r nations/ societies. They built roads to reach all big chiefdoms and traded major amounts of gold, food, and other supplies. This enabled them to gain power and develop faster than the North Americans who traded on a significantly smaller scale and used waterways to trade goods. At its peak the major chiefdom/ metropolis of Tenochtitlan had reached a population of more than 200,000 people.
             Each group worked hard to turn out the way they did. They adapted to their environments with flying colors, they came up with their own ways of trading and their own ways of governing themselves.
             The Untouched African and Native American Societies
             Though their continents were far apart the African and Native American Societies had a lot in common. To begin with their religions were very similar. Both the African and the Native Americans believed in that there were many gods and not just one. Yet while the Native Americans based their religion on nature, the Africans based their religion more on their ancestors. Yet both believed that there was a world "beyond" that only the gifted could see. Their second commonality lies in how they survived. Both cultures depended agriculture to survive. They would plant and then trade crops. Both cultures also knew and were able to shift fields to maintain high quality soil. Their family structures were also very much the same. Both societies lived in "interlocking networks of mutual obligations."
             Africans and Native Americans were also very different. Some of the Africans were of the Islam religion, which believed in only one god. Another difference was why, how and when people were married. In the African culture women were married soon after puberty and began having children immediately. This was because of the areas frequent famines and tropical diseases that killed many of their people. Native Americans on the other hand married when only when both of the people wanting to ...