This document provides an overview of the topics and key concepts that will be covered in a course on history of the Americas. The course will examine: 1) Pre-colonial societies in the Americas before European contact; 2) The colonial period following the arrival of Europeans and the legacy of colonization; 3) Social movements and reforms in the post-colonial United States; 4) Resistance to oppression through history in the Americas. It defines primary and secondary sources and outlines topics to be discussed each week, including indigenous civilizations, European invasion and settlement, the transatlantic slave trade, life under slavery, and rebellions against slavery and colonial rule.

1. CH S 245
WEEK 1 NOTES
1) Pre-Contact and settlement of the Americas
2) Racial foundations in the Americas
3) The colonial period in the Americas and its legacy
4) Reform and Revolution in the Americas
5) Social movements of the National Minorities in the United
States
6) The war on drugs, the Cold War, and The end of history
What is History?
‘There is no document of civilization which is not at the same
time a document or barbarism.” Walter Benjamin
History?
Interpreting the past
Understanding the present
The study of people across time
A knowledge production process
Primary Source
1) A document or physical object which was written or created
during the time under story
2) These sources were present during an experience or time
period and offer an inside view of a particular view
Secondary Source
1) Interprets and analyzes primary sources
2) These sources are one or more steps removed from the
event

2. 3) Secondary sources may have pictures, quotes or graphics of
primary sources in them
Week 2
Pre-Colombian Societies-
Before the Coloumbian Moment
1) First inhabitants migrated from Aisa
2) Migration through the Bering Straight
3) 40,000 BCE
4) Formed nomadic semi-sedentary, and sedentary social groups
5) Three prominent civilizations; Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas
Mayas:
1) Intense exploitation of the extremely inhospitable lowland
forests
2) Overcame extraordinary ecological challenges to create a
very sophisticated and productive agriculture, key to their
development
Aztecs and Incas:
1) Developed at high altitudes and by harnessing of waters from
lakes, mountain streams and rivers.
2) Empires were culmination of centuries of agricultural and
cultural developments
Some common features:
1)Highly sophisticated irrigation and farming
1) Complex social and cultural organization

3. 2) Sophisticated calendar and astronomical knowledge
3) Highly developed religions
4) Militant ideologies of the conquest and empire building
Mesoamerica:
1) In what is now southern Mexico and Central America
2) Rain forests cover the region
3) Fertile soil made this a good area for farming
4) People first appeared in this area around 12,000 BC
5) Maize (corn) being grown around 3,500 BC
The Maya:
1) Developed in Mesoamerica around 1,000 BC
2) Lived in area of thick forests making framing hard
3) Grew to more than 40 cities of 5,000 to 50,000 people each
during the classic age from AD 250 to 900
4) Spread throughout the Yucatan Peninsula
5) Traded good to different areas Mesoamerica
Maya Society:
1) Complex class structure
2) Upper class included kings, priests, warriors, and merchants
3) Lower class included most of the Maya
4) Farmers had to give crops to ruler and serve in the army
5) Slaves held the lowest position in society
6) Slaves included orphans, slaves’ children, and people who
owed money
Maya Achievements:
1) Art and architectural achievements
2) Scuplture and jade and gold jewelry
3) Built cities using metal tools
4) Mayan cities largest architectural achievements
5) Built observatories to study the stars
6) Developed the calendar and number systems.
Aztec Society:
1) People divided into social classes
2) Kings and nobles the most important
Aztec Achievements:
1) Built floating gardens called “Chinampas”

4. 2) Studied astronomy and created a calendar
3) Built bridges and canals
4) Had a complex writing systems
Hernan Cortes and La Malinche:
Incas Society:
1) Originated in the Andes region
2) Developed about the same time as that of the Aztecs
3) Developed the technique of terrace-farming, so that they
could grow potatoes, squash, beans, peanuts, cotton, and other
crops on the sides of the mountains
4) They also learned basic irrigation techniques
5) At its height, it ranged some 2,000 miles along the Pacific
Coast of South America ( present day Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia,
Chile, and Argentina) and had a pop. Of over 6 million.
Society and Religion
1) Religion: Complex, with many goods and an imperial
ideology
2) Cultural imperialism
3) Allegedly, they ran this vast empire without a writing system
4) Impressive and extensive road system linked all regions
5) Mit’a: forced rotary draft labor system
6) Basic social unit” Ayllu
Encomienda?
Southwest Cultures:
1) 700-900 CE to 1300 CE
2) Ananzi and Hohokam cultures; agriculture and sedentary life
for at least 1,100 years before the Spanish arrived in the 1540’s
3) “Pueblo” people
Week 2: Invasion and Settlement of the Americas
The Columbian Moment: Contact , Collision, or Encounter?

