State-Building in THE AMERICAS and AFRICA (1200-1450) [AP World History Review, Unit 1 Topics 4-5]

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In this video Heimler continues his survey of AP World History for Unit 1 (1200-1450). Here we take a look at what's happening in the Americas and in Africa.

In the Americas, the Aztecs/Mexicas were thriving in the bustling and cosmopolitan city of Tenochtitlan. In North America the Cahokia were building mounds, and the Chaco and Mesa Verde civilizations were building cities in the sides of cliffs.

In Africa, you don't find centralized governments like you do in other parts of the world. For example, in the Hausa Kingdom you have a federation of states bound loosely by kinship ties.

All of this explains the basics of Unit 1, Topics 4 & 5 in the new AP World History curriculum for 2019-2020.

For the whole Unit 1 playlist, click here:

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[rishitsingh]

Speed notes for State building in the Americas

North America : The first large-scale civilization in North America was the Mississippian Culture.

-They built these huge monumental mounds for religious, ceremonial, or sometimes elite residential purposes.

One of the significant Mississippian Culture folks are the Cahokia

-located : in what is now southern Illinois.
-caste system :The Cahokia had a rigid class system (somewhat like the Hindu caste system).
a )Each town had a ruler called the Great Sun.
b)Under the Great Sun were the priests and nobles.
c)Under the priests and nobles was everyone else: farmers, hunters, merchants, and artisans.
- Decline : Although the Chahokia enjoyed a vibrant culture, sometime around 1450 the whole Cahokia settlement was abandoned, and no one really knows why, although historians speculate that it was because of some kind of environmental disaster like a flood.

South West America :
-Chaco and Mesa Verde civilizations.
-Scratched out a living in a very arid and treeless portion of our fair land.
- therefore they had no wood to build homes.
-Instead they built homes and towns in the side of cliffs out of bricks and other building
materials.
-Both of these groups had thriving civilizations for a good long time
-Decline: but by 1300 the climate got drier and both groups went extinct.

Central America:
-Aztecs, also known as Mexicas
-Founded a magnificent capital city called Tenochtitlan in 1325(located roughly where current day Mexico City is located).
-This city was magnificent with its ziggurats and bustling marketplaces.
-Even Europeans were astonished at its beauty.
- Architecture and city planning: multiple cities and villages built in the water and town on dry land, towers and cues and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry.
- Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain made a famous statement on the same
-From this city center, the Aztecs conquered much of Mesoamerica.
-Method of state-building :
a)The Aztecs controlled their subjects by means of a tribute system administered by a local
governor.
b)The tribute system was essentially a payment that conquered people had to make to the Aztecs for the privilege of remaining conquered.
c)The tribute collected could be money, land, military service, or goods and services.
d)This arrangement allowed the Aztecs to exercise political dominance over distant lands without being directly and locally involved.

[cameron]

Your videos are a lot clearer than our textbooks

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When school is down he becomes my teacher to pass this test

[helenchen]

Your videos does an astonishing job to help students review for world history by directly organizing information under the essential questions of APWH CED. For example, you would talk of how the Aztecs conquered people and taken tribute from them, and explicitly establish it under the umbrella of state building. This grouping and explicit connection between subject and content helps students effectively organize information in a structure that's directly beneficial to taking the exam.

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[talenci]

To anyone who needs notes on:


State building in Africa

- By 1000 most of the sub-Saharan Africans had adopted agriculture, but they did not form centralized government like a lot of other civilizations did.
- They organized themselves into kin-based networks. Each network was led by a chief, groups of villages that were geographically clustered were connected in loosed federations. The chiefs from those regional federations formed councils to solve the regions problems.
- A great example of Africa state building: the Hausa Kingdom.
- Sometime before 100 the Hausa ethnic group formed seven states which were connected by kinship ties
- Even so, the sates had no cultural authority but each state specialized.
- For example the states that were located in the plains had the land and climate for farming, so they become the agriculturists
- The westernmost states specialized in military tactics and therefore provided defense for the rest of the states
- The Hausa kingdom benefited tremendously from the Trans-Saharan trade system, these trade routes brough Muslims into west Africa and by the 1300 the Hausa Kingdom was largely Muslims.
- The Hausa kingdom is a good example of what the rest of the sub-Saharan Africa was like.
- Wherever governments existed, they were not centralized governments ruling over large empires instead they almost always small communities organized by kinship ties.
- Culturally, the men were usually found doing the jobs required skilled labor like blacksmithing.
- The women oversaw the farming and domestic duties of the home.

Literature in Africa

- Literature existed in African societies, but it was largely oral in nature.
- One of the most significant members of any African society was the griot or griottes. They were the story tellers who housed within themselves the history and narratives and the lineage of the tribe to which they belonged and they had sort of a prophetic type presence among people: it was said that a griot could sing your destruction or your prosperity

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[thewallnearyou]

Summary:
-In North America, there was the Mississippian Culture, in which people has a rigid class system and built large-scale monuments on mounds
-In Southwestern America, there were the Chaco and Mes Verde civilizations, who, due to living in a dry and treeless climate, built homes and towns on the sides of cliffs using bricks and other materials
-In Central America, there were the Aztecs that has the bustling capital of Tenochtitian and controlled their subjects using the tribute system, which enabled them to easily exercise political power without being directly involved
-In Africa, the people organized themselves into kin-ship networks in which there was no centralized power and each state would be specialized in something

[laurenk]

who else is here because this is their online school assignment?

[ecsherman]

I was today years old when I realized Heimler took out the intro