What was the economy of North America like in the late 1400s and early 1500s prior to European exploration and settlement? Archeological evidence and the accounts of the first Europeans to arrive provide some idea of the number of natives and the prevailing economic relationships.
The first Americans came across the Bering Strait from Asia over 20,000 years ago. These early people were hunter-gatherers living in small groups and moving more or less continuously over a range of a hundred miles to exploit seasonal foods and in pursuit of game. The population grew and dispersed over the entire continent. Estimates of the native population north of the Rio Grande in the years before European contact vary widely (from as little as 2 million to as many as 18 million). Most modern estimates fall in the 7 to 12 million range, with 10 million the number experts give most frequently.
Over time, groups adapted to local conditions and different economic systems emerged in different regions of North America. By the 1400s, there were six main patterns or economic regions. Each contained several tribes whose cultures might differ in other ways but who had chosen fairly similar responses to the basic economic questions of what and how to produce and how to distribute the goods. The six regions — the Pacific Coast, the Basin-Plateau area, the Plains, the Southwest, the Mississippi cultures of the Southeast, and the Eastern Woodlands— are shown on the map below. The tribes living in the first three areas continued the hunter- gatherer lifestyle, although the abundance of the west coast allowed for permanent settlements. The tribes living in the Southwest, Southeast and Eastern Woodlands, however, evolved into agricultural communities, cultivating crops of corn, squash and beans.
THE GREAT PLAINS
Many anthropologists think the first people to arrive were hunters in pursuit of large land mammals. The tribes of the Great Plains continued a lifestyle centered around the pursuit of a large mammal, the American bison, even after the arrival of Europeans.
With the coming of spring, bands of 50 to 100 people moved from their winter camps onto the grassy plains when the bison fed. Disguised with animal pelts, hunters would try to creep close enough to kill some of the younger or slower animals among those stopped at watering holes. They also found locations with steep cliffs within the bisons' range. Here they would build brush walls leading up to the cliff and a corral at the bottom.
Yelling and flapping blankets, the band would cause the bison to stampede toward the cliff. Some would be unable to turn away and would plunge to their deaths at the bottom. Others would be sufficiently stunned or confused by the corral that hunters could easily approach them to complete the kill. The band would then spend several days feasting and processing the meat, hides and bone. The meat was dried for winter consumption and hides were scraped and later used to make winter cloaks and lodge covers. Bones and horns were also saved for shaping into knives, scrapers, awls, and ladles. No one was compelled to take part in these activities and sometimes a family or other group would split off from one band and join another. Generally the advantages of cooperation and informal social pressures were sufficient to ensure participation.
During the summer months, the band followed the bison, with some other stops to harvest berries or other plants from moister spots. During these summer months of frequent travel, the band lived in tepees of hide stretched over wooden poles. Before European contact, the tribes of the Great Plains had no horses. People pursued the bison on foot and had to carry their goods or pull bundles of goods strapped between two poles. Dogs were sometimes harnessed to these travois instead. The frequent moves and lack of pack animals deterred people from acquiring many goods.
During the winter months, most bands moved off the cold, windy plains to more sheltered areas at the foot of the rocky mountains or in wooded river valleys to the east. The tribe would come together in a winter village of warm pit houses constructed by setting wooden posts in a shallow pit and covering the framework with dirt. During this time, they lived on previously-stored dried bison, supplemented with local small game.
The tribes on the eastern edge of the plains traded bison meat and hides to the agricultural people of the Mississippi valley in exchange for some of their vegetables and other items not available on the plains. Over times, some tribes supplemented their bison hunts with crops left to grow in the river valleys that served as the winter camp sites. Except for some of the valleys of the Missouri river and its tributaries, most of the plains were too dry to successfully grow most crops then known.
The introduction of horses following the arrival of the Spanish changed the plains economies substantially, allowing tribes with horses to move into territories traditionally claimed by others and greatly increasing the ability of native hunters to kill bison and transport the meat and hides back to camp.
THE BASIN AND PLATEAU AREAS
The tribes of the Great Basin (the area between the Cascades and Sierra Nevada Mountains to the west and the Rocky Mountains to the east) faced the most difficult challenges to sustaining life. As a result of a dry climate and short growing season, the areas was not suitable for cultivation of maize or the other domesticated plants. Native vegetation was sparse and did not support herds of large mammals. The area could support only small numbers of people who survived by utilizing a wide variety of plants and animals.
