Either way, the modules are affordably priced.
For more information visit macmillanlearning.com/custombdc/ushistory or contact your Bedford/St.
Martin’s representative.
The Bedford Series in History and Culture. More than 100 titles in this highly praised series combine firstrate scholarship, historical narrative, and important primary documents for undergraduate courses. Each book
is brief, inexpensive, and focused on a specific topic or period. Revisions of several best-selling titles, such as
The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents by Theda Perdue; Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass, edited by David Blight; and The Triangle Fire: A Brief History with Documents by Jo Ann
Argersinger, are now available. For a complete list of titles, visit macmillanlearning.com. Package discounts
are available.
Rand McNally Atlas of American History. This collection of more than eighty full-color maps illustrates key
events and eras from early exploration, settlement, expansion, and immigration to U.S. involvement in wars
abroad and on U.S. soil. Introductory pages for each section include a brief overview, timelines, graphs, and
photos to quickly establish a historical context. Free when packaged.
23
The Bedford Glossary for U.S. History. This handy supplement for the survey course gives students historically
contextualized definitions for hundreds of terms — from abolitionism to zoot suit — that they will encounter
in lectures, reading, and exams. Free when packaged.
Trade Books. Titles published by sister companies Hill and Wang; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Henry Holt
and Company; St. Martin’s Press; Picador; and Palgrave Macmillan are available at a 50 percent discount
when packaged with Bedford/St. Martin’s textbooks. For more information, visit
macmillanlearning.com/tradeup.
A Pocket Guide to Writing in History. This portable and affordable reference tool by Mary Lynn Rampolla
provides reading, writing, and research advice useful to students in all history courses. Concise yet
comprehensive advice on approaching typical history assignments, developing critical reading skills, writing
effective history papers, conducting research, using and documenting sources, and avoiding plagiarism —
enhanced with practical tips and examples throughout — have made this slim reference a best seller. Package
discounts are available.
A Student’s Guide to History. This complete guide to success in any history course provides the practical help
students need to be successful. In addition to introducing students to the nature of the discipline, author Jules
Benjamin teaches a wide range of skills from preparing for exams to approaching common writing
assignments, and explains the research and documentation process with plentiful examples. Package discounts
are available.
Going to the Source: The Bedford Reader in American History. Developed by Victoria Bissell Brown and
Timothy J. Shannon, this reader combines a rich diversity of primary and secondary sources with in-depth
instructions for how to use each type of source. Mirroring the chronology of the U.S. history survey, each of
the main chapters familiarizes students with a single type of source — from personal letters to political
cartoons — while focusing on an intriguing historical episode such as the Cherokee Removal or the 1894
Pullman Strike. The reader’s wide variety of chapter topics and sources provoke students’ interest as it teaches
them the skills they need to successfully interrogate historical sources. Package discounts are available.
America Firsthand. With its distinctive focus on first-person accounts from ordinary people, this primary
documents reader by Anthony Marcus, John M. Giggie, and David Burner offers a remarkable range of
perspectives on America’s history from those who lived it. Popular Points of View sections expose students to
different perspectives on a specific event or topic. Package discounts are available.
24
Brief Contents
Preface
Versions and Supplements
Contents
Maps and Figures
1 Ancient America, Before 1492
2 Europeans Encounter the New World, 1492–1600
3 The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 1601–1700
4 The Northern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 1601–1700
5 Colonial America in the Eighteenth Century, 1701–1770
6 The British Empire and the Colonial Crisis, 1754–1775
7 The War for America, 1775–1783
8 Building a Republic, 1775–1789
9 The New Nation Takes Form, 1789–1800
10 Republicans in Power, 1800–1824
11 The Expanding Republic, 1815–1840
12 The New West and the Free North, 1840–1860
13 The Slave South, 1820–1860
14 The House Divided, 1846–1861
15 The Crucible of War, 1861–1865
16 Reconstruction, 1863–1877
Appendix
Glossary
Index
U.S. Political/Geographic and World Maps
About the Authors
25
26
CONTENTS
PREFACE
VERSIONS AND SUPPLEMENTS
BRIEF CONTENTS
MAPS AND FIGURES
CHAPTER 1
Ancient America Before 1492
OPENING VIGNETTE: An archaeological dig helps uncover ancient North American traditions
Archaeology and History
The First Americans
African and Asian Origins • Paleo-Indian Hunters
Archaic Hunters and Gatherers
Great Plains Bison Hunters • Great Basin Cultures • Pacific Coast Cultures • Eastern Woodland Cultures
Agricultural Settlements and Chiefdoms
Southwestern Cultures • Woodland Burial Mounds and Chiefdoms
Native Americans in the 1490s
Eastern and Great Plains Peoples • Southwestern and Western Peoples • Cultural Similarities
The Mexica: A Mesoamerican Culture
Conclusion: The World of Ancient Americans
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 2
Europeans Encounter the New World 1492–1600
OPENING VIGNETTE: Queen Isabella of Spain supports Christopher Columbus’s risky plan to sail west across the Atlantic
Europe in the Age of Exploration
Mediterranean Trade and European Expansion • A Century of Portuguese Exploration
A Surprising New World in the Western Atlantic
The Explorations of Columbus • The Geographic Revolution and the Columbian Exchange
Spanish Exploration and Conquest
The Conquest of Mexico • The Search for Other Mexicos • Spanish Outposts in Florida and New Mexico • New Spain in the Sixteenth
Century • The Toll of Spanish Conquest and Colonization
The New World and Sixteenth-Century Europe
27
The Protestant Reformation and the Spanish Response • Europe and the Spanish Example
Conclusion: The Promise of the New World for Europeans
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 3
The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century 1601–1700
OPENING VIGNETTE: Pocahontas “rescues” John Smith
An English Colony on Chesapeake Bay
The Fragile Jamestown Settlement • Cooperation and Conflict between Natives and Newcomers • From Private Company to Royal
Government
A Tobacco Society
Tobacco Agriculture • A Servant Labor System • The Rigors of Servitude • Cultivating Land and Faith
Hierarchy and Inequality in the Chesapeake
Social and Economic Polarization • Government Policies and Political Conflict • Bacon’s Rebellion
Toward a Slave Labor System
Religion and Revolt in the Spanish Borderland • The West Indies: Sugar and Slavery • Carolina: A West Indian Frontier • Slave Labor
Emerges in the Chesapeake
Conclusion: The Growth of English Colonies Based on Export Crops and Slave Labor
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 4
