The First Americans

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The First Americans
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Pathway to the Americas

• During the Ice Age the earths surface was
  covered with glaciers (huge sheets of ice)
• Scientists believe that people crossed the
  Beringia land bridge from Asia into the Americas
  in search of food and animals during these times

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First American Civilizations

• The first Americans were huntergatherers.
• When the Ice Age ended, warmer weather conditions
  allowed the people to begin farming.
• Farmer grew pumpkins, peppers, squash, and the
  most important cropcorn or maize.

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Olmec

• This ancient civilization developed around Vera
  Cruz, Mexico.
• They had rich farming resources.
• They built a large trading network using rivers
  as the highways for trade.
• They were known for making rubber using tree
  resin and making balls to use for sports.
• They admired famous ball players and some of the
  statues might be famous players.

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Olmec Heartland
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Olmec Monument possibly a ball player
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Olmec Temple
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Teotihuacan

• This was one of the first planned cities of
  Mesoamerica but we dont know who first built
  this city.
• Teotihuacan means Place of the Gods.
• The city was a center of trade and had a
  population of about 120,000 to 200,000 people and
  was used by many groups including the Toltec and
  Aztec.

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Teotihuacán Step Pyramids
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Maya

• Built their civilization on the Yucatan Peninsula
• They traded in Mesoamerica and built cities.
• Along with the Teotihuacanos, the Maya
  mysteriously abandoned their cities.
• Scholars suggest that drought, overpopulation, or
  rebellion caused the mysterious decline.

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Maya Temple/Pyramid
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Toltec

• These people were warrior nomads who seized
  northern Mexico.
• They tightly controlled trade and held a monopoly
  (the sole right) to trade obsidian.
• Keeping control of obsidian helped protect them
  from any enemies. (obsidian was used to make
  sharp edged knifes)
• They were later defeated by the Aztecs.

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Moche

• These people lived along the dry coastal desert
  of what is now Peru.
• They dug canals from rivers into their desert
  homeland and soon the desert bloomed with crops.
• They traded with others in the Amazon region and
  built large temples.

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Inca

• They lived near the Moche in the Andes Mountains
  of Peru.
• They built the largest empire in the ancient
  Americas.
• Their capital city was named Cuzco.

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Civilizations of North America

• Civilizations developed in North America along
  the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio Rivers.
• Other civilizations developed in the southwest.
• All of people developed farming and trading.

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Hohokam

• Lived in the dry southwest in modern day New
  Mexico
• They grew corn, beans, and squash and developed
  irrigation systems.

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Anasazi

• Lived in the same region as the Hohokam, but they
  moved into the regions cliffs and canyons.
• They also grew crops but collected rainwater and
  channeled it onto their fields.
• They lived in huge apartments built into the
  cliffs.
• Spanish explorers later called these buildings
  pueblos which is the Spanish word for village.

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Mound Builders

• Civilizations grew around the Mississippi River
  where the inhabitants built large mounds made
  from earth
• The mounds served as temples, home sites for the
  leaders, or burial sites.
• These civilizations spread throughout the
  southeast.
• The Mississippians were known for their large
  scale farming and large cities.

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Moundville, Alabama Mississippian
Civilization Along the Black Warrior River near
Tuscaloosa
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Life in the Americas
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The Mayan People

• The Mayan people settled in the Peten or the flat
  region. (Located in modern day Guatemala)
• It was shielded from the sun by dense forests and
  was filled with stinging insects, poisonous
  snakes, and screeching animals.
• Swamps and sinkholes served as water sources.
• The Maya set up city states and were ruled by
  kings who passed their titles down to their sons.

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Life In Mayan Cities

• Mayan rulers were considered god-kings
• They practiced human sacrifice to please the gods
• Captives were often sacrificed
• Religion was the center of their lives
• Lived in a strict class system
• Women were sometimes powerful and served as
  leaders in the military or queens
• The Maya admired flat heads in the back. Babies
  had boards bound to their heads in order to
  flatten the head!!
• The Maya also admired crossed eyes and babies had
  charms dangled before their eyes to achieve this!

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Mayan Science and Math

• Mayan Priests tracked the movements of the sun,
  moon, and the stars in order to understand the
  plan of the gods.
• They developed a 365 day calendar and used it to
  know when to plant
• They developed a math system based on the number
  20
• They wrote in a form of hieroglyphics

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Life in the Inca Empire

• Ruled by a strong central government set up by a
  leader named Pachacuti.
• A central government requires that every region
  within an empire report back to a central leader.
• The Inca lived in a strictly divided culture
• They rarely sacrificed humans, but during times
  of crisis like earthquakes children were
  sometimes sacrificed
• The Inca built large stone buildings and
  developed a way of keeping records using a quipu.
  (a knotted cord of different lengths used to do
  math calculations)

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Many Inca mummies have been discovered. They are
sometimes children or young girls. Some have
been discovered with ceremonial clothing on and
with artifacts that they needed in an afterlife.
The Inca sacrifices are much different than the
Aztec or Maya sacrifices.
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The Aztec

• The Aztec were warlike and fearsome.
• They built their capital city, Tenochtitlan, in a
  swampy, snake infested region.
• They chose strong kings to lead them into battle
  to collect tribute and captives.
• They had a strict class system of nobles,
  commoners, unskilled laborers, and enslaved
  people.