People lived in small family groups. The women gathered seeds and insects which they roasted and ground into flour. They also collected cattails, willow branches, juniper bark and other plant materials to make rush sandals and skirts and tightly woven baskets which they used as hats and as lightweight and portable storage containers. The men set snares or used bows and arrows to kill small mammals. Those living near water speared fish or trapped them in long wicker baskets.
In the fall, the different families of the tribe would cooperate in a rabbit drive. Yelling and beating the ground with clubs, the men drove the rabbits into a corral made by piling up brush or by staking woven nets in a wide circle. Some animals were clubbed to death during the rush; others became trapped in the nets and killed later. Not only did the drive provide a quantity of meat for roasting and drying but the skins were cut into strips and woven into war fur blankets and cloaks. The harsh conditions limited the rabbit population so the tribe had to limit the number of drives and change their location from year to year in order to let populations recover. Groups living near places attractive to waterfowl used a similar technique to ensnare the birds in their nets.
Fall was also the time for harvesting their most important food, pinyon (pine) nuts. Family members worked together to pull the just-ripening cones off the trees with hooked willow branches. The cones were roasted to open them so the nuts could be extracted. The nuts themselves were then roasted to crack the shells and dry the nuts which were then stored dry or ground into flour. Food was stored in baskets in grass-lined pits near the family's winter camp site.
Men from families living near the edges of the region also supplemented the winter food supplies by hunting deer or elk in the nearby mountains. Similarly, tribes in the norther plateau area tended to locate winter homes along major rivers and to depend to a greater extent on harvesting annual salmon and other fish runs, on hunting deer, and on root crops. In these relatively richer areas, families generally did not need to travel over as wide an area as their Basin neighbors. Indeed, by the time Europeans arrived in the U.S., many were engaging in regular trade with the coastal tribes down river and the plateau lifestyle at that time contained elements from both basin and coastal cultures.
THE PACIFIC COAST
The tribes that settled along the Pacific Coast (between the ocean and the Cascades/Sierra Nevada Mountains) had a relatively high standard of living compared to many other tribes. The coastal areas were (and still are) rich in food sources, including many--fish, shellfish, and seaweed— which were available throughout the year. From the San Francisco area northward, these were supplemented by large seasonal runs of salmon, steelhead, and herring. Over time, as people accumulated knowledge about the tides and the timing of fish runs and developed new ways of preserving fish (by smoking them), the amount of usable food they could extract from the ocean increased. Deer, elk, beaver, and rabbits provided additional sources of animal protein, especially in more inland locations. Edible plants were also abundant: in addition to over 40 kinds of fruits and berries, camas and wapato provided edible bulbs or rhizomes. In spite of the laborious processing required, acorns were an important and highly nutritious component in the diet of many California tribes. Seeds, however, were usually ignored in favor of more easily gathered and processed foods. Abundant timber resources provided wood for tools, canoes, and houses, bark for mats and clothing, roots for making nets, and fuel for heating and cooking.
With this abundance, people could feed themselves year-round with what they could gather within a day's journey of what became permanent villages. People built houses by excavating a rectangular pit about 4 feet deep. Forked posts were placed around the edge to support roof beams. The structure was then covered with cedar planks made with a variety of wood-working tools of polished stone. The houses, which might be as much as 60 to 100 feet in length and 35 to 40 feet wide, sheltered up to 4 families. South of San Francisco, where timber was less abundant, the frames were usually covered with dirt or brush, not planks.
When they were not engaged in communal activities such as harvesting the salmon, most men hunted with bows and arrows or used hook and lines or spears to capture non-migratory species of fish. Women collected seaweed, berries and nuts or used wooden digging sticks to find camas or other roots. They also wove thin pieces of cedar bark to other materials into mats and clothing. Although the coastal tribes manipulated natural resources by removing competing plants from around favorite berry bushes, for example, they never adopted the agricultural lifestyle of their neighbors in the Southwest, even where the climate permitted.
The relative abundance freed some people from the daily routine of acquiring food and permitted them to specialize in the production of tools and households objects, the crafting of elaborate wood carvings or the production of ornaments of copper, amber, shell or gems. The artisans spent ordinary days pursuing their craft and then traded the output for food. Others doctored the sick with herbal remedies and spiritual help.