The Northern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century 1601–1700
OPENING VIGNETTE: Roger Williams is banished from Puritan Massachusetts
Puritans and the Settlement of New England
Puritan Origins: The English Reformation • The Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony • The Founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Evolution of New England Society
Church, Covenant, and Conformity • Government by Puritans for Puritanism • The Splintering of Puritanism • Religious Controversies
and Economic Changes
The Founding of the Middle Colonies
From New Netherland to New York • New Jersey and Pennsylvania • Toleration and Diversity in Pennsylvania
The Colonies and the English Empire
Royal Regulation of Colonial Trade • King Philip’s War and the Consolidation of Royal Authority
Conclusion: An English Model of Colonization in North America
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 5
28
Colonial America in the Eighteenth Century 1701–1770
OPENING VIGNETTE: The Robin Johns experience horrific turns of fortune in the Atlantic slave trade
A Growing Population and Expanding Economy in British North America
New England: From Puritan Settlers to Yankee Traders
Natural Increase and Land Distribution • Farms, Fish, and Atlantic Trade
The Middle Colonies: Immigrants, Wheat, and Work
German and Scots-Irish Immigrants • “God Gives All Things to Industry”: Urban and Rural Labor
The Southern Colonies: Land of Slavery
The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Growth of Slavery • Slave Labor and African American Culture • Tobacco, Rice, and Prosperity
Unifying Experiences
Commerce and Consumption • Religion, Enlightenment, and Revival • Trade and Conflict in the North American Borderlands •
Colonial Politics in the British Empire
Conclusion: The Dual Identity of British North American Colonists
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 6
The British Empire and the Colonial Crisis 1754–1775
OPENING VIGNETTE: Loyalist governor Thomas Hutchinson stands his ground in radical Massachusetts
The Seven Years’ War, 1754–1763
French-British Rivalry in the Ohio Country • The Albany Congress • The War and Its Consequences • Pontiac’s Rebellion and the
Proclamation of 1763
The Sugar and Stamp Acts, 1763–1765
Grenville’s Sugar Act • The Stamp Act • Resistance Strategies and Crowd Politics • Liberty and Property
The Townshend Acts and Economic Retaliation, 1767–1770
The Townshend Duties • Nonconsumption and the Daughters of Liberty • Military Occupation and “Massacre” in Boston
The Destruction of the Tea and the Coercive Acts, 1770–1774
The Calm before the Storm • Tea in Boston Harbor • The Coercive Acts • Beyond Boston: Rural New England • The First Continental
Congress
Domestic Insurrections, 1774–1775
Lexington and Concord • Rebelling against Slavery
Conclusion: The Long Road to Revolution
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 7
The War for America 1775–1783
OPENING VIGNETTE: Deborah Sampson masquerades as a man to join the Continental army
29
The Second Continental Congress
Assuming Political and Military Authority • Pursuing Both War and Peace • Thomas Paine, Abigail Adams, and the Case for
Independence • The Declaration of Independence
The First Year of War, 1775–1776
The American Military Forces • The British Strategy • Quebec, New York, and New Jersey
The Home Front
Patriotism at the Local Level • The Loyalists • Who Is a Traitor? • Prisoners of War • Financial Instability and Corruption
The Campaigns of 1777–1779: The North and West
Burgoyne’s Army and the Battle of Saratoga • The War in the West: Indian Country • The French Alliance
The Southern Strategy and the End of the War
Georgia and South Carolina • Treason and Guerrilla Warfare • Surrender at Yorktown • The Losers and the Winners
Conclusion: Why the British Lost
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 8
Building a Republic 1775–1789
OPENING VIGNETTE: James Madison comes of age in the midst of revolution
The Articles of Confederation
Confederation and Taxation • The Problem of Western Lands • Running the New Government
The Sovereign States
The State Constitutions • Who Are “the People”? • Equality and Slavery
The Confederation’s Problems
The War Debt and the Newburgh Conspiracy • The Treaty of Fort Stanwix • Land Ordinances and the Northwest Territory • The
Requisition of 1785 and Shays’s Rebellion, 1786–1787
The United States Constitution
From Annapolis to Philadelphia • The Virginia and New Jersey Plans • Democracy versus Republicanism
Ratification of the Constitution
The Federalists • The Antifederalists • The Big Holdouts: Virginia and New York
Conclusion: The “Republican Remedy”
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 9
The New Nation Takes Form 1789–1800
OPENING VIGNETTE: Brilliant and brash, Alexander Hamilton becomes a polarizing figure in the 1790s
The Search for Stability
Washington Inaugurates the Government • The Bill of Rights • The Republican Wife and Mother
30
Hamilton’s Economic Policies
Agriculture, Transportation, and Banking • The Public Debt and Taxes • The First Bank of the United States and the Report on
Manufactures • The Whiskey Rebellion
Conflict on America’s Borders and Beyond
Creeks in the Southwest • Ohio Indians in the Northwest • France and Britain • The Haitian Revolution
Federalists and Republicans
The Election of 1796 • The XYZ Affair • The Alien and Sedition Acts
Conclusion: Parties Nonetheless
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 10
Republicans in Power 1800–1824
OPENING VIGNETTE: The Shawnee chief Tecumseh attempts to forge a pan-Indian confederacy
Jefferson’s Presidency
Turbulent Times: Election and Rebellion • The Jeffersonian Vision of Republican Simplicity • Dangers Overseas: The Barbary Wars
Opportunities and Challenges in the West
The Louisiana Purchase • The Lewis and Clark Expedition • Osage and Comanche Indians
Jefferson, the Madisons, and the War of 1812
Impressment and Embargo • Dolley Madison and Social Politics • Tecumseh and Tippecanoe • Washington City Burns: The British
Offensive
Women’s Status in the Early Republic
Women and the Law • Women and Church Governance • Female Education
Monroe and Adams
From Property to Democracy • The Missouri Compromise • The Monroe Doctrine • The Election of 1824 • The Adams Administration
Conclusion: Republican Simplicity Becomes Complex
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 11
The Expanding Republic 1815–1840
OPENING VIGNETTE: The Grimké sisters speak out against slavery
The Market Revolution
Improvements in Transportation • Factories, Workingwomen, and Wage Labor • Bankers and Lawyers • Booms and Busts
The Spread of Democracy
Popular Politics and Partisan Identity • The Election of 1828 and the Character Issue • Jackson’s Democratic Agenda
Jackson Defines the Democratic Party
Indian Policy and the Trail of Tears • The Tariff of Abominations and Nullification • The Bank War and Economic Boom
31
Cultural Shifts, Religion, and Reform
The Family and Separate Spheres • The Education and Training of Youths • The Second Great Awakening • The Temperance
Movement and the Campaign for Moral Reform • Organizing against Slavery
Van Buren’s One-Term Presidency
The Politics of Slavery • Elections and Panics
Conclusion: The Age of Jackson or the Era of Reform?