5. Three experiences set the tone for what happened in the
Americas and how Spaniards were to seal with the Indians
1) Reconquista
2) African Islands
3) Caribbean Islands
Cristobal Colon (Columbus)
1) Inerian/Mediterranean maritime capitalism
2) Genoase Background, seafaring experience with Portuguese
along Africa coast and islands. (Madeira, Azores, Canary,
Verde); gold slaves, sugar…
3) Business experience
4) Religious conviction
Colon’s Proposal
1) To reach Chipangu and the fat east by sailing west
2) Aragonese contacts; timing on proposal
3) If successful, he would win the titles of don and “Admiral of
the Ocean Sea”
Caribbean Islands
1) Contact with Taino; nitaino and naboria
2) Chiefdom led by cacique and/or cacica
3) Carib people of Lesser Antilles and mainland (moder-day
Guianas)
4) Colon claims islands in name of king and queen
5) Colons journal and letter to crown
Invasion
1) Second Voyage, 1493; Colon appointed governor of
“Espanola”
2) Guacanagari & Caonabo, Taino caciques
3) Santa Domingo, 1496
4) Encomiendo; grant of labor and tribute from a caciques
territory.
Views of the others
1) Europeans and Indigenous peoples sought to make sense of
the other through existing categories of thought and belief,
according to their own experiences and knowledge.
Views of Europeans

6. 1) Indians as wild neasts, heathens, cannibals, “natural slaves”
Inferior
2) Indians as Jews
3) Indians as simple, child like, living in a state of nature,
easily tricked by devil
4) Indians capable of redemption
Indigenous Views
1) Nahuatl-language writers refer to selves as nican titlaca “We
people here”
2) Everyone from the altpetl ot another
3) But where did the Spaniards come from?
Nahua Impressions
1) Spaniards as teotl (pl. teteo)= deities
2) Meaning of Teoltl
3) Toltec legend Quetzalcoatl
Florentine Codex
1) 12 books written from 1647-1579 in Nahuatl compiled by
Fransciscan friar Bernardino de Sahgun
2) Most Nahua writers came from altepetl of Tlatelolco
3) Sahagun wanted to leave the Nahuatl language.
3 text in 1
1) Nahuatl language column
2) Illustrations
Nahua Memory
1) Spaniards as bellicose, angry, greedy, capricious, violent,
formidable, awesome, insatiable
2) Omens foretold events
Sahaguns dilemma
1) Nahuas text portrays Spaniards as treacherous and evil killers
2) Very unchristian, unsettling ending
3) Text sent to kinf of Spain in 1579
4) Second version produced in 1585, only in Spanish, “to
coreect certain errors made in the last version”
Week 3

7. Middle Passage: Voyage from Africa to the Americas.
1) Crews attempted to keep as many slaves alive as possible to
maximize profits.
a) Some slaves refused to eat and crew members used tools to
pry their mouths open and force-feed them
b) Sick slaves were cast overboard to prevent infection from
spreading
2) During the early days of slave trade, death rate was as high
as 50%
3) As volume of trade increased and conditions improved
(bigger ships, more water, better nourishment and facilities)
death rate declined to about 5%
4) The time that it took to reach the Americas from Africa could
take up to 90 days depending on weather.
5) As larger merchant ships were introduced these times
reduced somewhat.
Volume of the Slave Trade
1) Late 15th and 16th Centurt… 2,000 Africans exported each
year
2) 17th Century 20,000 a year
3) 18th Century 55,000
-1780’s… 88,000 per year
4) All told, some 10-12 million Africans were transported to the
western hemisphere via Atlantic Slave Trade
Plantations-
1) Most African slaves to plantations in the tropical or
subtropical regions of the western hemisphere
2) The first was established by the Spanish on Hispaniola in
1516
3) Originally the predominant crop was sugar
4) In the 1530’s the Portuguese began organizing plantations in
Brazil, and Brazil became the
Slavery in the North Americas
1) Diseases took less toll in North America and living