Still others were skilled traders. Coastal tribes maintained extensive trading networks, especially among the tribes of the Puget sound area, among those in the Columbia River basin, and those surrounding San Francisco Bay. The Chinook, from their prime position near the mouth of the Columbia, played such an important role in regional trade networks that the Chinook language became the common language various tribes used when trading. The Chinook traded dried salmon and other fish, sea otter furs, and blubber oil to up-stream tribes for wapata and camas roots, elk and deer meat, and obsidian; they acquired shellfish and shell beads from other coastal tribes. Frequent trades were facilitated by the development of shell money beads. In the Northwest these were made of dentalium shells, while in California strings of clam shell beads acted as a medium of exchange. Tribal trades would sell their excess products for shell money because they knew they could take those beads elsewhere and use them to purchase other goods. Not only did such trades make new goods available to their tribe but the profits increased the trader's personal wealth.
These skilled craftsmen and traders constituted an additional class that ranked below the hereditary elite and above the common people. Those who accumulated sufficient wealth and respect for their talents were able to marry into the elite. Another path to wealth and acclaim was recognized skill and success at gambling, a frequent pastime in many tribes. Those of the elite who squandered their wealth or who married an "ordinary" person lost social status.
Relative abundance also led to increased population. Population densities reached a high of 10.4 people per square mile in the Santa Barbara area (versus 0.5 people per mile in the Basin). Rising population and the drive to accumulate wealth gave rise to occasional conflicts over resources with neighboring groups. Conflict led to demands for payments for trespassing or property damage. Payments and lavish feasts could sometimes settle the dispute. Failure to pay meant a formal battle, wars, or raids on the other villages. Those captured in such raids became slaves and were assigned the more unpleasant tasks such as gathering firewood. The surplus generated by slaves went to their owner, increasing his wealth and social status. Slaves, along with beggars, were the lowest class in any village.
The coastal tribes, then, offer a significant contrast to the hunter-gatherers to the east in the great emphasis they put on the acquisition of wealth, and the class structure of their societies. Economic differences include the greater specialization in production and the use of shell beads as money.
THE SOUTHWEST
Tribes in the three remaining regions were agricultural people. All three areas relied extensively on cultivation of maize (corn), squash, and beans. These crops were domesticated in Central America around 5000 B.C. Maize was developed from a wild grass, teosinte, by consistently selecting seeds from plants with large cobs. Additional cross-fertilizations yielded new varieties with more kernels per cob and better suited for the kinds of growing conditions that prevailed in what was later the U.S. Cultivation of these crops spread northward, reaching portions of what are now Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico by about 500 B.C.
At first the nomadic people planted these crops as a supplement to other food sources and spent little time cultivating the crops. Over time, they began to rely on this more predictable and readily controlled source of food. The primary problem the Southwestern tribes faced in cultivating these plants was the lack of rainfall. The solution was to locate fields in river valleys (canyons) and to dig irrigation ditches to bring water to those plots more distant from the river itself. Some of the vegetables were consumed as they were harvested. The rest were dried and stored in clay containers. Pottery provided better protection for stored grain than baskets but was only practical for sedentary people.
At first families lived in earth-covered pit houses but as these became too small to provide shelter for food processing and adequate storage space, the tribes constructed multi- roomed (and often multi-storied) pueblos from adobe. By constructing the pueblos on the cliffs over-looking the fields on the valley floor, the tribe spared valuable agricultural and better provided for defense from attack.
The Southwestern tribes were unique because they domesticated the wild turkey and raised it for food. The only other domesticated animal in North America was the dog. They also raised cotton which was woven into cloth. It wasn't until the Spanish introduced sheep that wool became an important source of fiber for blankets and clothing.
Climate change in the 1300s shortened the growing season and some of the pueblos were abandoned. By this time, people traveling along the trade routes of the Southwest had carried the culture of corn eastward where it became a staple of both the Southeastern and Eastern Woodlands economies.
EASTERN WOODLANDS
The natives of the woodlands north of South Carolina were descendants from the same Algonquian line. Although organized into different tribes (see map below), their languages and cultures were similar. Each tribe had a well-recognized territory typically centered on one river's drainage system.
