Hello and welcome to a history of the United States.

Episode 65, Native Americans 5, the Southwest.

Quote, throughout much of continental North America that today is included in the eastern and southwestern

United States, Native Americans developed mixed economies based on farming, New World domesticated,

combined with wild foods, obtained by hunting and gathering. At the time of contact with Europeans,

the native peoples in these two regions were cultivating many of the same crops, although

there were no real powers to travel between what is now the western and eastern United States.

These areas are markedly different in climates and vegetation.

The peoples of these two vast regions followed very different paths

in their development of arming economies and their settlement systems, subsistence,

strategies, political institutions, and religious beliefs. End quote. So opens Indigenous

Farmers by Linda Cordell and Bruce Smith, chapter four of the Cambridge history

of the Native peoples of the Americas, Volume 1 Part 1. And this will be the stage of history

that we turn to this week. We spent the previous episode looking at the move away from

Hunter Gathering, but we didn't really give

that much time to agriculture other than mentioning that it developed. It's time to remedy that.

We begin this week with the South West, and since I'm going to begin with going through tribes,

I'm just going to quote once more Cordell and Smith.

Quote, in the western region, indigenous farming peoples inhabited the southwestern culture area,

which forms part of modern Arizona and New Mexico, entering into southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado.

Aridacy is the primary climatic feature, uniting landscapes of topographical diversity,

including rugged mountains, maces, and broad valleys.

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