8. conditions were usually less brutal
2) Plantation owners imported large numbers of female slaves
and encourage their slaves to form families and bear children
a) Only about 5% of slaves delivered to the western hemisphere
went to North America
Forms of Resistance-
1) Work Slowly
2) Sabotage
3) Runaway
a) “Maroons” gathered together and built self-governing
communities.
4) Revolt
a) Slaves outnumbered the owners and supervisors so revolt was
always a threat.
b) While causing much destruction, revolts were usually able to
be suppressed because the owners has access to arms, horses,
and military forces
Week 4
Life, Liberty, and Property: The Paradox of Slavery
The U.S. Constitution and the Paradox of Slavery:
Theoretical Background
1) Influenced by the French Revolution and the age of reason
2) Pain, Rousseau, Locke
3) The Slavery Paradox:
a) Repudiated on moral grounds
b) Economic institution favored by elites
The Role of Trade:
a) The slave trade was part of a larger pattern of the trade which
has come to be known as the “triangular trade”
b) Advent of Global Trade
c) 1723 John Houstoun describe the trade
1) Involved with the governance of the colonies and in the great

9. political conflicts in England
2) The Letters Concerning Toleration argue for a distinction
between Church and State
3) The Second Treatise along with his other works very much
impressed Thomas Jefferson
4) Locke’s ideas very likely played a role in the writing of the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United
States
The Royal Africa Company
1) Locke brought shares in the Royal Africa Company
2) Locke also, held a significance share in the Bahama
Adventurer, another company which traded in slaves in the
Bahama Islands
3) Given is involvement with English colonial policies,
commercial ventures with colonies and English trade, Locke
knew as much or more than anyone in England about the
colonies, the slave trade and slavery
4) When Locke wrote his theory of Slavery in the Second
Treatise he was writing detailed knowledge of the nature of the
slave trade and the practices of Afro-American slavery in the
1670’s
Thomas Jefferson
1) Born in Virginia to a wealthy family
2) Well educated attended The College of William & Mary
3) Served in the Virginia House of Burgesses
4) Eloquent correspondent but not good public speaker
5) Known as the silent member of the Congress
6) Was unanimously chosen by the Committee of Five to
prepare a draft of the Declaration alone
Jefferson and the Declaration of independence
1) ?????
Week 6
1692: The great Riot
Rebellion in Southern Mexico

10. 1) Religious inspired violence & millenarianism
a) Chiapas, 1712 Cancuc
b) Chiapas, 1868 Chamula
2) Ethnic Violence
a) “Castle War” of Yucatan, 1847-1900
1780: Tupac Amaru II
1) Large scale rebellion in the Andean area.
2) Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui changed his name to Tupac
Amaru II; claimed to be a direct descendant of the last Inca
ruler
3) Threatened to take over Cuzco
4) Tupac Amaru and his wife were captured and executed in
1781
1712: The Mexican South
1) Highland Chiapas, village of Cancuc
2) 21 pueblos- Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Chol Maya
3) They defended a cult of the Virgin Mary
The Mexican North:
1) Inhabited by Chichimecas
2) Mixton War: Caxanes rebelled in 1541-42
3) Mining
4) 1573: Presidios
5) Franciscans and the Mission System
6) Seri of Western Sonora
Resistance in Brazil-
1) Took on many forms
2) Slaveholding class was fearful of a revolt on a grand scale
3) More common alternative: Fleeing
4) Mocambos or Quilombos
Black Rebellion in Brazil
1) Escape, sabotage, assassination, planned revolt
2) Bahia uprising of Muslims in 1835
3) Quilombos, mocambos in backlands
4) Palmares: king “Ganga Zumba”
Brazil-
1) Compliance to Resistance

11. 2) The Historical records indicate an abundance of instances
were resistance to slavery was a constant characteristics.
3) Described
Nat Turner-