Pre-1600: Government and Law: Chronology

IMPORTANT EVENTS TO 1600

IMPORTANT EVENTS TO 1600

80,000 - 10,000 b.c.

• The Wisconsin glaciation periodically exposes the Alaskan-Siberian land bridge and opens a path for human entrée into North America.

9000 b.c.

• Paleolithic peoples devise large-scale cooperative hunting efforts such as stampeding bison over cliffs or into arroyos. Native political activity is limited to informal leadership among families and bands.

8000 b.c.

• Archaic era begins and lasts until 1500 b.c.
• Peoples in the Columbia River region increasingly exploit the salmon; some scholars contend that dominant groups charge other peoples a toll to fish the river.

5000 b.c.

• The domestication of plants begins in Central and South America.

3500 b.c.

• The domestication of plants starts in North America.

2600 b.c.

• Expansive trade networks develop in southeast North America. The remains of shells suggest that native groups used trade as a way to develop and maintain diplomatic relations.

2000 b.c.

• The Chumash people of southern California devise a system of exchange based on shell beads.
• Four plants—squash, sunflowers, marsh elder, and chenopodium—are domesticated in eastern North America, leading to the development of larger community populations. Many cultures become more sedentary.

1500-700 b.c.

• Mound-building societies emerge.

1500 b.c.

• Southwestern cultures begin cultivating corn.

1000 b.c.

• The people of the lower Mississippi River reside in ordered communities and build large mounds.

500-100 b.c.

• Adena culture develops in the Ohio River valley.

500 b.c.

• Eastern Woodlands and Plains Woodlands cultures begin to build burial mounds.

300 b.c.

• Hohokam culture emerges in the Southwest.
• Eastern Woodlands societies begin cultivating corn.

100 b.c.-400 a.d.

• The Anasazi culture emerges in the Southwest.

100 b.c.-600 a.d.

• The Hopewell culture flourishes in the great river valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi.

100 b.c.

• Native peoples in present-day Ohio construct the Serpent Mound, a massive public-works project that is more than a thousand feet long and varies in height from three to twenty feet.

1 a.d.

• Eastern Woodlands cultures begin to develop elaborate political hierarchies with increasingly stratified social statuses.

200-900

• The Mogollon Culture develops in present-day New Mexico; some people of the area become more sedentary.

300

• Hohokam Cultures Begin construction of large-scale irrigation systems.

400

• Great Basin Cultures become more sedentary and begin practicing horticulture.

500

• Pacific Northwest Cultures begin to recognize the possession of wealth as significant for social status.

700-1500

• The Mississippian culture develops and thrives in the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys.

800

• Northern Athapaskan peoples, the forerunners of the Navajos and Apaches, migrate into the Great Plains and the Southwest.

800-1100

• Spiro, A Site On the Arkansas River in present-day Oklahoma, becomes a major Mississippian trade center, other cultures in places such as Kincaid, Ohio, emerge around the same time.

950

• Ancestors Of The Hidatsas and Mandans migrate from the area of present-day Minnesota and Iowa to the Missouri River valley on the Great Plains.

1001-1014

• Leif Ericson Explores and settles Newfoundland, making contact with Native Americans.

700-1150

• The Anasazi Culture is replaced by Pueblo culture.

1200-1300

• The Mississippian community of Cahokia declines.

1300-1600

• Temple Mound Civilizations develop in the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio River valleys and other riverine areas of eastern North America.

1325-1500

• The Aztecs Acquire dominance in Mexico.

1400-1500

• The League Of the Iroquois develops.

1488

• Bartholomeu Dias Sails to the Cape of Good Hope.

1492

• Christopher Columbus’s first voyage instigates the continuous European settlement of the Americas.

1493-1496

• Columbus Makes his second voyage and founds Isabella (in present-day Dominican Republic), the first European settlement in the Americas.

1493

• Pope Alexander Vi Issues the Inter Caetera Divinae, granting to Spain all lands discovered one hundred leagues west of the Azores.

