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Period 1: 1491-1607
On a North American continent controlled by American Indians, contact among the peoples of Europe, the Americas, and West Africa created a new world. Topics may include
- Native American Societies before European Contact
- European Exploration in the New World
- The Columbian Exchange
- Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System
- Cultural Interactions between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans
Image Source: View of icons representing conquered towns and the tributes they paid to the Aztecs in a detail from the Codex Mendoza, ca. 1541 (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
4–6% Exam Weighting
Resources by Period:
- Period 1: 1491–1607
- Period 2: 1607–1754
- Period 3: 1754–1800
- Period 4: 1800–1848
- Period 5: 1844–1877
- Period 6: 1865–1898
- Period 7: 1890–1945
- Period 8: 1945–1980
- Period 9: 1980–Present
Period 1: 1491–1607
Key Concepts
1.1: As native populations migrated and settled across the vast expanse of North America over time, they developed distinct and increasingly complex societies by adapting to and transforming their diverse environments.
1.2: Contact among Europeans, NativeAmericans, and Africans resulted in the Columbian Exchange and significant social, cultural, and political changes on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
Native American Societies before European Contact
American Indians
by Elliott West
Learn about the diversity of Indigenous tribes in North America.
- Essay
Cahokia: A Pre-Columbian American City
by Timothy R. Pauketat
Learn about a center of trade and interaction built along the banks of the Mississippi.
- Essay
Nature, Culture, and Native Americans
by Daniel Wildcat
Watch a discussion about Indigenous peoples and their interaction with the environment.
- Video
Secotan, an Algonquian village
ca. 1585
Engraving of an agrarian town in North America, based on a watercolor by English mapmaker John White
- Primary Source
North America on the Eve of the European Invasion
by Christopher L. Miller
Discover the way Native Americans lived in North America before Europeans arrived.
- Essay
Native American Discoveries of Europe
by Daniel K. Richter
Learn about the cultural context of Native peoples' responses to the arrival of European explorers and colonists.
- Essay
America before Columbus
by Charles C. Mann
Watch a discussion about the pre-Columbian population and settlement of the Americas.
- Video
An Introduction to the History of Migration and Settlement in North America
by Edward A. Jolie
Learn about the migrations of indigenous peoples in the Americas.
- Video
European Exploration in the New World
Europeans and the New World
by Brian DeLay
Watch a discussion of the context of western European exploration and European interactions with Indigenous peoples.
- Video
Columbus reports on his first voyage
1493
Columbus’s letter to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain announcing the discovery of unknown lands
- Primary Source
Imperial Rivalries
by Peter C. Mancall
Understand how European political competition in the late fifteenth century drove exploration and colonization.
- Essay
Sir Francis Drake's attack on St. Augustine
1586
Illustration depicting an English naval attack on Spanish St. Augustine in present-day Florida
- Primary Source
The Rise and Fall of New Netherland
by David Middleton
Read about Henry Hudson’s voyages for the Dutch Republic.
- Essay
Mexicans in the Making of America
by Neil Foley
Learn about Spanish exploration and conquest of the Americas in a broad essay about changes and continuities.
- Essay
European Exploration
by Felipe Fernández-Armesto and Benjamin Sacks
Learn about European navigation and the exploration of the Americas.
- Essay
The Columbian Exchange
Navigating the Age of Exploration
by Ted Widmer
Learn about the vast global movements that characterized the Columbian Exchange.
- Essay
The Columbian Exchange
by Alfred W. Crosby
Discover how the commingling of Old and New World plants, animals, and bacteria remade global ecologies.
- Essay
The Spanish Borderlands and Columbian Exchange
by Ned Blackhawk
Learn about Indigenous and European interactions in Spanish colonial holdings in the Americas.
- Video
The Americas to 1620
by Christopher L. Miller
Learn about the broad context of European, African, and Indigenous interactions.
- Essay
Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System
The Doctrine of Discovery
1493
Pope Alexander VI’s decree granting Spain the exclusive right to lands in the Americas
- Primary Source
Iberian Roots of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
by David Wheat
Understand the role of Portugal and Spain in the transatlantic slave trade.
- Essay
Disputing the subjugation of the Indians
1550
Bartolomé de las Casas versus Juan Ginés Sepúlveda on the enslavement of the Taíno in Hispaniola
- Primary Source
Spain authorizes Coronado's conquest in the Southwest
1540
Royal letter instructing Francisco Coronado to explore the northern lands in search of wealth and resources
- Primary Source
Cultural Interactions between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans
Early North America
by Peter C. Mancall
Look beyond the Euro-centric view of the “New World.”
- Video
Indian Slavery in the Americas
by Alan Gallay
Learn about the European enslavement of Indigenous peoples in the Americas.