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Life in the Aztec Empire

• Commoners were the largest class. They could
  become nobles if they performed a brave deed
  during battles.
• They believed in an afterlife where soldiers,
  sacrificed captives, and women who died in
  childbirth lived. All others went to the Land of
  the Dead or the lowest level of the underworld.
• They built a huge temple at Tenochtitlan where
  human sacrifices were performed. In one year,
  the Aztecs were known to have sacrificed as many
  as 20,000-30,000 victims.

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Aztec Sacrifice Knife-used to slice open the
victim and then remove the heart!
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Life in North AmericaThe Inuit

• The Inuit lived in the harsh conditions of the
  Arctic regions of present day Canada.
• They built igloos or dome shaped homes made of
  blocks of ice and snow.
• They hunted many animals including caribou, polar
  bears, whales for food.

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Life in North AmericaWest Coast

• Most of these civilizations were oceangoing
  fishermen and farmers.
• They settled in the area from Washington to
  California.
• They harvested crops like dates and relied on
  roots and plants that grew naturally in the
  environment for food.

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Life in the Southwest

• These cultures relied more on the development of
  irrigation systems and farming.
• These cultures are the Anasazi, Hopi, Pueblo,
  Apache, and Navaho.
• These people developed a type of sun-dried mud
  brick home called adobe.

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Life on the Great Plains

• Some of these civilizations are the Mandan,
  Hidatsa, Pawnee, and Sioux.
• These cultures relied mostly on the buffalo for
  their food because farming was very difficult.

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Life in the Eastern Woodland

• These cultures like the Cherokee, Iroquois,
  Seneca, Mohawk, and Oneida existed mostly because
  of agriculture and hunting.
• They sometimes formed confederations to link
  groups together.
• The most famous was the Iroquois confederation
  which linked tribes together in protection from
  the powerful Algonquian.

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The Fall of the Aztec and Inca
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The Fall of the Aztec and Inca

• Europeans wanted to find a route to Asia to trade
  without having to go through the Middle East and
  the Muslims.
• In 1492, the Spanish sent Christopher Columbus on
  a voyage to find a new route to Asia.
• He believed by going west he could reach Asia.

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Columbus and Spain

• He arrived in the Caribbean and landed on an
  island that he named Hispaniola.
• He returned home with parrots, gold and silver,
  and several native captives.
• The Spanish rulers decided to finance another
  voyage.
• This time the Spanish sent soldiers called
  Conquistadors with the explorers.
• The Spanish claimed the island and forced the
  natives to work as slaves.

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Hernan Cortes

• Cortes was a poor noble with little chance for
  wealth and saw conquest as the way to be rich.
• He became a soldier and sailed to Hispaniola. He
  helped Spain conquer Cuba and was given control
  of several native villages.
• Six years later, smallpox almost wiped out the
  native population in the Caribbean. The Spanish
  needed workers and Cortes looked to Mexico to
  find the workers.

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Cortes defeats the Aztec

• Cortes attacked Mexico in 1519 in search of gold,
  slaves, and glory.
• He was helped in his conquest by a Mayan woman
  named Malintzin who helped him translate.
• She told him that the Aztec people did not like
  their rulers and would join with him against
  them.
• Montezuma, the Aztec leader, feared that the
  people would welcome Cortes as the light skinned
  god named Quetzalcoatl.
• Montezuma fought against Cortes but another
  outbreak of smallpox and measles wiped out the
  natives.
• Spain easily defeated the rest of the weakened
  Aztecs.

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Vasco Nunez de Balboa

• Balboa was another Spanish explorer in search of
  riches.
• He was told that an empire of gold existed in
  what is modern day Panama.
• While searching for the city, Balboa discovered
  the Pacific Ocean.
• A jealous official charged Balboa with treason or
  disloyalty to the government of Spain and he was
  beheaded.

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Francisco Pizarro

• After Balboas death, Pizarro continued the
  search for the golden empire.
• He came across the Inca empire of South America.
• The Inca had already been devastated by small
  pox, but they still outnumbered the Spanish
  soldiers 80,000 to 160!!
• The Inca ruler, Atahualpa, thought Pizarro was
  insane that he would attack with those odds.
• Pizarro tricked the Inca leader into an ambush
  and the Spanish took control of the Inca empire.