Grade 7 Spring — The Early-Modern World c. 1450-1750 CE in Six Simultaneous Formations: Italian + Northern Renaissance, the Reformation and Wars of Religion, the Scientific Revolution, the Age of Exploration with Zheng He Precedence and Multi-Perspective Encounter, the Conquest of Mexica and Inca from Indigenous Perspectives, Ongoing Indigenous Resistance through Pueblo Revolt 1680 and Itzá Maya 1697, the Atlantic Slave Trade Origins with African Voices Centered, the Mughal Empire (KS3 Non-European Society Study), Ming/Qing China with Zheng He 1405-1433, Tokugawa Japan, and the Ottoman Empire — Whose Renaissance? Whose Discovery? Whose Conquest?
History · HIS
G7
hist.g7.s.his.encounter_columbian_exchange_demographic_devastation
Analyze the ENCOUNTER between Europeans and the peoples of the Americas as the COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE — biological, cultural, ecological, and demographic transformation including ~90% Indigenous mortality 1492-1600
Examine the Columbian Exchange — biological: maize/potato/tomato/cacao/turkey/tobacco from Americas to Afro-Eurasia; wheat/horse/cattle/pig/sugar from Afro-Eurasia to Americas; demographic: ~90% mortality of Indigenous populations 1492-1600 from smallpox + measles + influenza + typhus + yellow fever + violence + forced labor + ecological disruption (Crosby 1972 + Mann 2005 + Cook 1998 estimates); cultural: forced Christianization + Indigenous syncretism + linguistic transformation; ecological: deforestation + erosion + new agricultural regimes. Centers MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES — Indigenous experience FIRST per NMAI protocol; African experience next; European experience LAST per decolonial Mignolo lens.
Mastery threshold
90%
Min instances
12
Typical minutes
50
Spaced intervals (days)
1, 3, 7, 14, 30, 60
Successors
- Analyze the SPANISH CONQUEST OF MEXICA 1519-1521 FROM MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES — Indigenous Nahua-voiced (Florentine Codex Book 12 + Anonymous Tlatelolco Manuscript) FIRST + Tlaxcalan + Spanish; centering La Malinche as strategic political actor (Townsend 2006) and refusing Restall's SEVEN MYTHS
- Analyze the SPANISH CONQUEST OF INCA 1532-1572 FROM ANDEAN PERSPECTIVES — Pizarro vs. Atahualpa (civil war context), Cajamarca 16 November 1532, ongoing Vilcabamba neo-Inca state 1537-1572, and Tupac Amaru I's 1572 execution — anchored in Rostworowski + Guaman Poma 1615
Common misconceptions
- Believing Indigenous populations 'declined' or 'died out' — populations were DEVASTATED by diseases brought by Europeans; ~90% mortality 1492-1600 + ongoing genocide + forced labor + dispossession; 'decline' euphemism refused
- Treating the Columbian Exchange as 'mutual benefit' — biological flows were two-way but demographic and political consequences were catastrophically asymmetric
- Believing smallpox 'alone' caused the demographic collapse — disease, violence, slavery, forced labor (encomienda), ecological disruption, and starvation all interacted; disease was the largest single factor but not the only one