Except in the most northern areas of Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, these were agricultural people. They lived in scattered villages of 20 to 30 houses located near good sources of water and firewood. Individual houses were constructed by saplings set in the ground, bent and tied to form a dome-shaped frame . Strips of bark were sewn together to form mats to cover
the frame and provide a home for 1 or 2 families. Some tribes built larger longhouses that housed several families. Villages were relocated every 10 years or so when firewood supplies dwindled and soil fertility declined.
Each family would have the use of a nearby plot of land to cultivate; in addition, some land was cultivated in common for the use of the chief or to store for traditional offerings of hospitality. The men used fire to clear the land for cultivation. The women scooped the soil into small hills which they planted with corn, beans and squash. The corn stalks served as bean poles and the dense vegetation discouraged weeds, preserved soil moisture, and increased yields resulting from a given effort. An individual woman could cultivate an acre or two and produce 25 to 60 bushels of corn, providing about half the calories needed for a family of 5.
Fruits and nuts, fish and game were also a part of the Algonquian diet. Early European visitors described large berry fields which seemed the result of some conscious effort of clearing out competing plants or moving plants to a favorable location if not actual cultivation. Similarly, brush was cleared from around fruit and nut trees, usually by a controlled burn. Fire was also used to clear the underbrush from nearby forests to make it easier to hunt birds and small mammals. Periodically the whole village or tribe would travel to nearby rivers to snare migrating fish or birds or to the shore to gather clams. After the fall harvest, they would journey up the river to the winter camp to hunt deer, moose, or bear, to supplement the smaller game caught closer to home. Food was dried or smoked before storage in underground pits lines with grasses.. During the remainder of the winter, the women made clothing or wove baskets while the men made arrows, tools, or carved wooden bowls and utensils. The varied diet and absence of any herds of domesticated animals meant that the Algonquian peoples were healthy and relatively disease-free. Early European visitors commented on the natives' long, straight limbs and their strong white teeth.
The tribes were largely self-sufficient. Some trading occurred when neighboring tribes met at rivers for spring fishing or during the summer at selected spots on the shore. The tribes traded their northern neighbors corn for furs and copper brought via trade from the Great Lakes area. They traded inland tribes dried fish and shells for deer skins or meat. While some exchanges reflect bartering for goods not found locally, others were gifts made to cement friendly relations. The bartering was incidental to the functioning of the tribal economies as it did not lead the tribes to specialize in the production of goods to trade. Within each tribe the division of labor was based on sex and age, with the women cultivating the vegetable gardens, gathering berries and nuts, and preparing the food--tasks that were compatible with child-rearing. Women were also the potters and basket-makers. Men cleared the fields, tended the tobacco, hunted, fished, made the tools and wooden utensils. One of the larger tribes, the Narragansetts, apparently had some members who specialized in the production of arrows or clay pots. Each tribe was governed by a chief (sachem) and subordinate "sagamores" in each village. These positions were usually hereditary through the mother's line, although ability to command respect of the tribe was also important. The chief did not have much power to impose his will but governed by consulting the wishes of the council of tribal elders. The Algonquian tribes of Virginia and North Carolina were exceptions as they had a more hierarchial system that gave more power to the chief.
The tribes and the villages within them had well-defined territories which they defended against invaders. The rights to the land within the territory were more complex. Individual families had the use of a certain patch of agricultural land and therefore the rights to the corn and other produce they could produce. However, other villagers and even others from within the larger tribe still retained the right to use that patch of land for other purposes such as hunting birds or collecting wild plants. Several villages and sometimes more than one tribe might have well-recognized rights to fish at a particular site regardless of which village's territory the site was in. One could exchange the rights to one use of the land without affecting other rights to the same land. Individuals also possessed whatever items they produced with their own hands. Amassing many goods was not a priority given the yearly move to winter camps. Indeed, one's social status was determined by how much he was willing to give away as gifts.
THE IROQUOIANS
The term Iroquois generally refers to five tribes from New York (the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca) which formed a confederacy sometime between the mid 1400s and the mid 1500s. Other tribes in the St. Lawrence valley, around Lake Ontario, and Pennsylvania had a similar language and culture but were not part of the confederacy. The Tuscarora, an Iroquoian tribe from Virginia and North Carolina, moved north in the early 1700s and became the sixth tribe in the confederacy.
