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US History Lecture 3 — Transcript

by History On Fire · 2,644 words · 430 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Hello and welcome to this new lecture in
0:02our US history series.
0:05One of the things to remember is that
0:08native people in North America before
0:10contact with Europeans had no horses for
0:13that matter had very little domesticated
0:15animals period. Mainly dogs. No horses.
0:18So all travel was either taking place by
0:22boat or on foot. There was no horseback
0:26riding going on here until much much
0:28later.
0:30One of the things that happened
0:33roughly around 11,000 years ago, and I
0:36say roughly because this is not a neat
0:39clearcut point in history. It happens
0:41over centuries,
0:43is that the last ice age come to an end,
0:48the last glaciation come to an end.
0:52And you know the the warming up of the
0:54climate, the melting of the glaciers, it
0:57creates it kind of destroy the old world
1:00and create a new one. You know, one end
1:03many of the animals that American
1:06Indians used to hunt, you know, things
1:08like the woolly mammoth or many of the
1:10animals that they were competing with
1:12like sabertooth tigers or things like
1:14that, they go extinct as a result of
1:18this dramatic change in climate.
1:22And the animals that they will replace
1:24with will be usually much smaller. For
1:26whatever reason, the ice age favor size,
1:29you know, very large animals, not so
1:31much after
1:34the end of the last ice age. So you have
1:36these smaller animals, you have more
1:39vegetation growing, you have more, you
1:42know, since not everything is under ice,
1:45you have a lot a lot more reliance on
1:48plants you can gather that are growing.
1:50and uh and of course the climate warms
1:53up unevenly. So some parts of the
1:54country will afford certain resources
1:57versus other more. So
2:00one of the consequences of this stuff is
2:03that you have um starting around
2:10you see the first evidence of somebody
2:12domesticating plants and by that I don't
2:14mean like inventing agriculture but just
2:17taking a seed and intentionally planting
2:19it into the ground about n and I'm here
2:23I'm not talking for the whole world I'm
2:24just talking for the Americas about
2:269,000 years ago in modern modern day
2:28Mexico.
2:31This does not mean that everybody
2:33overnight become a farmer. Far from it.
2:35What happens is people still go as
2:38hunters and gatherers on their seasonal
2:40cycle. They just happen to take a more
2:43active interest in planting so that the
2:46next time they come around, there may be
2:48more of those plants that they really
2:50like and they rely on.
2:53But it's not until about 5,000 years ago
2:56that you start seeing the first farming
2:59villages being created in the Americas.
3:02And even that in just a few places, some
3:06areas will know about farming, but
3:08they'll choose to never adopt it for
3:10reasons that we're going to see. You
3:12know, many history books make it sound
3:14like farming is clearly a superior way
3:16of making a living compared to hunting
3:18and gathering.
3:20That's not really the case. There are
3:21advantages and disadvantages in each.
3:25One of the consequences in farming
3:27communities that the population grows.
3:30In a hunting and gathering culture, you
3:32really don't want to have too many
3:34non-walking kids. So you don't want to
3:37have kids back to back because you know
3:38if you carry one kid in your arm and now
3:41you have another kid you have to carry,
3:44you're out of arms and you you need
3:46still need to carry your possessions. So
3:48usually they would try to intentionally
3:50space out the birth of their kids so as
3:54not to have too many young ones at the
3:57same time. In farming communities, you
4:00don't have this problem. You can pop out
4:02a kid every year if you want because
4:03you're not going anywhere. You know, one
4:05of the consequence of farming is that
4:07you become sedentary. You start relying
4:09on these crops. you leave around your
4:12crops here around and that allow you to
4:16so that removes one of the obstacles to
4:18population growth.
4:20Also, men and women spend more time
4:22together since men are not going on big
4:25hunting expeditions.
4:27And also usually farmers have a higher
4:30percentage of body fat that it's
4:34lead to a higher likelihood to get
4:36pregnant compared to when you're just
4:38purely in muscle and nothing else, which
4:40is what most hunters and gatherers were.
4:44So bottom line, for a variety of
4:46reasons, you see population growth in
4:49farming villages, bigger communities
4:52than what hunters and gatherers could
4:54put together.
4:56This has some dramatic effect on the
4:58distribution of power and wealth
5:02for the first time ever. You see, you
5:04know, people can accumulate property
5:07because you're not constantly carrying
5:09it on your back from place to place.
5:12People, some people will begin to
5:14acquire more wealth than other people.
5:17You see the emergence of social classes
5:19and it may begin in a very innocent way.
5:21You know it may begin that the person
5:23who was a leader in a hunting and
5:25gathering community
5:27they are
5:30they are you know they have to take more
5:32responsibility now that you have more
5:34people living in close quarters
5:35together. they have to mediate between
5:38disputes more. And so maybe maybe the
5:41community itself say look we understand
5:44that we keep annoying you having to
5:46mediate all the squables among us but
5:48you're doing a great job and it's unfair
5:51to ask you to plant do all the stuff we
5:54all do plus
5:56do this other work. How about you just
5:59do this work? We'll plant extra. You
6:02don't have to farm the fields. We'll do
6:04it for you.
