Native American Societies BEFORE Europeans [APUSH Review]

[0:00]Welcome to A push, y'all. I am Steve Heimler, your bald, bearded, gapped tooth guy through AP U.S. History. And I reckon we'll get started by talking about the indigenous makeup of the Americas before European contact, and so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked, let's get to it. Now, probably the very most important thing you need to remember for this topic is that before all those wily, disease-laden, pantaloon-wearing Europeans showed up to the Americas, the people who already lived here were very different from one another, which is to say, indigenous peoples were diverse. And this isn't surprising because every other dang continent in the world is home to diverse peoples as well, people who speak different languages and have developed different cultures. Like if I show up to France and say, "Hey, aren't y'all basically the same as the British?" Well, then I'm going the right way for a good old fashioned French smackbot. So, in the same way, the indigenous groups that populated the Americas were very different from each other in language and culture and customs and economics, etc. Some groups lived in nomadic hunter-gatherer bands, while others lived in massive cities, while still others lived in semi-permanent settlements. And while geography did play a significant role in those differences, and we'll get to that in just a second, one other factor that often determined whether indigenous groups moved around in small groups or clumped up into larger settlements was the cultivation of maze. And I'll tell you, if you've never had it, that stuff is amazing. Sorry, that's that joke usually kills at the Horticultural History conference. Anyway, maize was first cultivated in Central Mexico around 5000 BCE, and it became a staple crop of various peoples throughout the Americas. And once these people realized that you could grow food in the ground to stuff in people's mouth holes, they developed complex societies centered on sedentary agriculture, which is a fancy way of saying they stopped moving around and planted their hind parts in one spot. And hey, before I tell you about the fabulous effects of maze cultivation, let me just mention my A push Heimler Review Guide, which is everything you need to get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May. It's got exclusive unit review videos that are not here on YouTube, metric butt loads of practice questions, and an AI Heimler bot that will answer all your questions and grade all your exams and a generous helping of sass from this guy. Anyway, the link is in the description, so get that clicky finger out and have a look. Anyway, the cultivation of maize had four effects that you're going to need to remember. First, it led to economic development because trade networks developed between these societies. Second, it led some groups into permanent settlements since agriculture can't exactly be done by nomadic groups who are always on the move. Third, the cultivation of maze led to advanced irrigation techniques. Now, irrigation just describes the methods by which humans divert natural water sources toward their crops. It's kind of a big deal because the better people get at irrigation, the more food they can grow and therefore the more people their society can sustain. And then fourth, the cultivation of maze led to social diversification. And that just means that as a settlement and society becomes bigger and more complex, labor becomes more specialized and social hierarchies are put in place, which means that some people become more important than the others. Okay, so let's go ahead and get some specific examples of this diversity of peoples in the Americas, and just for poops and giggles, we'll start right here in the Great Basin and Great Plains region. Now, remember what I said earlier. Yes, maze was a pretty big deal, but geography also played a massive role in how various people groups organized their lives and societies. So, here in the Great Basin and the Great Plains, the climate is about as hot and dry as the devil's armpit. And so, indigenous groups living here responded to their environment by developing mobile or nomadic lifestyles. And just in case you have an image of that mobility being facilitated by horses, those have not been introduced yet, but don't worry, they're coming with the Europeans soon. Anyway, that mobility meant, in general, that many groups who lived here were smaller societies that lived far apart from one another since they needed a great deal of land to hunt and gather. For example, meet the Ute people. They lived in groups of about 20 to 100, which consisted of extended family groups, and they moved throughout the region on a seasonal basis, while living in mobile shelters like animal skin teepees. Ute men were typically responsible for hunting animals like deer and antelope and rabbits, while women gathered berries and roots. Additionally, groups like the Ute moved according to the seasons so that they didn't deplete the resources in any one area. So again, their environment largely shaped the way that they lived. And now let's head over to the East Coast and see what kind of diversity we can find over there. So, in general, indigenous groups who lived in these areas tended to create much larger and complex societies than hunter-gatherer groups because their environment was much better for farming. And you're going to need to know an example of each, and, you know, I'm in the mood to give them to you. So, first, here we have various groups that, taken together, are known as the Mississippian cultures, and we'll just focus on one of them, namely the Hopewell people. Now, because of the abundance of rich soil around the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys, the Hopewell people were able to exist in large towns, about 4,000 to 6,000 in population. And due to their proximity to large rivers, the Hopewell got their trade on with other indigenous groups as far away as Canada and Florida, to which I say, what? Now, once maize cultivation became their way of life, the Hopewell civilization became more complex, including a social hierarchy in which the elite gained more control over the common labor. And they were also mound builders, and these things were pretty massive. And I'm not just mentioning mounds for poops and giggles. Those massive structures give you an insight into their society, namely their religious traditions, and the various ways that they organized labor on a large scale, and some sort of elite class. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the largest of the Mississippian cities, namely Cahokia, which had a population of somewhere between 10 and 20,000 people. And why is that, my dear pupil? Because their environment dictated fabulous agricultural growth, which meant more people could live together and their society could become more complex. Okay, the second group I want to introduce you to lived here in the Northeast, and they're known as the Iroquois. Now, they were semi-sedentary, relying on the cultivation of maze and other staple crops for survival. And then, the abundant timber in the region gave them the materials to construct the main infrastructure of their life together, namely the Longhouse. Now, in case it's not obvious, a Longhouse was a, you know, longhouse, which is a great name for it because it would be much more confusing if what they actually lived in were, you know, short toaster. Anyway, in these Longhouses, multiple generations of Iroquois families lived together, sometimes up to 200 folks. Additionally, these people were responsible for creating the Iroquois Confederacy, which was an alliance of multiple indigenous groups in the area, including all of these folks right here. And that confederacy formed a Council of Representatives to help settle beefs between rival groups that would otherwise lead to war, and they facilitated trade partnerships as well. And then the third group I'll mention is the Cherokees, who made their lives along the Atlantic coast. Now, maize cultivation reached them about 1000 BCE along with beans and squash, which meant that their society was built around agriculture. However, they would also qualify as semi-sedentary because men still hunted for meat while women usually tended the crops. In fact, like many other indigenous groups, women had far more social capital than their European counterparts. In fact, many of their cultures were matrilineal, meaning that power and possessions were passed down through generations on the mother's side, not the father's. And now let's go visit our friends on the Pacific Coast of North America, and there are two distinct regions over here. Now, societies in the Northwest and present-day California didn't generally practice agriculture, but instead, they were hunters and gatherers. So, I'm assuming that the comparative thinking part of your brain is all like, okay, so they were just like the Ute, hunters and gatherers, and nomadic and whatnot. It's like I'm reading your mind, isn't it? But no, that is a similarity with the Great Basin and Great Plains people, but groups over here like the Chinook and the Chumash built permanent settlements. But how could they have done that, says you, since settled societies were mostly associated with agriculture? Well, says I, because of the abundance of food they were able to get from the oceans and the surrounding environment, that meant that they could live in large permanent settlements not supported by traditional agriculture and trade. And that makes them different from the indigenous groups that lived in the arid regions and similar to those that lived in the more fertile agricultural regions. Well, okay, click here to watch my other videos from Unit one, and click here to grab my A push Heimler Review Guide, which has everything you need to get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May. I'll catch you on the flip flop.