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 12
The New West and the Free North 1840–1860
OPENING VIGNETTE: With the support of his wife, Abraham Lincoln struggles to survive in antebellum America
Economic and Industrial Evolution
Agriculture and Land Policy • Manufacturing and Mechanization • Railroads: Breaking the Bonds of Nature
Free Labor: Promise and Reality
The Free-Labor Ideal • Economic Inequality • Immigrants and the Free-Labor Ladder
The Westward Movement
Manifest Destiny • Oregon and the Overland Trail • The Mormon Exodus • The Mexican Borderlands
Expansion and the Mexican-American War
The Politics of Expansion • The Mexican-American War, 1846–1848 • Victory in Mexico • Golden California
Reforming Self and Society
The Pursuit of Perfection: Transcendentalists and Utopians • Woman’s Rights Activists • Abolitionists and the American Ideal
Conclusion: Free Labor, Free Men
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 13
The Slave South 1820–1860
OPENING VIGNETTE: Slave Nat Turner leads a revolt to end slavery
The Growing Distinctiveness of the South
Cotton Kingdom, Slave Empire • The South in Black and White • The Plantation Economy
Masters and Mistresses in the Big House
Paternalism and Male Honor • The Southern Lady and Feminine Virtues
Slaves in the Quarter
Work • Family and Religion • Resistance and Rebellion
The Plain Folk
Plantation-Belt Yeomen • Upcountry Yeomen • Poor Whites • The Culture of the Plain Folk
Black and Free: On the Middle Ground
32
Precarious Freedom • Achievement despite Restrictions
The Politics of Slavery
The Democratization of the Political Arena • Planter Power
Conclusion: A Slave Society
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 14
The House Divided 1846–1861
OPENING VIGNETTE: Abolitionist John Brown takes his war against slavery to Harpers Ferry, Virginia
The Bitter Fruits of War
The Wilmot Proviso and the Expansion of Slavery • The Election of 1848 • Debate and Compromise
The Sectional Balance Undone
The Fugitive Slave Act • Uncle Tom’s Cabin • The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Realignment of the Party System
The Old Parties: Whigs and Democrats • The New Parties: Know-Nothings and Republicans • The Election of 1856
Freedom under Siege
“Bleeding Kansas” • The Dred Scott Decision • Prairie Republican: Abraham Lincoln • The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
The Union Collapses
The Aftermath of John Brown’s Raid • Republican Victory in 1860 • Secession Winter
Conclusion: Slavery, Free Labor, and the Failure of Political Compromise
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 15
The Crucible of War 1861–1865
OPENING VIGNETTE: Runaway slave William Gould enlists in the U.S. Navy
“And the War Came”
Attack on Fort Sumter • The Upper South Chooses Sides
The Combatants
How They Expected to Win • Lincoln and Davis Mobilize
Battling It Out, 1861–1862
Stalemate in the Eastern Theater • Union Victories in the Western Theater • The Atlantic Theater • International Diplomacy
Union and Freedom
From Slaves to Contraband • From Contraband to Free People • The War of Black Liberation
The South at War
Revolution from Above • Hardship Below • The Disintegration of Slavery
33
The North at War
The Government and the Economy • Women and Work at Home and at War • Politics and Dissent
Grinding Out Victory, 1863–1865
Vicksburg and Gettysburg • Grant Takes Command • The Election of 1864 • The Confederacy Collapses
Conclusion: The Second American Revolution
CHAPTER REVIEW
CHAPTER 16
Reconstruction 1863–1877
OPENING VIGNETTE: James T. Rapier emerges in the early 1870s as Alabama’s most prominent black leader
Wartime Reconstruction
“To Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds” • Land and Labor • The African American Quest for Autonomy
Presidential Reconstruction
Johnson’s Program of Reconciliation • White Southern Resistance and Black Codes • Expansion of Federal Authority and Black Rights
Congressional Reconstruction
The Fourteenth Amendment and Escalating Violence • Radical Reconstruction and Military Rule • Impeaching a President • The
Fifteenth Amendment and Women’s Demands
The Struggle in the South
Freedmen, Yankees, and Yeomen • Republican Rule • White Landlords, Black Sharecroppers
Reconstruction Collapses
Grant’s Troubled Presidency • Northern Resolve Withers • White Supremacy Triumphs • An Election and a Compromise
Conclusion: “A Revolution but Half Accomplished”
CHAPTER REVIEW
APPENDIX
The Declaration of Independence
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union
The Constitution of the United States
Amendments to the Constitution with Annotations (including the six unratified amendments)
GLOSSARY
INDEX
U.S. POLITICAL/GEOGRAPHIC AND WORLD MAPS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
34
Maps and Figures
CHAPTER 1
MAP 1.1 Continental Drift
MAP 1.2 Native North American Cultures
FIGURE 1.1 Native American Population in North America about 1492 (Estimated)
MAP 1.3 Native North Americans about 1500
CHAPTER 2
MAP 2.1 European Trade Routes and Portuguese Exploration in the Fifteenth Century
MAP 2.2 European Exploration in Sixteenth-Century America
MAP 2.3 Sixteenth-Century European Colonies in the New World
FIGURE 2.1 New World Gold and Silver Imported into Spain during the Sixteenth Century, in Pesos
CHAPTER 3
MAP 3.1 Chesapeake Colonies in the Seventeenth Century
MAP 3.2 The West Indies and Carolina in the Seventeenth Century
FIGURE 3.1 Global Comparison: Migration to the New World from Europe and Africa, 1492–1700
CHAPTER 4
MAP 4.1 New England Colonies in the Seventeenth Century
MAP 4.2 Middle Colonies in the Seventeenth Century
MAP 4.3 American Colonies at the End of the Seventeenth Century
CHAPTER 5
MAP 5.1 Europeans and Africans in the Eighteenth Century
MAP 5.2 Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth Century
MAP 5.3 The Atlantic Slave Trade
MAP 5.4 Zones of Empire in Eastern North America
CHAPTER 6
MAP 6.1 European Areas of Influence and the Seven Years’ War, 1754–1763
MAP 6.2 Europe Redraws the Map of North America, 1763
MAP 6.3 Lexington and Concord, April 1775
CHAPTER 7
MAP 7.1 The War in the North, 1775–1778
MAP 7.2 Loyalist Strength and Rebel Support
MAP 7.3 The Indian War in the West, 1777–1782
MAP 7.4 The War in the South, 1780–1781
CHAPTER 8
35
MAP 8.1 Cession of Western Lands, 1782–1802
MAP 8.2 The Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1785
MAP 8.3 Ratification of the Constitution, 1788–1790
CHAPTER 9
MAP 9.1 Travel Times from New York City in 1800
MAP 9.2 Western Expansion and Indian Land Cessions to 1810
CHAPTER 10
MAP 10.1 The Election of 1800
MAP 10.2 Jefferson’s Expeditions in the West, 1804–1806
MAP 10.3 The War of 1812
MAP 10.4 The Missouri Compromise, 1820
MAP 10.5 The Election of 1824
CHAPTER 11
MAP 11.1 Routes of Transportation in 1840
MAP 11.2 The Election of 1828
MAP 11.3 Indian Removal and the Trail of Tears
CHAPTER 12
MAP 12.1 Railroads in 1860
MAP 12.2 Major Trails West
MAP 12.3 Texas and Mexico in the 1830s
MAP 12.4 The Mexican-American War, 1846–1848
MAP 12.5 Territorial Expansion by 1860
CHAPTER 13
MAP 13.1 Cotton Kingdom, Slave Empire: 1820 and 1860
MAP 13.2 The Agricultural Economy of the South, 1860
CHAPTER 14
MAP 14.1 The Election of 1848
MAP 14.2 The Compromise of 1850
MAP 14.3 The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
MAP 14.4 Political Realignment, 1848–1860
MAP 14.5 The Election of 1860
CHAPTER 15
MAP 15.1 Secession, 1860–1861
FIGURE 15.1 Resources of the Union and the Confederacy
MAP 15.2 The Civil War, 1861–1862
MAP 15.3 The Civil War, 1863–1865
MAP 15.4 The Election of 1864
36
CHAPTER 16
MAP 16.1 A Southern Plantation in 1860 and 1881
MAP 16.2 The Election of 1868
MAP 16.3 The Reconstruction of the South
MAP 16.4 The Election of 1876
37
1
Ancient America
BEFORE 1492
CONTENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading and studying this chapter, you should be able to:
◆
Distinguish archaeology and history as disciplines, and understand the possibilities and limitations of both.
◆
Identify the earth’s first human inhabitants and what developments allowed them to migrate to the Western Hemisphere.
