September 8, 2014 AP US History
Summer Assignment A
1. The “discovery” of America was one of the “most important events recorded in the history of mankind,” according to Adam Smith. With Columbus arriving, immense changes arrived with it too. Columbus arrived in 1492. No one else has been to the Americas before that except the people from the Bering Strait. The hunters and fishers from the Bering Strait arrived between 15 and 60,000 years ago. While they were here, so were the natives. When Columbus set foot on America, the natives were terrified but not because of them. They were terrified because of the horses they brought with them. They have never seen horses before and didn’t know how to react. When Columbus saw the different foods in America, he decided to trade with them and take the food back home. Thus beginning the Columbian Exchange. Europe got potatoes, corn, and peppers etc. Even though potatoes are indigenous to South America, it’s also a main food source in Ireland. When the other countries heard about the trade, they wanted a piece for themselves too and came down. The French set up in mostly Canada and they had a fur trading business with the Algonquians. Europe had all these new items being sent to them and they just wanted more and more. With that came the Trans-Siberian trade that was with Russia and the triangular trade. Business was now booming and countries were being overpopulated. Europeans were coming over to America and setting up colonies and people who didn’t want to move yet paid people to set up their lands for them. That was known as Indentured Servitude. Flash-forward to present day America and you can see the buildings we have and the exotic foods we have and just about everything else. This was all made possible because of the “discovery” of America (page 6).
2. North America became the location of where the East and West came together. You had people from the West migrating