Lesson+2+Activities

Activities Plants and Animals 1. What differences would you expect the introduction of new kinds of plants and animals to make in the places where they became newly established? What advantages did they bring to the lives of the peoples to which they were introduced? Referring to Student Handouts 1.1 and 2.1, what evidence is there for any differences they made?

2. What reasons can you give why European domestic animals in America multiplied far faster than they did in their native habitats? Consider food supply, competition, and predation.

3. Compare Student Handout 2.2, Documents 1 and 2. Consider the reasons why transplanting the crops mentioned here was undertaken. Who did it, how, and with what results? Who benefited and how? Are there other ways that you can think of that plants and animals could have been introduced to one side or other of the Atlantic? What?

4. Compare the movement of peoples from Europe to the Americas, from the Americas to Afroeurasia, and from Africa to the Americas during the period of about 1500 to 1650. How did these movements differ? In what way(s) were they similar? Consider who initiated the trans-Atlantic crossings, the reasons for the crossing in each of the three cases, the numbers involved, the kinds of people making the crossing, and whether the crossing was one-way only or not. What reasons can you give for the differences and the similarities?

5. Compare European attitudes towards Native Americans, on the one hand, and Africans brought to the Americas, on the other. In what ways were they different? In what ways were they similar? What reasons for the differences could you suggest?

6. What was there in the recent experiences or cultural traditions of the Spanish and English regarding peoples different from themselves on the eve of the crossings to the Americas that might have influenced their attitudes towards Native Americans or Africans? What is there in the relatively recent experiences of Americans today with peoples different from themselves that might have influenced their attitudes towards people of Iraq from 2003 to the present?

7. Explain what you think the consequences might have been of few women among Europeans relative to men moving to the Americas in the sixteenth century.

8. List as many reasons as you can for the increasing demand for imported African slaves in America before 1650. Why was there increasing demand for workers of any kind? What were the problems in European eyes with available workers other than African slaves? What did they see as the advantages of using African slaves?

9. What changes in African slaves’ numbers and experience in America from 1492 to 1650 can you identify?

10. What impact would leaving home and crossing to a new continent have had on the people involved in each of the cases in Question 9? How, if at all, would moving to a new continent have differed from moving elsewhere within their home country?

Products 11. In what ways did Spanish America’s imports and exports change from 1493 to 1650? In what ways did they remain the same? How would you explain the changes and continuities?

12. What reasons can you give for the important part played by silver in the economies of Spain, on the one hand, and China, on the other?

Extension Activity Research modern slavery. Where does it still occur? What forms does it take? How do these forms compare to types of unfreedom imposed by Spaniards on Native Americans, by Africans on each other, and by Europeans on Africans in the Americas? Have definitions of slavery changed? If so, how? What, if anything, do all things referred to as “slavery” have in common?

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