◆
Differentiate between Archaic hunter-gatherers and the Paleo-Indians, and identify the main characteristics of their cultures.
◆
Explain how the Archaic peoples transitioned from being nomadic hunter-gatherers to relying on agriculture and permanent
settlements.
◆
Identify the major Native American cultures that flourished in North America on the eve of Columbus’s arrival and the similarities
among them.
◆
Describe the structure, influence, and expanse of the Mexica (Aztec) empire on the eve of Columbus’s arrival.
NOBODY TODAY KNOWS HIS NAME. BUT ALMOST A THOUSAND YEARS
ago, more than four hundred years before Europeans arrived in the Western Hemisphere, many ancient
Americans celebrated this man — let’s call him Sun Falcon. They buried Sun Falcon during elaborate rituals
at Cahokia, the largest residential and ceremonial site in ancient North America, the giant landmass north of
present-day Mexico. Located near the eastern shore of the Mississippi River in what is now southwestern
Illinois, Cahokia stood at the spiritual and political center of the world of more than 20,000 ancient
Americans who lived there and nearby. The way Cahokians buried Sun Falcon suggests that he was a very
important person who represented spiritual and political authority.
What we know about Sun Falcon and the Cahokians who buried him has been discovered by
archaeologists — scientists who study artifacts, material objects left behind by ancient peoples. Cahokia
attracted the attention of archaeologists because of the hundreds of earthen mounds that ancient Americans
built in the region. The largest surviving mound, Monks Mound, is a huge pyramid that covers sixteen acres,
making it the biggest single structure ever built by ancient North Americans.
Atop Monks Mound, political and religious leaders performed ceremonies watched by thousands of
Cahokians who stood on a fifty-acre plaza at the base of the mound. Their ceremonies were probably
designed to demonstrate to onlookers the leaders’ access to supernatural forces. At the far edge of the plaza,
Cahokians buried Sun Falcon in an oblong mound about 6 feet high and 250 feet long.
Before Cahokians lowered Sun Falcon into his grave sometime around AD 1050, they first placed the
body of another man facedown in the dirt. On top of that man, Cahokians draped a large cape made of
20,000 shell beads crafted into the likeness of a bird. They then put Sun Falcon faceup on the beaded cape
with his head pointing southeast, aligned with the passage of the sun across the sky during the summer
38
solstice. Experts speculate that Cahokians who buried Sun Falcon sought to pay homage not only to him but
also to the awe-inspiring forces of darkness and light, of earth and sun, that governed their lives.
To accompany Sun Falcon, Cahokians also buried hundreds of exquisitely crafted artifacts and the bodies
of seven other adults who probably were relatives or servants of Sun Falcon. Not far away, archaeologists
discovered several astonishing mass graves. One contained 53 women, all but one between the ages of fifteen
and twenty-five, who had been sacrificed by poison, strangulation, or having their throats slit. Other graves
contained 43 more sacrificed women, and 43 other men and women who had been executed at the burial site.
In all, more than 270 people were buried in the mound with Sun Falcon.
Nobody knows exactly who Sun Falcon was or why Cahokians buried him as they did. To date,
archaeologists have found no similar burial site in ancient North America. Most likely, Sun Falcon’s burial
and the human sacrifices that accompanied it were major public rituals that communicated to the many
onlookers the fearsome power he wielded, the respect he commanded, and the authority his survivors
intended to honor and maintain. Much remains unknown and unknowable about him and his fellow
Cahokians, just as it does with other ancient Americans. The history of ancient Americans is therefore
necessarily incomplete and controversial. Still, archaeologists have learned enough to understand where
ancient Americans came from and many basic features of the complex cultures they created and passed along
to their descendants, who dominated the history of America until 1492.
39
Archaeology and History
Archaeologists and historians share the desire to learn about people who lived in the past, but they usually
employ different methods to obtain information. Both archaeologists and historians study artifacts as clues to
the activities and ideas of the humans who created them. They concentrate, however, on different kinds of
artifacts. Archaeologists tend to focus on physical objects such as bones, spear points, pots, baskets, jewelry,
clothing, and buildings. Historians direct their attention mostly to writings, such as letters, diaries, laws,
speeches, newspapers, and court cases. The concentration of historians on writings and of archaeologists on
other physical objects denotes a rough cultural and chronological boundary between the human beings studied
by the two groups of scholars, a boundary marked by the use of writing.
Writing is defined as a system of symbols that record spoken language. Writing originated among ancient
peoples in China, Egypt, and Central America about eight thousand years ago, within the most recent 2
percent of the four hundred millennia (a millennium is a thousand years) that modern human beings have
existed. While the ancient Americans who buried Sun Falcon at Cahokia about AD 1050 and all those who
inhabited North America in 1492 possessed many forms of symbolic representation, they did not use writing.
Ancient Americans invented hundreds of spoken languages; they learned to survive in almost every natural
environment; they chose and honored leaders; they traded, warred, and worshipped; and above all, they
learned from and taught one another. However, much of what we would like to know about their experiences
and those of other ancient Americans remains unknown because they did not write about it.
Cahokia Burial
The excavation of a burial site at Cahokia revealed the remains of a man — presumably a revered leader
— whom Cahokians buried atop a large bird-shaped cape covered with shell beads. Nearby in the same
mound, excavators found mass graves of scores of other Cahokians, many of them executed just before
burial, evidently during ceremonies to honor their leader.
Photo courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Archaeological Research Laboratory (ARL image 1967.2.31).
Archaeologists specialize in learning about people who did not document their history in writing. They
40
study the millions of artifacts these people created. They also scrutinize geological strata, pollen, and other
environmental features to reconstruct as much as possible about the world inhabited by ancient peoples. This
chapter relies on studies by archaeologists to sketch a brief overview of ancient America, the long first phase of
the history of the United States.
Ancient Americans and their descendants resided in North America for thousands of years before
Europeans arrived. While they created societies and cultures of remarkable diversity and complexity, their
history cannot be reconstructed with the detail and certainty made possible by writing.
REVIEW Why must historians rely on the work of archaeologists to write the history of ancient
America?
41
The First Americans
The first human beings to arrive in the Western Hemisphere emigrated from Asia. They brought with them
hunting skills, weapon- and tool-making techniques, and other forms of human knowledge developed
millennia earlier in Africa, Europe, and Asia. These first Americans hunted large mammals, such as the
mammoths they had learned in Europe and Asia to kill, butcher, and process for food, clothing, and building
materials. Most likely, these first Americans wandered into the Western Hemisphere more or less accidentally
in pursuit of prey.
African and Asian Origins
Human beings lived elsewhere in the world for hundreds of thousands of years before they reached the
Western Hemisphere. They lacked a way to travel to the Western Hemisphere because millions of years
before humans existed anywhere on the globe, North and South America became detached from the gigantic
common landmass scientists now call Pangaea. About 240 million years ago, powerful forces deep within the
earth fractured Pangaea and slowly pushed continents apart to their present positions (Map 1.1). This process
of continental drift encircled the land of the Western Hemisphere with large oceans that isolated it from the
other continents long before early human beings (Homo erectus) first appeared in Africa about two million
years ago.
