Summary of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The birthplace of agriculture and the cities that followed, America is ancient, not a new world. The same human societies began domesticating animals in the American continents, while in Africa and Asia, animal husbandry was avoided in favor of game management.
#2 Indigenous American agriculture was based on corn, which was a sacred gift from their gods. It could not have grown without centuries of cultural and commercial exchange between the peoples of North, Central, and South America.
#3 The population of the Americas was around one hundred million at the end of the fifteenth century, with about two-fifths in North America. Central Mexico alone supported some thirty million people. The population of Europe as far east as the Ural Mountains was around fifty million.
#4 The first great cultivators of corn were the Mayans, who were initially centered in present-day northern Guatemala and the Mexican state of Tabasco. They built city-states as far south as Belize and Honduras.

Sujets

• Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 18 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669386605
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The birthplace of agriculture and the cities that followed, America is ancient, not a new world. The same human societies began domesticating animals in the American continents, while in Africa and Asia, animal husbandry was avoided in favor of game management.

#2

Indigenous American agriculture was based on corn, which was a sacred gift from their gods. It could not have grown without centuries of cultural and commercial exchange between the peoples of North, Central, and South America.

#3

The population of the Americas was around one hundred million at the end of the fifteenth century, with about two-fifths in North America. Central Mexico alone supported some thirty million people. The population of Europe as far east as the Ural Mountains was around fifty million.

#4

The first great cultivators of corn were the Mayans, who were initially centered in present-day northern Guatemala and the Mexican state of Tabasco. They built city-states as far south as Belize and Honduras.

#5

The Mayan and Toltec civilizations were both centered in the Valley of Mexico, and they both built massive cities. The Aztec empire was based on hydraulic agriculture, with corn as the central crop. The Aztecs also grew tobacco and cotton, and they had a dense population that was concentrated in large urban centers.

#6

The Aztecs were a thriving culture and economy, but their dominance was declining on the eve of Spanish intrusion. The Mexican state was crushed and its cities leveled in Cortés’s three-year genocidal war.

#7

The American Southwest was once the home of the Hohokam people, who built an extensive canal system that irrigated their farmland. The Anasazi people, who were ancestors of the Pueblos of New Mexico, constructed more than four hundred miles of roads radiating out from Chaco Canyon.

#8

The prehistoric Caribbean was home to many different cultures and ethnic groups. The island peoples of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Basin were an integral part of the cultural, religious, and economic exchanges with the peoples from today’s Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

#9

The Haudenosaunee confederacy, which was a federal state structure made up of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, was made up of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk Nations. They avoided centralized power by means of a clan-village system of democracy based on collective stewardship of the land.

#10

Indigenous governance varied from nation to nation, but generally consisted of a council of elders from prominent clans who would make decisions based on consensus.

#11

The roles of women in eastern North American societies varied. Among the Muskogees and other southern nations, women hardly participated in governmental affairs. In contrast, certain female lineages controlled the choice of male representatives for their clans in their governing councils.

#12

Indigenous peoples had established extensive trade networks and roads by the time of European invasions, and they had adapted to specific natural environments, but they also adapted nature to suit human ends.

#13

The first thing to note about the Native American trails and roads in the Americas is that they were not just paths following animal tracks. They were an extensive system of roadways that spanned the Americas, making it possible for short, medium, and long distance travel.

#14

The link between the North and the South can be seen in the diffusion of corn from Mesoamerica. The peoples of the corn retain great affinities under the crust of colonialism.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The first population that was exploited overseas was the European peasantry, who were forced off their land and had nothing to eat but their labor. Colonization and the profit motive led to the terrorization of entire nations, such as Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Bohemia, the Basque Country, and Catalonia.