6:05So now for the first time ever in human
6:08history you see the emergence of a
6:10different social class
6:13and initially is very minor. Initially
6:16the difference between all the other
6:17farmers and the people in a position of
6:20leadership is very small. But as time
6:22goes on and the society grows in size
6:25those difference become magnified
6:28until you end up with what we are all
6:31familiar with. You know the societies
6:32with kings and queens and with slaves
6:35and with extreme social stratification
6:38where wealth and power become
6:41distributed very unevenly.
6:44This is a consequence of farming. And
6:46speaking of consequences, the change in
6:49diets, well, there are advantages and
6:51disadvantages. On one end, farming is
6:53great because it's a little more
6:55reliable than hunting and gathering. You
6:57know, hunting and gathering, you cannot
6:59store food.
7:01you have maybe a few days of food with
7:03you. When you run out, you better find
7:05more or you starve.
7:07In a stable environment, this is not
7:09much of a problem. But in a not so
7:12stable environment, that is a real
7:14problem. So
7:16in hunting and gathering, as there's the
7:19disadvantage of being more likely to
7:21starve, but on the other hand, hunting
7:24and gathering give you much better
7:26nutrition. farming tend to people tend
7:29to eat the same few crops
7:32and they lack the variety of nutrients
7:34that our body need to function at
7:37optimal level. So you tend to see
7:40farmers being less healthy than hunters
7:44and gatherers. So as I said advantages
7:47and disadvantages in each.
7:50Now, having said all that, I want to
7:53give you at least a quick, you know,
7:55before we finish this lecture on
7:57pre-Colombian life,
8:00I want to give you at least some quick
8:01snapshots of what life was like in North
8:05America before contact with Europeans,
8:09different areas of the country, what
8:11people engaged in, were they farmers,
8:13were they hunters and gatherers, where
8:15they So, we'll do that for just a few
8:18minutes.
8:20So let's start with the west coast of
8:23North America.
8:25In this area, people remained hunters
8:27and gatherers until contact with
8:29Europeans and even afterwards.
8:32Resources were abandoned enough that
8:34nobody ever felt the pressure to switch
8:36to farming. They knew about farming,
8:38they just didn't care for it because
8:40they had plenty of food with their
8:43traditional lifestyle. between fishing
8:45in the ocean, gathering, hunting, they
8:48had it made.
8:50If you go a little further inland in the
8:54areas that would be today states of
8:57Arizona, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico,
9:00around that area,
9:03the climate there gets to be a little
9:06drier.
9:09weather patterns are resources are not
9:12quite as abandoned as on the west coast.
9:15So people there adapted to farming
9:19earlier on. And by the way, when I say
9:22farming, most of the farmers in North
9:24America,
9:25the big crops are corn, squash, and
9:29beans. And by the way, these guys
9:31figured out a way to plant them in such
9:33a way that they would not deplete the
9:35soil by planting them together as
9:38opposed to planting them separately. But
9:40aside for that
9:42in this area in this four corner area
9:45you'll see the development of a c you
9:47know there are I won't bother you with
9:48the archaeology and different names for
9:51culture of which we know very little
9:53about
9:54but roughly from around the 600s to the
9:571300s there was a culture that developed
10:00in the southwest
10:02sometime referred to as the anazi. Now
10:05we have no idea what these guys called
10:07themselves. Fanazi is a term that
10:11other tribes used for when when
10:14Europeans came around and they asked,
10:16"Hey, who build those villages over
10:18there that we see the ruins of today?"
10:20Some of these tribes used the term
10:22Manazi, which meant ancient enemies or
10:25enemies of our ancestors. So clearly
10:27that's not a specific tribal name.
10:30It's very likely
10:33that these tribes were the ancestors of
10:35modern pueblo tribes such as the Hoppy,
10:38the Zouri, and a few others.
10:40And what's distinctive about it is that
10:42these people build on a massive scale
10:45for North America. I put a few pictures
10:49in the powerpoints to show you some of
10:52the ruins that they left behind.
10:55They build very large villages. Sometime
10:58not just hundreds of people but
10:59thousands of people living together.
11:02Some of the tallest buildings ever built
11:04in North America. It was not until the
11:061880s when they start putting up
11:08skyscrapers in Chicago that anything
11:10taller was built in North America.
11:14They were engaging long-distance trade.
11:17So in other words, they were large
11:20farming societies
11:22and for quite a while they were also
11:25fairly peaceful societies. You know, it
11:27looked like they had a very good
11:28lifestyle.
11:30But there are some clues and I won't get
11:33into the whole detail. I mean, there's a
11:35whole story about archaeology finding
11:37the nests left behind by rats that have
11:41been uh mummified for particular
11:43environmental reasons.
11:47Long story short, I won't get into all
11:48that. Archaeologists found clues of
11:52environmental transformation
11:55as the population kept growing in Anazi
11:59society.