More than 1.5 million years after Homo erectus appeared, or about 400,000 BP, modern humans (Homo
sapiens) evolved in Africa. (The abbreviation BP — for “years before the present” — indicates dates earlier
than two thousand years ago; for more recent dates, the common and familiar notation AD is used, as in AD
1492.) All human beings throughout the world today are descendants of these ancient Africans. Their DNA
was the template for ours. Slowly, over many millennia, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa and into Europe
and Asia, which retained land connections to Africa that allowed ancient humans to migrate on foot. For
roughly 97 percent of the time Homo sapiens have been on earth, none migrated across the enormous oceans
isolating the Eurasian landmass from North and South America.
42
MAP 1.1 Continental Drift
Massive geological forces separated North and South America from other continents eons before
human beings evolved in Africa two million years ago.
Two major developments made it possible for ancient humans to migrate to the Western Hemisphere.
First, people successfully adapted to the frigid environment near the Arctic Circle. Second, changes in the
earth’s climate reconnected North America to Asia.
By about 25,000 BP, Homo sapiens had spread from Africa throughout Europe and Asia. People, probably
women, had learned to use bone needles to sew animal skins into warm clothing that permitted them to
become permanent residents of extremely cold regions such as northeastern Siberia. A few of these ancient
Siberians clothed in animal hides walked to North America on land that now lies submerged beneath the sixty
miles of water that currently separates easternmost Siberia from westernmost Alaska. A pathway across this
watery chasm opened during the last global cold spell — which endured from about 25,000 BP to 14,000 BP
— when snow piled up in glaciers, causing the sea level to drop, thereby exposing a land bridge hundreds of
miles wide called Beringia that connected Asian Siberia to American Alaska.
Siberian hunters roamed Beringia for centuries in search of mammoths, bison, and numerous smaller
animals. As the hunters ventured farther east, they eventually became pioneers of human life in the Western
Hemisphere. Although they did not know it, their migrations revolutionized the history of the world.
Archaeologists refer to these first migrants and their descendants for the next few millennia as PaleoIndians. They speculate that these Siberian hunters traveled in small bands of no more than twenty-five
people. How many such bands arrived in North America before Beringia disappeared beneath the sea will
never be known.
When the first migrants came is hotly debated by experts. They probably arrived sometime after 15,000
BP. Scattered and inconclusive evidence suggests that they may have arrived several thousand years earlier.
Certainly, humans who came from Asia — whose ancestors left Africa hundreds of thousands of years earlier
— inhabited the Western Hemisphere by 14,000 BP.
43
Paleo-Indian Hunters
When humans first arrived in the Western Hemisphere, massive glaciers covered most of present-day Canada.
Many archaeologists believe that Paleo-Indians probably migrated in pursuit of game along an ice-free
passageway on the eastern side of Canada’s Rocky Mountains. Other Paleo-Indians may have traveled along
the Pacific coast in small boats, hunting marine life and hopscotching from one desirable landing spot to
another. At the southern edge of the glaciers, Paleo-Indians entered a hunters’ paradise teeming with wildlife
that had never before confronted human predators armed with razor-sharp spears. The abundance of game
presumably made hunting relatively easy. Ample food permitted the Paleo-Indian population to grow. Within
a thousand years or so of their arrival, Paleo-Indians had migrated throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Early Paleo-Indians used a distinctively shaped spearhead known as a Clovis point, named for the place in
New Mexico where it was first excavated. Archaeologists’ discovery of abundant Clovis points throughout
North and Central America in sites occupied between 13,500 BP and 13,000 BP provides evidence that these
nomadic hunters shared a common ancestry and way of life. At a few isolated sites, archaeologists have found
still-controversial evidence of pre-Clovis artifacts that suggests the people who used Clovis spear points may
have followed a few pre-Clovis pioneers who arrived several hundred years earlier. Paleo-Indians hunted large
game such as mammoths and bison, but they probably also killed smaller animals. Concentration on large
animals, when possible, made sense because just one mammoth could supply meat for months. Some PaleoIndians even refrigerated killed mammoths by filling their body cavities with stones and submerging the
carcasses in icy lakes for later use. In addition to food, mammoths provided Paleo-Indians with hides and
bones for clothing, shelter, tools, and much more.
About 11,000 BP, Paleo-Indians confronted a major crisis. The mammoths and other large mammals they
hunted became extinct. The extinction was gradual, stretching over several hundred years. Scientists are not
completely certain why it occurred, although environmental change probably contributed to it. About this
time, the earth’s climate warmed, glaciers melted, and sea levels rose. Mammoths and other large mammals
probably had difficulty adapting to the warmer climate. Many archaeologists also believe, however, that PaleoIndians probably contributed to the extinctions in the Western Hemisphere by killing large animals more
rapidly than the animals could reproduce. Some experts dispute this overkill interpretation, but similar
environmental changes had occurred for millions of years before the arrival of Paleo-Indians without
triggering the extinction of large animals — the presence of skilled hunters seems to have made a decisive
difference. Whatever the causes, after the extinction of large mammals, Paleo-Indians literally inhabited a new
world.
Paleo-Indians adapted to this drastic environmental change by making at least two important changes in
their way of life. First, hunters began to prey more intensively on smaller animals. Second, Paleo-Indians
devoted more energy to foraging — that is, to collecting wild plant foods such as roots, seeds, nuts, berries,
and fruits. When Paleo-Indians made these changes, they replaced the apparent uniformity of the big-gameoriented Clovis culture with great cultural diversity adapted to the many natural environments throughout the
hemisphere.
These post-Clovis adaptations to local environments resulted in the astounding variety of Native
American cultures that existed when Europeans arrived in AD 1492. By then, hundreds of tribes inhabited
44
North America alone. Hundreds more lived in Central and South America. Still more hundreds of ancient
American cultures had disappeared or transformed as their people constantly adapted to environmental and
other challenges.
REVIEW Why and how did Paleo-Indians adapt to environmental change?
45
Archaic Hunters and Gatherers
Archaeologists use the term Archaic to describe the many different hunting and gathering cultures that
descended from Paleo-Indians and the long period of time when those cultures dominated the history of
ancient America — roughly from 10,000 BP to somewhere between 4000 BP and 3000 BP. The term
describes the era in the history of ancient America that followed the Paleo-Indian big-game hunters and
preceded the development of agriculture. It denotes a hunter-gatherer way of life that persisted in North
America long after European colonization.
Like their Paleo-Indian ancestors, Archaic Indians hunted with spears, but they also took smaller game
with traps, nets, and hooks. Unlike their Paleo-Indian predecessors, many Archaic peoples became excellent
basket makers in order to collect and store seeds, roots, nuts, and berries they gathered from wild plants. They
prepared food from these plants by using a variety of stone tools. A characteristic Archaic artifact is a grinding
stone used to pulverize seeds into edible form. Most Archaic Indians migrated from place to place to harvest
plants and hunt animals. They usually did not establish permanent villages, although they often returned to
the same river valley or fertile meadow year after year. In regions with especially rich resources — such as
present-day California and the Pacific Northwest — they developed permanent settlements. Archaic peoples
followed these practices in distinctive ways in the different environmental regions of North America (Map
1.2).
