Glossary
Causation
A historical thinking skill focused on understanding the cause-and-effect relationships between events, including why they happened and their resulting consequences.
Example:
Analyzing the Causation of the Great Depression involves examining both immediate triggers like the stock market crash and underlying issues like unequal wealth distribution.
Columbian Exchange
The widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and the Old World in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Example:
The introduction of potatoes from the Americas via the Columbian Exchange significantly boosted European populations due to the crop's high caloric yield.
Cultural Differences
Fundamental disagreements and conflicts arising from contrasting worldviews, beliefs, and practices between European and Native American societies, particularly regarding religion, gender roles, and land use.
Example:
The European concept of private land ownership, where land could be bought and sold, was a major source of Cultural Differences with Native Americans, who often viewed land as a communal resource to be used, not owned.
Environmental Adaptation
The process by which Native American societies developed unique cultures, technologies, and practices to thrive in diverse natural environments across North America.
Example:
The construction of elaborate cliff dwellings by the Ancestral Puebloans demonstrates their remarkable Environmental Adaptation to arid desert landscapes.
Long-term causes
Underlying factors or conditions that develop over an extended period and contribute to a historical event.
Example:
Growing sectionalism over slavery and states' rights were long-term causes that built tension for decades before the Civil War.
Mercantilism
An economic theory prevalent in Europe from the 16th to 18th centuries, asserting that colonies existed to enrich the mother country through the accumulation of wealth, especially gold and silver.
Example:
Under Mercantilism, Britain imposed strict trade regulations on its American colonies, ensuring that raw materials were sent to England and finished goods were bought from England.
Short-term causes
Immediate triggers or events that directly precede and initiate a historical event.
Example:
The firing on Fort Sumter was a short-term cause that directly ignited the American Civil War.
Three Sisters Method
An advanced agricultural technique used by various Native American groups, involving the symbiotic planting of corn, beans, and squash together.
Example:
Many Eastern Woodland tribes utilized the Three Sisters Method to create a sustainable and nutrient-rich food supply, with corn providing a stalk for beans to climb and squash covering the ground to retain moisture.