Download Topic: New World Beginnings Aim: How did geography and

Topic: New World Beginnings
Aim: How did geography and
exploration impact the
development of indigenous
and European culture?
1. Describe the movement of
peoples starting in 25,000
B.C.E. across the Bering
Land Strait. (Use cardinal
directions and geographic
descriptors!)
2. Select at least two
geographic features.
Explain why Paleo-Indian
settlement sites and
civilizations developed in
those locations.
Early Amerindian Cultures
• What aspects of Incan culture
might this figurine represent?
• How did indigenous cultures in
North and South America change
and develop prior to European
arrival?
• How were indigenous cultures
in North and South American
different from those of Europe?
Similar?
Pre-Contact Concentrations of Indigenous Populations in North America
• Describe the information about indigenous peoples provided by this map.
• What connections could be made between approximate population locations and modern
American place names?
Patterns of Early
Exploration and
Trade
• Why was the Silk Road utilized for trade before other routes?
• What was the driving force behind European movement eastward?
• Why were the Portuguese the earliest explorers?
• How did Portuguese exploration impact the lives of Africans?
Europe, Asia, and Africa: Early Global Trade
• Explain the driving forces
behind the Crusades (10951291).
• How did Marco Polo’s
return from Asia in 1295
change Europeans’ lives?
• What factors drove
European trade with Asia?
• Who benefited most from
this trade? Why?
Marco Polo crossing the Strait of Hormuz (illustration from the
first printed edition of The Travels of Marco Polo in 1477)
Gorée Island Slave Fortress
From this holding station off the coast of Senegal, thousands of
African captives passed through the “Door of No Return” into a
lifetime of slavery in the New World.
Topic: Spain in the
New World
Aim: What were
the origins of
Spanish
imperialism, and
how did they affect
indigenous
cultures?
•Why did the
Spanish and English
have Italian
explorers working
for them?
• Explain the impact
of the Treaty of
Tordesillas (1494)
on European
exploration.
The Columbian Exchange
• How did the Columbian Exchange transform
both Europe and the Americas in both the
short and long term?
• Was the overall impact of the Columbian
exchange positive or negative? Why?
The Unification of Spain, the Conquistadores, and Empire
illustration from Köhler Codex of Nuremberg; possibly
earliest depiction of the conquistadores (1534)
Maps representing the process of a nearly 1000 year conflict
between Christian Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms and the
Muslim “Moors.”
• Why might young conquistadores be those most involved in the early process of
exploration and control of Spain’s holdings in the New World?
• How would the process of Spanish unification under Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of
Castile affect Spanish reasons for imperial expansion?
• What reasons would conquistadores have for returning to Spain? For staying in the New
World?
• How did the establishment of a Spanish Empire change the balance of power in Europe?
The Impacts of the Spanish Conquest on Indigenous Cultures
Cortés and Malinche, ca. 1540 (detail)
an Aztec view of the Conquest (1534)
• Describe examples in the images above that depict cultural changes
for indigenous peoples after the arrival of the Spanish.
Spain: the First “Empire on
Which the Sun Never Sets”
• Describe how Spain’s holdings
in the New World would have led
to economic growth in Europe.
• How might the British and
French seek to challenge Spanish
dominance?
• Explain how the early Spanish
colonial model might affect the
process of British colonization.
• How would Spain’s imperial
power influence religious and
social conflicts?
• What challenges might have
ended Spain’s Siglo de Oro
(1521–1643) leading to a long,
slow decline that stretched until
the 1820s?
• Analyze and explain the lessons
that could be learned by the
British from the decline of Spain’s
Empire.
Lesson Summary
Be able to address these questions with specific examples
(names, dates, events, historical developments)!
• Describe the
geographical
development of
indigenous cultures in
the Americas.
• Analyze and explain
the political and social
forces behind Spanish
colonization.
• Analyze and explain
the short and long
term impacts of
Spanish colonization,
both on Spain and the
New World.