Great Plains Bison Hunters
After the extinction of large game animals, some hunters began to concentrate on bison in the huge herds that
grazed the plains stretching hundreds of miles east of the Rocky Mountains. For almost a thousand years after
the big-game extinctions, Archaic Indians hunted bison with Folsom points, named after a site near Folsom,
New Mexico. In 1908, George McJunkin, an African American cowboy, discovered this site, which contained
a deposit of large fossilized bones. In 1926, archaeologists excavated this site and found evidence that proved
conclusively for the first time that ancient Americans were contemporaries of giant bison — which were
known to have been extinct for at least ten thousand years. One Folsom point remained stuck between two
ribs of a giant bison, where a Stone Age hunter had plunged it more than ten thousand years earlier. Until this
discovery, leading experts had believed that ancient Americans had arrived in the New World fairly recently,
some three thousand years ago. Since the 1920s, thanks to McJunkin’s discovery, archaeologists and historians
have come to understand that the history of ancient Americans was far more ancient than experts previously
imagined.
46
MAP 1.2 Native North American Cultures
Environmental conditions defined the boundaries of the broad zones of cultural similarity among
ancient North Americans.
Like their nomadic predecessors, Folsom hunters moved constantly to maintain contact with their prey.
Great Plains hunters often stampeded bison herds over cliffs and then slaughtered the animals that plunged to
their deaths. At the Folsom site McJunkin discovered, hunters drove bison into a narrow gulch and then
speared twenty-three of the trapped animals.
Bows and arrows reached Great Plains hunters from the north about AD 500. They largely replaced
spears, which had been the hunters’ weapons of choice for millennia. Bows permitted hunters to wound
animals from farther away, arrows made it possible to shoot repeatedly, and arrowheads were easier to make
and therefore less costly to lose than the larger, heavier spear points. These new weapons did not otherwise
alter age-old ways of hunting. Although we often imagine bison hunters on horseback, in reality ancient Great
Plains people hunted on foot. Horses did not arrive on the Great Plains until decades after 1492, when
Europeans imported them. Only then did Great Plains bison hunters obtain horses and become expert riders.
Great Basin Cultures
47
Archaic peoples in the Great Basin between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada inhabited a region
of great environmental diversity defined largely by the amount of rain. While some lived on the shores of lakes
and marshes fed by the rain and ate fish, others hunted deer, antelope, bison, and smaller game. To protect
against shortages in fish and game caused by the fickle rainfall, Great Basin Indians relied on plants as their
most important food. Unlike meat and fish, plant food could be collected and stored for long periods. Many
Great Basin peoples gathered piñon nuts as a dietary staple. Great Basin peoples adapted to the severe
environmental challenges of the region and maintained their Archaic hunter-gatherer way of life for centuries
after Europeans arrived in AD 1492.
Pacific Coast Cultures
The richness of the natural environment made present-day California the most densely settled area in all of
ancient North America. The land and ocean offered such ample food that California peoples remained
hunters and gatherers for hundreds of years after AD 1492. The diversity of California’s environment also
encouraged corresponding variety among native peoples. The mosaic of Archaic settlements in California
included about five hundred separate tribes speaking some ninety languages, each with local dialects. No other
region of comparable size in ancient North America exhibited such cultural variety.
The Chumash, one of the many California cultures, emerged in the region surrounding what is now Santa
Barbara about 5000 BP. Comparatively plentiful food resources — especially acorns — permitted Chumash
people to establish relatively permanent villages. Conflict, probably caused by competition for valuable acorngathering territory, often broke out among the villages, as documented by Chumash skeletons that display
unmistakable signs of violence. Although few other California cultures achieved the population density and
village settlements of the Chumash, all shared the hunter-gatherer way of life and reliance on acorns as a
major food source.
Another rich natural environment lay along the Pacific Northwest coast. Like the Chumash, Northwest
peoples built more or less permanent villages. After about 5500 BP, they concentrated on catching whales and
large quantities of salmon, halibut, and other fish, which they dried to last throughout the year. They also
traded with people who lived hundreds of miles from the coast. Fishing freed Northwest peoples to develop
sophisticated woodworking skills. They fashioned elaborate wood carvings that denoted wealth and status, as
well as huge canoes for fishing, hunting, and conducting warfare against neighboring tribes. Archaic
northwesterners often fought with one another over access to prime fishing sites.
Eastern Woodland Cultures
East of the Mississippi River, Archaic peoples adapted to a forest environment that included the major river
valleys of the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland; the Great Lakes region; and the Atlantic coast
(see Map 1.2). Throughout these diverse locales, Archaic peoples pursued similar survival strategies.
Woodland hunters stalked deer as their most important prey. Deer supplied Woodland peoples with food
as well as hides and bones that they crafted into clothing, weapons, and many other tools. Like Archaic
peoples elsewhere, Woodland Indians gathered edible plants, seeds, and nuts. About 6000 BP, some
Woodland groups established more or less permanent settlements of 25 to 150 people, usually near a river or
48
lake that offered a wide variety of plant and animal resources. Woodland burial sites suggest that life
expectancy was about eighteen years, a relatively short time to learn all the skills necessary to survive,
reproduce, and adapt to change.
Around 4000 BP, Woodland cultures added two important features to their basic hunter-gatherer
lifestyle: agriculture and pottery. Trade and migration from Mexico brought gourds and pumpkins to
Woodland peoples, who also began to cultivate sunflowers and small quantities of tobacco. Corn, which had
been grown in Mexico and South America since about 7000 BP, also traveled north and became a significant
food crop among Eastern Woodland peoples around 2500 BP. Most likely, women learned how to plant,
grow, and harvest these crops as an outgrowth of their work gathering edible wild plants. Cultivated crops did
not alter Woodland peoples’ dependence on gathering wild plants, seeds, and nuts.
Like agriculture, pottery probably originated in Mexico. Pots were more durable than baskets for cooking
and storing food and water, but they were also much heavier, and therefore nomadic peoples shunned them.
The permanent settlements of Woodland peoples made the heavy weight of pots much less important than
their advantages compared to leaky and fragile baskets. While pottery and agriculture introduced changes in
Woodland cultures, ancient Woodland Americans retained the other basic features of their Archaic huntergatherer lifestyle until 1492 and beyond.
REVIEW Why did Archaic Native Americans shift from big-game hunting to foraging and hunting
smaller animals?
49
Agricultural Settlements and Chiefdoms
Among Eastern Woodland peoples and most other Archaic cultures, agriculture supplemented but did not
replace hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies. Reliance on wild animals and plants required most Archaic
groups to remain small and mobile. But beginning about 4000 BP distinctive southwestern cultures began to
depend on agriculture and to build permanent settlements. Later, around 2500 BP Woodland peoples in the
vast Mississippi valley began to construct burial mounds and other earthworks that suggest the existence of
social and political hierarchies that archaeologists term chiefdoms. Although the hunter-gatherer lifestyle never
entirely disappeared, the development of agricultural settlements and chiefdoms represented important
innovations to the Archaic way of life.
Southwestern Cultures
Ancient Americans in present-day Arizona, New Mexico, and southern portions of Utah and Colorado
developed cultures characterized by agricultural settlements and multiunit dwellings called pueblos. All
southwestern peoples confronted the challenge of a dry climate and unpredictable fluctuations in rainfall that
made the supply of wild plant food very unreliable. These ancient Americans probably adopted agriculture in
response to this basic environmental uncertainty.
About 3500 BP, southwestern hunters and gatherers began to cultivate corn, their signature food crop.
