1. Elements of Civilization?
Topic 3
Elements of Civilization?
To what extent can Native Americans be considered civilized or uncivilized when Columbus arrived?

2. Define Civilized / Civilization: what qualities / characteristics would a people have to have in the 15th Century for you to consider them civilized?
Individually, make a list, then Pair Share.

3. Columbus
He considered Native Americans uncivilized and barbaric because of their sparse clothing, different language, and their nomadic habits
He also complained that they engaged in cannibalism, practiced human sacrifice, the men had multiple wives, they showed an “awed reverence for nature, a desire to share, did not have class stratification, took a daily bath, and wiped their hands on dogs as they ambled along”

4. Native Americans were not as advanced in many ways as Europeans, but does this means they were uncivilized?
Were they just different, which Columbus could not comprehend / appreciate?
Did they chose to live this way while knowing alternatives (nomadic, temporary shelters)?
Europeans had different views of the relationship of humans to nature: Europeans believed humans had dominion over the earth: Native Americans believed humans must live in harmony with nature
To some extent Columbus’s characterization of them as uncivilized made it easier to justify killing, torturing, and enslaving them…so he may have deliberately exaggerated

5. Elements of Civilization (Consensus of Historians)
1. Organized Government
Makes and enforces laws to keep order
Exercises authority over an organized state
Plans, organizes, and directs large projects

6. Elements of Civilization
2. Organized Religion
Formalizes religious belief and offers guidance in questions of life, death, nature and spirit
Selects clergy
Establishes rituals and symbols, shrines and sacred places

7. Elements of Civilization
3. Division of Labor
Provides goods and services
Enables people to develop specialized skills
Encourages trade and development of new technology
Promotes a system of social classes

8. Elements of Civilization
4. Class structure
Defines a person’s place in society
Reflects the distribution of wealth

9. Elements of Civilization
5. System of Writing
Provides a way to keep accurate records
Serves as a way to pass on knowledge

10. Your Views?
Of these 5, which ones do you most agree with? Agree with least?
1. Organized Government
2. Organized Religion
3. Division of Labor
4. Class Structure
5. System of Writing

11. The Early Americans in Central and South America
Early American societies may have shared a common racial background, but there was much variety among their civilizations.
Societies in Central and South America (Inca, Mayans, Aztecs) were more developed than in other parts

12. The Inca in Peru Complex political system…voting, representation
Network of paved roads that welded together many tribes under a single ruler (no wheeled vehicles / horses)
Advanced agricultural system, esp. for growing maize/corn to feed huge pop.
Elaborate cities
Trade and commerce with each other and with other tribes
They did not however have a system of writing

13. The Mayans of Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico
Written language
Numerical system similar to the Arabic system
Accurate calendar
Advanced agricultural system
Elaborate cities
Internal and external trade and commerce

14. The Aztecs in Central America
Elaborate administrative, educational, medical, agricultural systems comparable to the most advanced in Europe at the time
An organized system of religion – though often harsh: involved human sacrifice
Elaborate cities with stone buildings (Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital) - a great achievement without the technology of Europeans…
Trade and commerce with each other and with other tribes
Studied math and astronomy

15. North America: Northwest
Indian life in North America was less sophisticated (less “civilized’)
In the Northwest region emerged societies that subsisted on hunting, gathering, fishing, or some combination of the three

16. North America: Southwest
In the Southwest were tribes relying primarily on agriculture.
Built irrigation systems to bring water to dry land
Constructed substantial towns that became centers of trade, crafts, and religion and civic ritual: built stone and adobe terraced structures (pueblos).

17. North America: Great Plains, East
In the Great Plains regions, most tribes were engaged in sedentary (fixed: non-nomadic) farming
In the East, the Woodland Indians engaged in farming, hunting, gathering and fishing simultaneously.
They had permanent substantial settlements, large trading networks based on corn; also cultivated beans, squash, and pumpkins.
Sometimes they moved on after exhausting the land.

18. North America
Most of those who were Nomadic, were Nomadic by Choice, not necessity – knew how to construct permanent settlements, how to irrigate, but did not have to live in one place because of the availability of land
And because of the low small population – unlike in Europe - Population of only 10m in North America in 1492.
also the individual ownership of land was foreign to them – land was communally owned, which meant there was no barrier / inhibition to movement.

19. North America Some groups did reach high levels of development.
Some noteworthy groups and their achievements:
The Mound Builders of the lower Mississippi Valley built large permanent settlements around rectangular plazas, used iron tools, wove woolen fabrics, buried their dead in collective graves covered by mounds

20. North America
The Pueblos in the Rio Grande Valley built elaborate irrigation systems and lived in villages of multi-storied, terraced buildings when the Spanish made contact with them in the late 16th Century
The Creeks in the Southeast practiced a democratic style of government

21. North America
The Iroquois in the Northeast had a sophisticated political and military confederacy to defend against other native tribes and Europeans (see handout)
The League of the Iroquois consisted of five tribes: Mohawk, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas…….
But this kind of organization was the exception…

22. North America
In general most native peoples in North America lived in small, scattered, and impermanent settlements – hunters , gatherers (women tended crops)
Alliances among them were fragile since they did not think of themselves as members of a single civilization.
When Europeans arrived and began to threaten their way of life, Indians generally viewed the threat in terms of how it affected their own community and tribe, not how it affected any larger Indian nation. Only rarely did tribes unite in opposition to white encroachments

23. North America
Yet, in general the tribes of North America were, like other areas of the world, developing and becoming:
More and more sedentary / settled
Developing new sources of food, clothing, and shelter
Were experiencing significant population growth
Were developing the sorts of social customs and organized rituals that only relatively stationary societies can produce

24. May have been more advanced than Europe in terms of their respect for women - assigning them responsibility over social and economic organization, including political power, and property rights, unlike in Europe
Iroquois, and others, developed matrilineal cultures, in which power and possessions passed down the female side of the family
Native Americans reject the term “discovery” – didn’t need discovering, prefer the term “encounter”