AP® United States History review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/us-history/units/1/1-7)
Unit 1 · Topic 1.7
1.7 Causation in Period 1
This skill topic pulls Period 1 together through causation, the skill of explaining why something happened and what it led to. You should be able to explain the causes of European exploration and the short- and long-term effects of contact, conquest and the Columbian Exchange.
Key terms
- causation
- short-term and long-term effects
- Columbian Exchange
- Native population decline
What causation asks you to do
Causation questions ask you to explain the reasons for a development, its effects, or both. Explaining is the key word. Listing causes is not enough; you need to show how each one produced the result.
A useful distinction: a short-term cause or effect happens close in time to the event, and a long-term one builds over years or decades. Another: some causes are primary (the most important) and others are secondary. The best answers say which cause mattered most and why.
Historians also stress that big events usually have several causes working together. Spain's conquest of Mexico, for example, depended on disease, Native allies, European weapons and Aztec political divisions all at once. Showing how causes interact, rather than naming just one, is a sign of sophisticated reasoning.
Causes of European exploration
- Long-term: the growth of strong monarchies in Spain, Portugal, France and England that could fund expeditions; Renaissance learning and printing that spread maps and travel accounts.
- Economic: the desire for Asian goods without Muslim and Italian middlemen, made more urgent after the Ottomans took Constantinople in 1453.
- Religious: the drive to spread Catholic Christianity, sharpened in Spain by the end of the Reconquista in 1492.
- Technological: the caravel, compass, astrolabe and better knowledge of Atlantic winds.
Effects of contact
| Development | Short-term effect | Long-term effect |
|---|---|---|
| Columbian Exchange: disease | Epidemics killed huge numbers of Native people | Labor shortages that led colonists to import enslaved Africans |
| Columbian Exchange: crops | American foods arrived in Europe, Africa and Asia | Population growth in Europe and beyond |
| Spanish conquest | Fall of the Aztec (1521) and Inca (1530s) empires | A Spanish empire spanning much of the Americas, with Catholic missions and new towns |
| American silver | Rapid wealth for Spain | Rising prices in Europe and a shift from feudalism toward capitalism |
| Forced labor systems | Encomienda abuse and the New Laws of 1542 | The Atlantic slave trade and a casta system ranking people by ancestry |
Chains of causation
Many Period 1 effects become causes of later developments. Here is one chain: Columbus's voyages led to the Columbian Exchange, which spread smallpox, which collapsed Native populations, which created labor shortages, which led Spanish and Portuguese colonists to import enslaved Africans, which laid the foundation for the Atlantic slave system of Periods 2 through 5.
When you write about causation, use clear linking words: 'because', 'led to', 'as a result', 'which allowed'. Each link in the chain should be a specific, true historical development.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Building a causation chain
Explain how the Columbian Exchange contributed to the growth of African slavery in the Americas in the period 1492 to 1607.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Start with the trigger: the arrival of European diseases.
- Step 2: Show the first effect: Native population collapse.
- Step 3: Show the next link: labor shortage in mines and plantations.
- Step 4: Finish with the outcome and evidence: colonists turned to enslaved Africans, supplied by Portuguese traders working with African sellers.
Answer: Model answer: The Columbian Exchange brought diseases such as smallpox and measles to the Americas, where Native peoples had no immunity. Epidemics, made worse by the overwork of the encomienda system, killed a large share of the Native population. This left Spanish and Portuguese colonists short of workers for their mines and sugar plantations, so they increasingly imported enslaved Africans through Portuguese traders who bought captives from African rulers and merchants on the West African coast.
- Example 2
Ranking causes in a thesis
Write a thesis for this prompt: Evaluate the relative importance of the reasons for Spanish success in conquering the Aztec Empire.
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- Step 1: 'Relative importance' means you must rank: say which cause mattered most.
- Step 2: Name at least two causes so you have something to compare.
- Step 3: Give a reason for your ranking.
Answer: Model thesis: Although Spanish weapons, horses and armor gave Cortés an advantage in battle, the most important reason for Spain's conquest of the Aztec Empire was disease, because the smallpox epidemic of 1520 killed much of Tenochtitlan's population and its leadership; the support of tens of thousands of Native allies such as the Tlaxcalans was the second most important factor.
Common mistakes
- Listing causes without explaining how each one led to the result.
- Ignoring the 'relative importance' part of a prompt. If a prompt asks you to evaluate, you need to rank or weigh causes.
- Using vague causes like 'Europeans wanted power.' Name the kingdom, the event or the technology.
On the exam
- Causation is one of the three reasoning skills essay prompts are built on, along with comparison and continuity and change. A thesis that names several causes and ranks them gives you a clear line of reasoning and sets up more complex analysis.
- For Period 1, the Columbian Exchange is the best all-purpose example of a development with both short- and long-term effects.
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself
4 questions on 1.7 Causation in Period 1. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Which of the following was a long-term effect of the Columbian Exchange on Europe?
Which of the following was a long-term effect of the growth of the Atlantic slave trade on West and Central Africa?
| Year | Estimated Native population of central Mexico (rounded) |
|---|---|
| 1518 (eve of Spanish conquest) | 25,200,000 |
| 1532 | 16,900,000 |
| 1548 | 6,300,000 |
| 1568 | 2,650,000 |
| 1605 | 1,075,000 |
Source: Estimates by the historians Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah, published in the 1960s and based on pre-conquest Aztec tribute lists and later Spanish tribute and census records. Cook and Borah gave a range of roughly 18 to 30 million for 1518; the table shows their best single estimates.
Which of the following, if true, would most call into question the accuracy of the figure for 1518?
"There was no town where we had any subtle device practised against us, we leaving it unpunished or not revenged (because we sought by all means possible to win them by gentleness) but that within a few days after our departure from every such town, the people began to die very fast, and many in short space; in some towns about twenty, in some forty, in some sixty, and in one six score [120], which in truth was very many in respect of their numbers. . . . The disease also so strange, that they neither knew what it was, nor how to cure it; the like by the report of the oldest men in the country never happened before, time out of mind."
"[Some] of the inhabitants which were our friends . . . were persuaded that it was the work of our God through our means, and that we by him might kill and slay whom we would without weapons and not come near them. . . . Those that were immediately to come after us they imagined to be in the air, yet invisible and without bodies, and that they by our entreaty and for the love of us did make the people to die in that sort as they did by shooting invisible bullets into them."
Source: Thomas Harriot, English scientist who spent a year (1585–1586) with the first English colony on Roanoke Island, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, 1588. Spelling modernized.
The deaths Harriot describes were most likely caused by
0 of 4 answered