12:00Resources of course started dwindling.
12:03But this happened very slowly over
12:05centuries. It's nothing that alarm
12:07anybody overnight.
12:09However, around the 11 12 and
12:13particularly than 1300s, there's a
12:15period of very intense drought that hits
12:18the southwest.
12:20So are already diminishing resources
12:22diminish a lot faster all of a sudden.
12:25And now you have an environment where
12:27you have more people than
12:30the than the resources can support.
12:36Not surprisingly, under those
12:37conditions, people don't remain peaceful
12:39very long. So for the first time in the
12:41archaeological record, you find much
12:44more intense signs of warfare among the
12:46Anazi.
12:48Um,
12:50all the classic things that you would
12:51expect to happen when people are
12:53starving.
12:55So what we see happening here is
12:57something rather curious. We see the
12:59growth of a very large farming society
13:02and we also see its collapse. By the
13:041300s all the big Aazi sites are
13:07abandoned. We still see the ruins today.
13:09They are beautiful but that society is
13:11gone. Population declined sharply.
13:15You'll still have people carrying on a
13:17similar lifestyle but on a much smaller
13:19scale after this. So this is a case of a
13:22society that was doing really well for a
13:25few centuries but eventually collapses
13:28due to environmental pressures.
13:32Less dramatic but similar things
13:34happening throughout the central part of
13:36what's today United States. All along
13:39the great plains people built sedentary
13:43villages along the river so they could
13:45use the water from the rivers to
13:47irrigate their fields.
13:49And much like we saw with the Anazi,
13:52things get a lot uglier around the
13:5512300s because this drought is spread
13:58throughout North America and the same
14:01pressure for resources show up here and
14:04the same consequence show up. So for
14:06example, at a site in South Dakota
14:08called Crow Creek, there's evidence in
14:11the 1300s of this major large scale
14:14massacre
14:15which wasn't common. You know most
14:18American Indian warfare was much more
14:21mellow than this. Not at this time not
14:24when people are starving. So again this
14:26is showing you how similar pattern were
14:29happening
14:30in much of North America. The 12300s
14:33were definitely a rough time to be in
14:35North America.
14:38In the northeast
14:40you see the development both you see
14:43hunting and gathering societies as well
14:46as uh farming societies. Fairly large
14:49villages
14:51focusing on planting corn, squash and
14:53beans.
14:55But one of the society that leave us as
14:57one of the most striking pre-Colombian
15:00societies in North America
15:03are a group of people that
15:04archaeologists refer to as the
15:06Mississippians because they inhabited
15:09all along the lands close to the
15:12Mississippi River.
15:14They their society developed roughly
15:17between the 700s and the 1300s
15:20and they are the most extreme example we
15:23can find of American Indian societies
15:29being extremely stratified where
15:32hierarchy you know there are the nobles
15:34and there are slaves there are very rich
15:37people very poor people
15:39the Mississippians don't just build
15:41towns or villages they build cities
15:44Cahokia, which is next to modern day St.
15:46Louis, was a very large cities with
15:50likely more than 10,000 people living
15:52there, possibly even more, which again
15:55may not sound like much by today's
15:57standards, but for the 1300s, that's
16:00quite sizable. Um,
16:03they were engaging long-distance trade.
16:05They speaking of strange things they did
16:08they built pyramids
16:10um much in the style of what societies
16:13in Mexico and Central America did more
16:16like the Maya the Aztecs and so on
16:20and it looks like they were influenced
16:22by Central America quite a bit. They
16:25were in addition to building pyramids
16:28they practice human sacrifice which is
16:30something not common at all in North
16:32America. they you know their art was
16:35very similar to what we see in uh in
16:38Meso America. So likely there was some
16:41kind of contact between these societies
16:43that led to this cultural characteristic
16:47spreading here. Now much like what
16:50happened to the Anazi these people will
16:53grow too big for their own good and
16:56their societies collapse by the 1300s.
16:59So something that had been growing
17:01growing growing for quite a while meets
17:04with the same consequences of
17:05environmental catastrophe around the
17:081300s.
17:10So the point for telling you all this is
17:12just to show you the tremendous variety
17:15of American Indian life before contact
17:18with Europeans.
17:20how you could have um smallcale
17:24egalitarian hunting and gathering
17:26without rich and powerful and poor
17:28people just where everybody share the
17:30same resources.
17:32You could have smallcale farming life.
17:36You could have largecale farming society
17:39with the nobility with cities with so
17:43point being there was no single American
17:46Indian lifestyle. They were a whole
17:48bunch very different from one another
17:51almost probably more different from one
17:53another than let's say a large scale
17:55farming society in the America was from
17:58a large scale farming society in Europe.
18:01Um so that's something that's worth
18:03emphasizing. So kind of to dispel this
18:06idea that all Native American lifestyles
18:08were the same.
18:10Having said all this, we will wrap this
18:13first lecture up and I just wish you a
18:16good day in the meantime.

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