G10 History Period 1
Contents
Period 1 Review 32,000 BCE–1607 CE
1. Big Picture
- Time: 32,000 BCE–1607 CE (Very large span of time)
- America was already full of people. After Columbus, plants, animals, diseases, and people start to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
Note
English has one word to mean “Across the Atlantic Ocean”:
Transatlantic
2. Some Native Groups with the type of Information You Must Know (about the tribe you did the project on)
| Name | Place | Housing | Known For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Algonquians | Northeast USA | Wigwams (wood & bark) | First to trade with English, fur |
| Cherokee | South Appalachia | Longhouses | Big farms, later made their own writing system |
| Chinook | Northwest USA | Cedar plank houses | Salmon, totem poles |
| Comanche | South Plains | Tipis | Horse culture developed later, trade roads |
| Hopi | Southwest USA | Adobe | Dry farming, kachina dolls |
| Inuit | Arctic | Igloos / skin tents | Harpoons, kayaks |
| Iroquois | Northeast USA | Longhouses | 5-nation union (later 6), women choose chiefs |
| Mohawk | Northeast USA | Longhouses | Eastern door guards |
| Muscogee | Southeast USA | Wattle-daub houses | Powerful SE nation, matrilineal clans |
| Navajo | Southwest USA | Hogans (6-side logs) | Sheep, weaving |
| Pueblo & Zuni | Southwest USA | Adobe pueblos | Maize, kivas |
| Sioux | The Great Plains | Tipis | Bison, horse culture developed later |
| Wampanoag | Northeast USA | Wetu (bark) | Helped Pilgrims |
3. European Exploration
- Spain: Gold, God, and Glory
- Portugal: Asian spices, gold (from Africa), and sugar islands.
- France: Fur trade (too late to the party for gold)
- England: Land, religious freedom
- The Netherlands: Trade and commerce (The Dutch West Indies Corporation was one of the first corporations in the world and was created to trade in the islands of the Caribbean)
- New Tools: compasses, astrolabes (for telling time [remember with “clock”]), and caravels, (also guns).
4. Spanish Encomienda System
- The Spanish king gives land and any Native people living on that land to a Spanish soldier or settler.
- The encomendero (person who owns the encomienda) must:
- Teach Spanish and Catholicism
- Protect the Natives
- The encomendero can
- Take workers for farming, mining, or building (much like slavery)
- Collect tribute (corn, cloth, gold)
- Natives are beaten, over-worked, killed, and die from European diseases. Many run away. Replaced by African slaves.
- Native Population drops 50–90%. Spanish king makes New Laws (1542) (thanks to Bartolome de las Casas) to stop abuse, but settlers ignore the laws.
5. Columbian Exchange
Old World → New World Horses, pigs, wheat, sugar, smallpox, influenza, African slaves
New World → Old World maize, potato, tomato, tobacco, cacao, LOTS of silver
Results:
- China (Ming Dynasty) gets a lot more silver from Europe. Inflation (通货膨胀) worldwide.
- Europe population grows (more food).
- Africa loses people to slave trade and more wars (because Europeans traded guns for African slaves, and West African kingdoms got the slaves they sold from prisoners of war)
6. West African Kingdoms & Triangle Trade
Kingdoms before 1607:
- Ghana, Mali, Songhai (latest and biggest) had gold and salt.
- Mali king Mansa Musa gave out so much gold on pilgrimage that he caused inflation and made Europeans think of Africa as the place with rich kings.
Triangle Trade:
- Europe sends guns & cloth to West Africa.
- African traders send enslaved people to Americas.
- Europeans in the Americas send sugar, silver, gold, and tobacco to Europe.
7. Important Years
- pre-1491: Pre-Columbian societies (no Europeans yet)
- 1492: Columbus lands in the Bahamas
- 1494: Treaty of Tordesillas (they did not know how much Spain was getting)
- 1521: Cortés beats the Aztecs while running from the law
- 1535: Pizarro beats the Inca (who were in a civil war)
- 1542: New Laws try to protect Natives after Bartolome de las Casas
- 1607: Jamestown founded (start of Period 2)
8. Must-Know Vocabulary
| English | Simple Meaning | 中文小提示 |
|---|---|---|
| Maize | Corn | 玉米 |
| Tipi | Bison-skin tent | 印第安帐篷 |
| Longhouse | 20-family house | 长屋 |
| Encomienda | Spanish system to get Native people to work | 委托监护制 |
| Columbian Exchange | Trade between the “New World” and “Old World” | 哥伦布大交换 |
| Triangle Trade | Europe-Africa-America trade of guns, slaves, and New-World goods | 三角贸易 |
| Smallpox | Deadly disease | 天花 |
| Syncretism | Mixing religion and culture | 文化融合 |
9. How to Answer Short-Answer Questions (SAQ)
How SAQs Work
SAQs will include three parts: A, B, and C and will include task verbs.