Although the Iroquoian people also raised the same crops as the Algonquians, hunting played a somewhat greater role in their society. They lived in longhouses, structures 25 feet wide and 80 to 200 feet long. Inside were three to five fire sites, each one shared by two nuclear families. These families were typically members of the same maternal family (i.e., those descended from the same woman). Large villages of 30 to 150 longhouses were located not far from navigable water and surrounded by a wooden palisade for protection.
The Iroquois had a complicated political structure based on clans consisting of two or more maternal families. The senior women of a clan chose its chief; these chiefs met in council to set local policy. The Iroquois were a warlike people who engaged in frequent wars with each other and with the Mahican to the east, the Huron to the north, and later with the Delaware and Susquehannock to the south. William Fenton (in the Smithsonian's Handbook) says, "Iroquois men revered war above all else....the activities of raising a war party, setting out, conducting the campaign, taking scalps and prisoners, and the return fulfilled ritual patterns in a sequence that made a ceremony, if not a game, of warfare." Prisoners provided slave labor to replace those lost at war. The Confederacy was formed to honor each other's leaders and to resolve disputes in order to avoid the losses the wars between the tribes inflicted. Wampum belts provided a record of the agreement. Each tribe sent a fixed number of delegates to the Council. The chief sachem was customarily chosen from the Onondaga who were the traditional peacemakers between the Mohawk-Oneida and Cayuga-Seneca factions. Although most authority was retained by the individual tribes, the Confederacy council became more important as contacts with Europeans increased.
THE MISSISSIPPIAN CULTURES OF THE SOUTHEAST
A different native culture arose in the Mississippi watershed beginning around 1500 B.C. Natives along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, along the Gulf Coast, and in Georgia and South Carolina were part of a vast network of ceremonial and economic links. Obsidian from the Rocky Mountains, copper from Minnesota, galena (a white pigment) from Illinois, soapstone from Ohio and shells and alligator teeth from the Gulf have been found at archeological sites throughout the region. The unshaded area of the map below represents the boundaries of the area influenced by this culture. Although people in the area continued to share a common "mound- building" culture, by 700 AD most of the links were within the six regions outlined on the map.
Each tribe was ruled by a hereditary "paramount leader" or "Great Sun" whose duty it was to perform various rituals from a temple or palace atop a platform mound located in the principal city of his realm. The other tribe members were nobles related to the Great Sun, a class of principal men or honored people, and commoners. The commoners had to pay tribute in the form of crops or other goods to their local nobles, who in turn, owed tribute to the Great Sun. The people of the tribe also owed him labor for the construction of public works or defense. This system gave the paramount leader control of a large portion of the tribal output. He in turn used this bounty to exchange gifts with leaders of other tribes as symbols of their friendship and alliances. These gift exchanges gave the tribe access to materials (such as salt and galena) and products (shell beads) it would not ordinarily have. The leader was expected to be generous in redistributing some of this tribute to his subjects. Some of the remaining trade goods were used in ceremonial displays. Control of these resources enhanced the leader's power.
The Mississippian peoples lived in towns surrounded by a wooden palisade with watchtowers. The palace mound was against the north wall with a large plaza in front. Smaller, conical burial mounds (containing the bodies of nobles and their goods) surrounded it. The thatched-roof houses of residents and some workshops were also contained within the palisades. The largest city, Cahokia (across the Mississippi from what is now St. Louis), covered 2,000 acres and contained an estimated 120 earthen mounds. The 2-mile long palisades enclosed 400 acres, including the 100 foot high palace mound (see drawing below). At the peak of its power around 1200, an estimated 15,000 to 38,000 people lived in Cahokia.
Although Cahokia's power declined after that, the mound-building culture still thrived on a smaller scale in the other regions. Journals of Spanish explorers describe this culture in some of the southern centers. The following passage [quoted in Shaffer, p. 58] refers to towns in what is now Arkansas:
The city was nearly always located on one of the many rivers or streams making up the Mississippi river system or one of the rivers flowing to the Gulf. Corn, beans, and other crops were typically planted in the rich flood lands. The rivers also provided a means of transporting goods to be traded as part of the series of gift-exchanges. Within the cities, artisans specialized in the making of pottery, baskets, shell beads, hammered copper ornaments, and stone tools. Wood carvers made face masks inlaid with shell, statues and decorated posts for the palaces.
In contrast to the tribes of the Northeast woodlands, the Mississippian tribes were more urban, relied more on trade to get what they needed, supported more specialized labor, and were characterized by a more unequal distribution of wealth and power.
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