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Long-Distance Trade in the Americas

Driving Question: How were different regions of the Americas connected by trade in this period?

Long-distance networks of exchange stretched across Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, the Andes, the Amazon Basin, and different regions of North America. These networks weren’t as extensive or dense as those in Afro-Eurasia. Still, people living in the Americas formed long-distance networks that carried goods, ideas, and people across continents.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand how Indigenous communities in the Americas interacted through networks of exchange in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
  2. Compare how trade networks connected societies in the Americas, and how communities were changed by these connections.
  3. Employ claim-writing skills to make claims about trade in the Americas.

Vocab Terms:

  • belief system
  • culture
  • empire
  • society
  • state
  • trade
  • trade network
STEP 1

Opener: Long-Distance Trade in the Americas

STEP 2

Indigenous American Trade Routes

Teaching Tools

Take a look at OER Project’s Writing Guide to learn more about how we approach writing in our courses.

Long-distance trade routes moved goods, people, and ideas across every region of the Americas. These networks were key to shaping Indigenous American societies. Use the article below to both build your understanding of these networks and develop your ability to recognize a claim.

STEP 3

Connecting the Americas

Teaching Tools

Looking for even more maps? Here’s an awesome map collection External link .

Chaco Canyon sat at the heart of an extensive trading system stretching out from the American southwest. Use this video and activity to better visualize the trade routes of the Americas.

World of Chaco External link

A thousand years ago, the Ancestral Pueblo made Chaco Canyon the center of their cultural world. Their networks stretched across the vast Colorado Plateau.

Key Ideas

As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.
STEP 4

Closer: Long-Distance Trade in the Americas

Teaching Tools

Need a reminder of why we do openers and closers in OER Project lessons? Look no further than this guide.

Extension Materials
Checkmark Alert Banner
We often focus on trade routes in Mesoamerica and the Andes, but other regions of the Americas also established long-distance links.
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The Caribbean

The Caribbean was an important part of a growing center of trade for Indigenous Americans in the precolonial era.

Pre-Colonial Caribbean External link

Indigenous Americans created communities in the Caribbean and established networks of exchange between islands and with the mainland. Trade goods moved across aquatic highways.

Key Ideas

As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.