| Task Verb | What it Means | How to Earn the Point |
|---|---|---|
| Describe | Provide the characteristic features of something. | Give a detailed account. No analysis is needed, just accurate facts. Example Prompt: “Describe one reason for the construction of the Great Wall of China during the Qin Dynasty.” Good Answer: “One reason was to protect the Chinese states from invasions by nomadic groups from the north, such as the Xiongnu.” |
| Explain | Give reasons or causes; show the relationship between things. | You must provide a “because” statement. This requires more than just identification. Example Prompt: “Explain how the Silk Road contributed to cultural exchange.” Good Answer: “The Silk Road contributed to cultural exchange because it allowed for the transfer of goods, ideas, and technologies, such as Buddhism traveling from India to China and papermaking technology spreading from China to the West.” |
| Identify | Simply name or list. | This is the most straightforward task. Provide a specific piece of historical information. Example Prompt: “Identify one major dynasty that ruled China after the Han Dynasty.” Good Answer: “The Tang Dynasty was a major dynasty that ruled after the Han.” |
| Support or Explain how evidence supports | Use a specific historical detail to back up a given argument. | First, provide a specific piece of evidence. Then, clearly connect it to the argument provided in the prompt. Example Prompt: “Briefly explain how ONE specific historical development supports the idea that Qin Shi Huang was a ruler who centralized power.” Good Answer: “The standardization of the Chinese writing system supports this idea because it replaced the various scripts of the former warring states with a single uniform script, which allowed the central government to administer the entire empire more effectively.” |
Example
SAQ about the Three Kingdoms period in China:
a. Identify one of the three kingdoms.
b. Explain one cause for the collapse of the Han Dynasty that led to this period.
c. Briefly explain how The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a useful source for historians studying this period, and one problem historians might have with the source.
Answer (a)
Full-credit answer: “One kingdom was Shu Han, led by Liu Bei.”
Why it gets credit: It gives one clear answer (Shu). That is all the question asks.
Part (b)
Full-credit answer: “The Han Dynasty fell partly because the Yellow Turban Rebellion started. Many poor farmers fought the army, so the government lost power and money.”
Why it gets credit: It gives a cause and tells the result in simple words.
Part (c)
Full-credit answer: “The book Romance of the Three Kingdoms helps us learn the names of leaders and battles, but it is a novel, so some parts are not true.”
Why it gets credit: It shows one good point and one problem.
How I will grade your SAQs:
| Task Verb | What You Must Do | Why You Get the Point |
|---|---|---|
| Identify | Name one clear fact | I can circle the fact |
| Describe | Tell key features | I see details |
| Explain | Give a “because” reason | I can underline the reason |
| Support | Use fact + link to argument | I see a fact AND a link |
10. How LEQs Work
Task Verb: Evaluate
- What you must do: Say how important something is.
- Thesis pattern: “X mattered a lot because of reason 1 and reason 2, even though there was one problem.”
- Short example: Prompt: Did the Qin laws help unite China? Thesis: The Qin laws helped unite China in the short term by giving one set of rules to every town, yet they also made people angry and the dynasty soon fell.
Task Verb: Compare
- What you must do: Show one way two things are alike and one way they are different; say why this mattered.
- Thesis pattern: “A and B were alike in way 1, but they were different in way 2, and this difference gave different results.”
- Short example: Prompt: Compare Rome and Han China control methods. Thesis: Both used strong central governments and roads, yet Rome let outsiders become citizens while Han China did not, so Rome had a harder time keeping its borders calm.
Task Verb: Causation
- What you must do: Give causes or effects and say which one was biggest.
- Thesis pattern: “Event X happened mainly because of cause A and cause B, and cause A was the strongest.”
- Short example: Prompt: Give effects of the Silk Road. Thesis: The Silk Road spread paper making west, brought Buddhism into China, and helped trade grow across continents.
Task Verb: Continuity and Change Over Time (CCOT)
- What you must do: Say what stayed the same and what changed; give the reason for the change.
- Thesis pattern: “Thing 1 stayed the same, but thing 2 changed, and this change happened because of reason Y.”
- Short example: Prompt: How did women’s lives change in the Mediterranean from 500 BCE to 500 CE? Thesis: Women still worked mostly at home, yet new Christian ideas and property rules let a few women own land by 500 CE.
How I will Grade Your LEQs
| Rubric Part | What You Must Do | Why You Get the Point |
|---|---|---|
| Thesis | Clear answer to prompt | I can highlight one sentence |
| Context | Bigger background sentence | I see time/place before topic |
| Evidence (2 points) | Specific names/dates | 1 point: I can count two facts. 2 points: The two facts support your thesis. |
| Reasoning | Shows cause, change, or compare | I see “so/because/however” |
| Complex | Shows both sides or long effect | I see “although” or second result |
11. Practice Questions
SAQ 1
- Identify ONE crop Native Americans gave to Europe.
- Explain ONE effect of smallpox on Native Americans.
- Provide ONE reason African kingdoms joined the slave trade.
SAQ 2
- Identify one specific type of housing used by Native Americans in one environmental region of North America.
- Describe one way the food sources available to Native American groups in the Northeast differed from those available to groups in the Southwest.
- Explain one reason why the environment was important for Native American people before European contact.
LEQ
Evaluate the extent to which the Columbian Exchange changed Native American life in 1491–1607. (Use at least 3 evidence: disease, horses, maize, guns, etc.)
Step-by-Step LEQ/SAQ Plan
Step 1: Read the Question Twice. Underline the task word.
Step 2: Make an outline.
- 3 bullet points for SAQ (A, B, C)
- 3 body paragraphs for LEQ (thesis + 3 groups of evidence)
Step 3: Use “PEEL” for each paragraph.
- Point: one clear sentence answers the question.
- Evidence: give a specific fact (name, date, place).
- Explanation: why does this fact prove your point?
- Link: connect back to the prompt or transition to the next paragraph.
Step 4: Proofread
- Do you have one idea per sentence?
- Did you use past tense?
- Did you answer ALL parts?
- Did you use at least 3 pieces of evidence?