- Essay
The New York African Burial Ground
by Edna Greene Medford
Read about one of the earliest graveyards for free and enslaved Africans.
- Essay
The African Slave Trade
by Philip Morgan
Watch a discussion of the core experiences of slavery from East Africa to sugar plantations in the New World.
- Video
American History Timeline: 1491-1607
Image Citations
Listed in order of appearance in the sections above
Native American Societies before European Contact
Native American Societies before European Contact
- White, John. The Towne of Pomeiock. 1585-1593. Drawing on paper. British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1906-0509-1-8
- William Iseminger, Cahokia Mounds, 1982, Painting. Image courtesy of Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.
- White, John. The Manner of Their Fishing. 1585-1593. Watercolor over graphite on paper. British Museum.
- de Bry, Theodor. Village of Secotan. In A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia: of the Commodities and of the Nature and Manners of the Naturall Inhabitants. Frankfurt am Main: J. Wechelus, 1590. Engraving based on a drawing by John White. Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
- "Naw-Kaw, a Winnebago Chief." In The Indian Tribes of North America, vol. 1, by Thomas L. McKenney and James Hall. Philadelphia, ca. 1840. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC05120.02.
Grasset de Saint-Saveur, Jacques. "Tableau des principaux peuples de l'Amérique." Paris, France. 1789. Etching and aquatint with hand coloring. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. - Theodore de Bry, Indians worship the column in honor of the French king, 1591, engraving for Collectiones peregrinationum in Indiam occidentalem, vol. 2: René de Laudonnière, Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt (Frankfurt am Main: J. Wechelus, 1591) (Rijksmuseum)
- Hiser, David. Pictograph at Newspaper Rock, Indian Creek State Park, San Juan County, Utah. DOCUMERICA: The Environmental Protection Agency's Program to Photographically Document Subjects of Environmental Concern, 1972. Photograph. National Archives.
European Exploration in the New World
European Exploration in the New World
- Anonymous Spanish artist. The Silver Mine at Potosí. ca. 1585. Watercolor on parchment. The Hispanic Society of America.
- Columbus, Christopher. Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, February 1493. Epistola Chirstofori Colom: cui [a]etas nostra multu[m] debet: de Insulis Indi[a]e supra Gangem nuper inuentis. Rome, 1493. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC01427.
- Engagement [between] La Blanche and La Pare, ca. 1786-1805. Watercolor on paper. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC01450.800.
- Boazio, Baptista. Drake’s Attack on St. Augustine, Florida, May 28–29, 1586. St. Augustine Map. 1589. Rare Books and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress.
- Schenk, Peter. Nieu Amsterdam, een Stedeken in Noord Amerikaes Nieu Hollant. s.l., 1702. Print. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC03022
- "An illustrated account of Aztec life-cycles" Codex Mendoza. ca. 1540. Manuscript on paper. Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.
- Martin, Johnson & Company. Landing of Columbus. New York, 1856. Engraving based on a painting by John Vanderlyn. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC08878.0001.
The Columbian Exchange
The Columbian Exchange
- Visscher, Nicholas. Novi Belgi Novaeque Angliae [Map of New Netherland and New England]. Amsterdam, 1682. Map. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC03582.
- Kemmelmeyer, Frederick. First Landing of Christopher Columbus. 1800/1805. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art.
- Montanus. Insulae Americanae in Oceano Septentrionali, cum Terris adiacentibus [Map of the Americas]. s.l., 1671 Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC09789.
- Johnson, Fry & Company. Landing of Roger Williams. New York, 1867. Engraving based on a painting by Alonzo Chappel. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC08878.0006
Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System
Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System
- Alexander VI. Copia de la bula del decreto y concession q[ue] hizo el papa [Inter caetera]. [Valladolio], 1493. Broadside. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC04093.
- Roiz, Pascoal. A portolan chart of the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent continents. 1633. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/2008621738/.
- Las Casas, Bartolomé de. Aqui se contiene una disputa . . . Seville, 1552. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC04220.
- García de Loaysa, Francisco. Letter to Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, June 21, 1540. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC04883.
Cultural Interactions between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans
Cultural Interactions between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans
- Cliff Palace. Ancestral Puebloan (formerly Anasazi), 450–1300 C.E. Sandstone. Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. Photo courtesy of Sara Charles.
- "The March of the Spaniards into Tenochtitlan." Codex Azcatitlan. ca. 1530. Manuscript on paper. Bibliothèque nationale de France.
- Carol Highsmith. African Burial Ground National Monument. New York, 2008. Photograph. Carol Highsmith Archive. Library of Congress.
- Wood, Samuel. Injured Humanity; Being a Representation of What the Unhappy Children of Africa Endure from Those Who Call Themselves Christians. New York, 1805. Broadside. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC05113.
- Period 2: 1607–1754