The demands of corn cultivation encouraged hunter-gatherers to restrict their migratory habits in order to
tend the crop. A vital consideration was access to water. Southwestern Indians became irrigation experts,
conserving water from streams, springs, and rainfall and distributing it to thirsty crops.
About AD 200, small farming settlements began to appear throughout southern New Mexico, marking
the emergence of the Mogollon culture. Typically, a Mogollon settlement included a dozen pit houses, each
made by digging out a pit about fifteen feet in diameter and a foot or two deep and then erecting poles to
support a roof of branches or dirt. Larger villages usually had one or two bigger pit houses that may have been
the predecessors of the circular kivas, the ceremonial rooms that became a characteristic of nearly all
southwestern settlements. About AD 900, Mogollon culture began to decline, for reasons that remain
obscure.
Around AD 500, while the Mogollon culture prevailed in New Mexico, other ancient people migrated
from Mexico to southern Arizona and established the distinctive Hohokam culture. Hohokam settlements
used sophisticated grids of irrigation canals to plant and harvest crops twice a year. Hohokam settlements
reflected Mexican cultural practices that northbound migrants brought with them, including the building of
sizable platform mounds and ball courts. About AD 1400, Hohokam culture declined for reasons that remain
a mystery, although the rising salinity of the soil brought about by centuries of irrigation probably caused
declining crop yields and growing food shortages.
North of the Hohokam and Mogollon cultures, in a region that encompassed southern Utah and
50
Colorado and northern Arizona and New Mexico, the Anasazi culture began to flourish about AD 100. The
early Anasazi built pit houses on mesa tops and used irrigation much as did their neighbors to the south.
Beginning around AD 1000, some Anasazi began to move to large, multistory cliff dwellings whose
spectacular ruins still exist at Mesa Verde, Colorado, and elsewhere. Other Anasazi communities — like the
one known as Pueblo Bonito, whose impressive ruins can be visited at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico —
erected huge stone-walled pueblos with enough rooms to house everyone in the settlement. Anasazi pueblos
and cliff dwellings typically included one or more kivas used for secret ceremonies, restricted to men, that
sought to communicate with the supernatural world. The alignment of Chaco buildings with solar and lunar
events (such as the summer and winter solstices) also suggests that the Anasazi studied the sky carefully,
probably because they believed supernatural celestial powers influenced their lives in every way. Pueblo Bonito
stood at the center of thousands of smaller pueblos that sent food and other goods to support Bonito’s
spiritual and political elites. Exactly how the Pueblo Bonito elites exercised power over the satellite pueblos is
not known, but it probably involved a combination of violence and spiritual ceremonies performed in the
kivas. Drought began to plague the region about AD 1130, and it lasted for more than half a century,
triggering the disappearance of the Anasazi culture. By AD 1200, the large Anasazi pueblos had been
abandoned. The prolonged drought probably intensified conflict among the pueblos and made it impossible to
depend on the techniques of irrigated agriculture that had worked for centuries. Some Anasazi migrated
toward regions with more reliable rainfall and settled in Hopi, Zuñi, and Acoma pueblos that their
descendants in Arizona and New Mexico have occupied ever since.
Anasazi Effigy
This effigy figure crafted about a thousand years ago illustrates the great skill of pottery makers among
the Anasazi in what is now the American Southwest. Human effigies are extremely rare in Anasazi
sites, but they are more commonly found in ancient sites in northern Mexico, a hint of Mexican cultural
51
influences among the Anasazi.
Newark Museum/Art Resource, NY.
Woodland Burial Mounds and Chiefdoms
No other ancient Americans created dwellings similar to pueblos, but around 2500 BP, Woodland cultures
throughout the Mississippi River watershed began to build burial mounds. The size of the mounds, the labor
and organization required to erect them, and differences in the artifacts buried with certain individuals suggest
the existence of a social and political hierarchy that archaeologists term a chiefdom. Experts do not know the
name of a single chief, nor do they understand the organizations chiefs headed. But the only way
archaeologists can account for the complex and labor-intensive burial mounds is to assume that one person —
whom scholars term a chief — commanded the labor and obedience of very large numbers of other people,
who made up the chief’s chiefdom.
Between 2500 BP and 2100 BP, Adena people built hundreds of burial mounds radiating from central
Ohio. In the mounds, the Adena usually included grave goods such as spear points and stone pipes as well as
thin sheets of mica (a glasslike mineral) crafted into animal or human shapes. Sometimes burial mounds were
constructed all at once, but often they were built up slowly over many years.
About 2100 BP, Adena culture evolved into the more elaborate Hopewell culture, which lasted about five
hundred years. Centered in Ohio, Hopewell culture extended throughout the enormous drainage of the Ohio
and Mississippi rivers. Hopewell people built larger mounds than did their Adena predecessors and filled
them with more magnificent grave goods. Burial was probably reserved for the most important members of
Hopewell groups. Most people were cremated, not buried. Burial rituals appear to have brought many people
together to honor the dead person and to help build the mound. Hopewell mounds were often one hundred
feet high and thirty feet in diameter. Grave goods at Hopewell sites testify to the high quality of Hopewell
crafts and to a thriving trade network that ranged from present-day Wyoming to Florida.
Hopewell culture declined about AD 400 for reasons that are obscure. Archaeologists speculate that bows
and arrows, along with increasing reliance on agriculture, made small settlements more self-sufficient and
therefore less dependent on the central authority of the Hopewell chiefs who were responsible for the burial
mounds.
Four hundred years later, another mound-building culture flourished. The Mississippian culture emerged
in the floodplains of the major southeastern river systems about AD 800 and lasted until about AD 1500.
Major Mississippian sites, such as the one at Cahokia, included huge mounds with platforms on top for
ceremonies and for the residences of great chiefs. Most likely, the ceremonial mounds and ritual practices
were influenced by Mexican cultural expressions brought north by traders and migrants. At Cahokia, skilled
farmers supported the large population with ample crops of corn. In addition to mounds, Cahokians erected
what archaeologists call woodhenges (after the famous Stonehenge in England) — long wooden poles set
upright in the ground and carefully arranged in huge circles. Experts believe that Cahokians probably built
woodhenges partly for ceremonies linked to celestial observations. The large plazas at Cahokia were used for
religious and political ceremonies as well as for playing the Cahokians’ signature game of chunkey, which
52
involved rolling a concave stone disk and trying to throw a spear that landed as close as possible to where the
stone stopped. The game of chunkey spread throughout the region of Cahokians’ cultural influence, and
chunkey stones are commonly found in Mississippian graves, signifying the importance Cahokians attached to
chunkey in the hereafter as well as the here and now.
Cahokia and other Mississippian cultures dwindled by AD 1500. When Europeans arrived, most of the
descendants of Mississippian cultures, like those of the Hopewell culture, lived in small dispersed villages
supported by hunting and gathering, supplemented by agriculture. Clearly, the conditions that caused large
chiefdoms to emerge — whatever they were — had changed, and chiefs no longer commanded the sweeping
powers they had once enjoyed.
REVIEW How and why did the societies of the Southwest differ from eastern societies?
