Diverse Indigenous Societies in Pre-Colonial America Explained

Well, welcome to ApushUS, y'all. I am Steve Heimler, your bald bearded gap tooth guide through AP US 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 wy diseaseladen, pantaloonwearing 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 it shouldn't surprise you 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 oldfashioned French smackb. 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 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. It's just Sorry, that's that joke usually kills at the

horicultural history conferences. Anyway, maize was first cultivated in central Mexico around 5,000 B.CE. 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 pushheimler review guide, which has

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 buttloads of practice questions, and an AI Heimler bot that will answer all your

questions and grade all your exams. and a generous helping of SAS from this guy. Anyway, the link is in the description,

so get that clicky finger out and have a look. Anyway, the cultivation of maze 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

and 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 regions. Now, remember what I said earlier. Yes, maize was a pretty big

deal, but geography also played a massive role in how various people groups organized their lives and

society. 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 tepee. The 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 season 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

maze 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 laborers. 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 people? 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 irra. 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 long house. Now, in case it's

not obvious, a long house was a, you know, long house, which is a great name for it because it would be much more

confusing if what they actually lived in were, you know, short toasted. Anyway, in these long houses, multiple

generations of Irakcoy families lived together, sometimes up to 200 folks. Additionally, these people were

responsible for creating the Irakcoy 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 maze cultivation

reached them about 1,000 B.CE along with beans and squash which meant that their society was built around agriculture.

However, they would also qualify as semi-edentary 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 matrinal, meaning that power and possessions were passed down

through generations on the mother's side, not the fathers. 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 youth, 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 Chinuk and the Schumash 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 Himler review guide, which has everything you need to get an A in your

class and a five on your exam in May. And I'll catch you on the flip-flop.