Unit 1: Period 1 (1491–1607)
AP US History: 64 practice questions with detailed explanations.
Unit Study Guide
Executive Summary
Period 1 covers the Americas before European contact and the first century of collision: exploration, the Columbian Exchange, and the labor systems that followed.
Native societies before contact
Before 1491 the Americas held diverse, complex societies: maize-based cultures of the Southwest and Mexico, hunter-gatherers of the Great Plains, fishing societies of the Pacific Northwest, and the mound-building Mississippians of the East. Population estimates run into the tens of millions.
European exploration
Spain, Portugal, France, and England competed for wealth and empire. Columbus's 1492 voyage opened sustained contact; Spain conquered the Aztec and Inca empires and established the encomienda system. France built a fur-trade alliance network; England arrived later at Jamestown.
The Columbian Exchange
Plants, animals, diseases, and people crossed the Atlantic in both directions. American crops (maize, potatoes) transformed Europe; European livestock and wheat transformed the Americas. Old World diseases (smallpox, measles) devastated Native populations, who lacked immunity — the demographic catastrophe that enabled conquest.
Labor systems
The encomienda granted Spanish colonists Native labor; the caste system (castas) stratified Spanish America by race. Africans soon supplemented and replaced Native labor as disease cut Native populations — the origin of the Atlantic slave trade in this period.
Exam traps
The Columbian Exchange was TWO-way — crops went to Europe, diseases to America. 1491, not 1492, marks 'before contact.' Native societies were diverse, not one culture. Disease, more than weapons, conquered the Americas.