Unit 1: 1491-1607

Let’s play a game! Guess the population (1500 AD) Paris London British Isles France North America Central America Largest city in North America (circa 1200 AD)

Survey says… Paris 200,000 London 50,000 British Isles 3 million France North America Central America Largest city in current US (Cahokia) 200,000 50,000 3 million 16 million Approx. 15 million Approx. 100 million 25,000-40,000 (circa 1200 AD)

Cahokia

Misconceptions re: population 1491 (p. 107): When Columbus landed, it is estimated that the central plateau of Mexico had a population of 25.2 million…Spain and Portugal combined had less than 10 million inhabitants 1491 (p. 25): Tiwanaku (Peru/Bolivia border in 1000AD): perhaps as many as 115,000 with 250,000 in surrounding countryside…numbers Paris would not reach until ~1500

Impact of Disease 1542 Bartolome de Las Casas: indigenous America “…a beehive of people” and “…it looked as though God has placed all of or the greater part of the entire human race in these countries” 1602 Sebastian Vizcaino: “I have traveled more than 800 leagues along the coast… (it) is populated by an endless number of Indians.” 1630 New England colonist: “And the bones and skulls upon the several places of their habitations made such a spectacle… heavily urbanized populations were wiped out.” In first 130 years of contact, about 95% of Indians in Americas died from disease Disease killed as much as 90% of the people of coastal New England

More Misconceptions about the Americas/Indians pre-1492 (besides population) When Native Americans settled in the “New World” 13,000 years ago…maybe earlier? Level of sophistication within civilization 1491: Examples of advanced civilization in: Agriculture Maize (5000 BC in Mexico, introduced in SW “US” {Pueblo} around 2000 BC) Three-sister farming (corn, squash, beans) around 1000 AD (southeastern “US”) Slash and burn (“…Native Americans had neither the desire nor the means to manipulate nature aggressively.” pg. 10 American Pageant) Slash and char Massive irrigation Science and Mathematics Mayan calendars (365-day calendar as precise as the one we use today) Aztec base-20 counting system Government Iroquois

Iroquois Confederacy (and the future US) In 1744 date, the Iroquois chief Canasatego addressed a treaty conference between the American colonists and the six-nation Iroquois Confederacy. The two groups had met in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to iron out disputes over colonial trespassing on Native American territory and to forge an agreement whereby the Iroquois would ally with the colonists against the French. In his speech, Canasatego introduced the colonists to the federalist ideas that bound the disparate tribes into unity: it was a bond that encouraged unity, especially in matters of defense, even as it supported the independence of each tribe when it came to self-government. Though often ignored by historians, this philosophy strongly influenced the founding fathers who crafted the documents that defined America a few decades later. And, as Senator Mike Lee points out in this excerpt from his new book,Written Out of History: The Forgotten Founders Who Fought Big Government, none of those luminaries was more swayed by Canasatego than Benjamin Franklin.