1494

• The Treaty Of Tordesillas between Portugal and Spain assigns the previous year’s demarcation line 270 leagues to the west of the Cape Verde Islands.
• Columbus enslaves several hundred Indians and transports them to Spain.

1496

• Bartolomé Columbus, brother of Christopher, establishes Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola, the oldest continuous European settlement in the Americas.

1497

• John Cabot Reaches Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, claiming North America for England; he also makes contact with the Micmac Indians.

1498-1500

• Columbus Makes his third voyage to the Americas.

1501

• Gaspar Corte Real Of Portugal kidnaps fifty Indians and sells them into slavery.

1502-1504

• Columbus Conducts a fourth voyage to the Americas.

1508

• Sebastian Cabot Enters Hudson Bay while searching for the Northwest Passage.

1511

• The Dominican Priest Bartolomé de las Casas criticizes Spanish treatment of Indians.

1512

• Spain Enacts The Laws of Burgos, which place restrictions on Indian labor.
• Pope Julius II declares that Indians are the descendants of Adam and Eve, thereby implying equality with Europeans.

1512-1521

• Juan Ponce De León explores Florida.

1513

• Vasco Núñez de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and views the Pacific Ocean.
• Spain issues the Requerimiento (Requirement), a document justifying the conquest of native peoples.

1519-1521

• Hernando Cortés conquers the Aztecs and Mexico.
• Ferdinand Magellan’s expeditionary fleet circumnavigates the globe.

1524

• Giovanni Da Verrazano explores the north Atlantic coast.

1526

• Lucas VáZquez de Ayllón establishes San Miguel de Gualdape on the Atlantic coast in present-day Georgia.

1528-1536

• Panfilo De Narváez explores the Gulf Coast from present-day Florida to Texas.

1532

• Spanish Lawyer Franciscus de Victoria writes that Native Americans are “the true owners of the New World.”

1534-1542

• Jacques Cartier explores eastern Canada and the St. Lawrence River valley in the name of France.

1537

• Pope Paul Iii Declares that Indians are humans and can be converted to Christianity.

1539

• Franciscus De Victoria lectures at the University of Salamanca and declares that Indians have the same natural rights as Europeans.

1539-1542

• Hernando De Soto explores the Southeast.

1540-1542

• Francisco Vásquez de Coronado explores the Southwest and the Great Plains.

1541-1543

• Jacques Cartier and the Sieur de Roberval make a futile effort to establish a French colony along the St. Lawrence River at Stadacona.

1542

• Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo explores the coast of California.

1549

• Spain Adopts The Repartimiento as a way to reform the encomienda, a system of forced Indian labor.

1559

• Spanish Explorer Tristán de Luna y Arellano visits Coosa in present-day Alabama and finds it depopulated by disease. The main center of Coosa has been reduced from five hundred to fifty houses since de Soto’s visit twenty years earlier.

1563

• A Group Of French Huguenots attempt to establish a colony along the Atlantic coast. The French artist Jacque le Moyne provides some of the earliest drawings of Native Americans. Spanish warships destroy the colony two years later.

1565

• Pedro MenéNdez de Aviles of Spain establishes St. Augustine on the Atlantic coast of present-day Florida.

1570

• Spanish Jesuits Establish a mission in the Chesapeake region.

1576-1578

• English Admiral Martin Frobisher conducts three expeditions to the Atlantic coast.

1577-1579

• Francis Drake sails around the world and explores the coast of California.

1578

• Humphrey Gilbert Obtains a patent to establish a colony in North America.

1582

• Spanish Begin The Settlement of New Mexico.

1585-1587

• Sir Walter Raleigh fails in his attempt to establish an English colony on Roanoke Island.

1587-1590

• Raleigh’s second attempt at colonization on Roanoke Island (the famous Lost Colony) also fails.

1597

• Spain Puts Down A Guale rebellion in Florida.

1598

• Spanish Explorer Juan de Oñate establishes the colony of New Mexico.