53
Native Americans in the 1490s
On the eve of European colonization in the 1490s, Native Americans lived throughout North and South
America, but their total population is uncertain. Some experts claim that Native Americans inhabiting what
are now the United States and Canada numbered 18 million to 20 million, while others place the population
at no more than 1 million. A prudent estimate is about 4 million, or about the same as the number of people
living on the small island nation of England at that time. The vastness of the territory meant that the overall
population density of North America was low, just 60 people per 100 square miles, compared to more than
8,000 in England. Native Americans were spread thin across the land because of their survival strategies of
hunting, gathering, and agriculture, but regional populations varied (Figure 1.1).
FIGURE 1.1 Native American Population in North America about 1492 (Estimated)
Just before Europeans arrived, Native American population density varied widely, depending in large
part on the availability of natural resources. The Pacific coast, with its rich marine resources, had the
highest concentration of people. Overall, the population density of North America was less than 1
percent that of England, which helps explain why Europeans viewed North America as a relatively
empty wilderness.
Eastern and Great Plains Peoples
About one-third of native North Americans inhabited the enormous Woodland region east of the Mississippi
River; their population density approximated the average for North America as a whole. Eastern Woodland
peoples clustered into three broad linguistic and cultural groups: Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Muskogean.
Algonquian tribes inhabited the Atlantic seaboard, the Great Lakes region, and much of the upper
54
Midwest (Map 1.3). The relatively mild climate along the Atlantic permitted the coastal Algonquians to grow
corn and other crops as well as to hunt and fish. Around the Great Lakes and in northern New England,
however, cool summers and severe winters made agriculture impractical. Instead, the Abenaki, Penobscot,
Chippewa, and other tribes concentrated on hunting and fishing, using canoes both for transportation and for
gathering wild rice.
Inland from the Algonquian region, Iroquoian tribes occupied territories centered in Pennsylvania and
upstate New York, as well as the hilly upland regions of the Carolinas and Georgia. Three features
distinguished Iroquoian tribes from their neighbors. First, their success in cultivating corn and other crops
allowed them to build permanent settlements, usually consisting of several longhouses housing five to ten
families. Second, Iroquoian societies adhered to matrilineal rules of descent. Property of all sorts belonged to
women. Women headed family clans and even selected the chiefs (normally men) who governed the tribes.
Third, for purposes of war and diplomacy, an Iroquoian confederation — including the Seneca, Onondaga,
Mohawk, Oneida, and Cayuga tribes — formed the League of Five Nations, which remained powerful well
into the eighteenth century.
Muskogean peoples spread throughout the woodlands of the Southeast, south of the Ohio River and east
of the Mississippi. Including the Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez tribes, Muskogeans inhabited a
bountiful natural environment that provided abundant food from hunting, gathering, and agriculture.
Remnants of the earlier Mississippian culture still existed in Muskogean religion. The Natchez, for example,
worshipped the sun and built temple mounds modeled after those of their Mississippian ancestors, including
Cahokia.
Great Plains peoples accounted for about one out of seven native North Americans. Inhabiting the huge
region west of the Eastern Woodland people and east of the Rocky Mountains, many tribes had migrated to
the Great Plains within the century or two before the 1490s, forced westward by Iroquoian and Algonquian
tribes. Some Great Plains tribes — especially the Mandan and Pawnee — farmed successfully, growing both
corn and sunflowers. But the Teton Sioux, Blackfeet, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Crow on the northern plains
and the Apache and other nomadic tribes on the southern plains depended on buffalo (American bison) for
their subsistence.
Southwestern and Western Peoples
Southwestern cultures included about a quarter of all native North Americans. These descendants of the
Mogollon, Hohokam, and Anasazi cultures lived in settled agricultural communities, many of them pueblos.
They continued to grow corn, beans, and squash using methods they had refined for centuries.
55
MAP 1.3 Native North Americans about 1500
Distinctive Native American peoples resided throughout the area that, centuries later, became the
United States. This map indicates the approximate location of some of the larger tribes about 1500. In
the interest of legibility, many other peoples who inhabited North America at the time are omitted from
the map.
However, their communities came under attack by a large number of warlike Athapascans who invaded
the Southwest beginning around AD 1300. The Athapascans — principally Apache and Navajo — were
skillful warriors who preyed on the sedentary Pueblo Indians, reaping the fruits of agriculture without the
work of farming.
About a fifth of all native North Americans resided along the Pacific coast. In California, abundant acorns
and nutritious marine life continued to support high population densities, but this abundance retarded the
development of agriculture. Similar dependence on hunting and gathering persisted along the Northwest
coast, where fishing reigned supreme. Salmon were so plentiful at The Dalles, a prime fishing site on the
Columbia River on the border of present-day Oregon and Washington, that Northwest peoples caught
enough to use themselves as well as to trade dried fish as far away as California and the Great Plains. It is
likely that The Dalles was the largest Native American trading center in ancient North America, although
other ancient trading centers, such as Pueblo Bonito and Cahokia, also existed.
Cultural Similarities
While trading was common, all native North Americans in the 1490s still depended on hunting and gathering
for a major portion of their food. Most of them also practiced agriculture. Some used agriculture to
supplement hunting and gathering; for others, the balance was reversed. People throughout North America
56
used bows, arrows, and other weapons for hunting and warfare. To express themselves, they drew on stones,
wood, and animal skins; wove baskets and textiles; crafted pottery, beads, and carvings; and created songs,
dances, and rituals.
North American life did not include features common in Europe during the 1490s. Native North
Americans did not use writing, wheels, or sailing ships; they had no large domesticated animals such as horses
or cows; their only metal was copper. However, the absence of these European conveniences mattered less
than Native Americans’ adaptations to local natural environments and to the social environment among
neighboring peoples, adaptations that all native North Americans held in common.
It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that native North Americans lived in blissful harmony.
Archaeological sites provide ample evidence of violent conflict. Warfare was common, making violence and
fear typical features of ancient American life. Warfare not only killed people and destroyed their settlements,
but victors often took captives, especially women and children, and often treated them as slaves. Skeletons,
like those at Cahokia, not only bear marks of wounds but also exhibit clear signs of ritualistic human sacrifice.
Religious, ethnic, economic, and familial conflicts must have occurred, but they remain in obscurity because
they left few archaeological traces. In general, anxiety and instability must have been at least as common
among ancient North Americans as feelings of peace and security.
Native North Americans not only adapted to the natural environment but also changed it in many ways.
They built thousands of structures, from small dwellings to massive pueblos and enormous mounds,
permanently altering the landscape. Their gathering techniques selected productive and nutritious varieties of
plants, thereby shifting the balance of local plants toward useful varieties. The first stages of North American
agriculture, for example, probably involved Native Americans gathering wild seeds and then sowing them in a
meadow for later harvest. To clear land for planting seeds, native North Americans set fires that burned off
thousands of acres of forest.
Ancient North Americans also used fires for hunting. Hunters often started fires to frighten and force
together deer, buffalo, and other animals and make them easy to slaughter. Indians also started fires along the
edges of woods to burn off shrubby undergrowth, encouraging the growth of tender young plants that
attracted deer and other game, bringing them within convenient range of hunters’ weapons. The burns also
encouraged the growth of sun-loving food plants that Indians relished, such as blackberries, strawberries, and
raspberries.
Because the fires set by native North Americans usually burned until they ran out of fuel or were
extinguished by rain or wind, enormous regions of North America were burned over. In the long run, fires
cr…
Purchase answer to see full
attachment

Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:

Turnitin Report

Formatting

Title Page

Citation

Outline

Place an Order