Unit One (Pre-Contact-1607) Flashcards
Bering Strait
The land bridge crossed by hunters and fishers between 15,000 and 60,000.
Tenochtitlán
the capital of the Aztec empire and one of the world’s largest cities, showing the architectural might of the Natives
Aztec and Incas
Indian societies/empires with centralized organization, hunting techniques, political power, religious beliefs, and trade.
Cahokia
The largest Native American urban center with 10,000-30,000 citizens that was the largest settled community in the US until 1800. Showed the political and economic connections of the Natives, and that they had established trade throughout half the continent.
Pueblo Bonita
largest structure of the Western Indians in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
Great League of Peace
An alliance between the five Iroquois peoples that brought stability to the area and created centralized authority.
Animism
Native American belief that sacred spirits could be found in all kinds of living and inanimate things- animals, plants, trees, water, and wind.
Matriarchal
In Indian societies women were equals, and in their clans children became members of the mother’s family. Society more centered on female power
Christian Liberty
The Christian view that liberty was a spiritual/moral condition because by being God’s servant frees one from sin. Making servitude and freedom non-contridictory.
Caraval
A ship capable of long-distance travel that enabled sailors to sail down the coast of Africa and return to Portugal and across the Atlantic.
Benin
A city in Central Africa that was reached by Portuguese ships in 1485. Inspired admiration from bronze sculptures
Factories
trading posts on the western coast of Africa, called this because of they relied on and attracted merchants, or “factors”. Encouraged further European expansion because other powers saw the great resources and trading opportunities that the portuguese discovered and followed in their footsteps.
Atlantic Islands
Colonized by Portugal
Sugar plantations
on the atlantic islands, worked by muslim captives and slaves. native population was replaced by slaves from Africa.
Christopher Columbus
Explorer that believed that by sailing westward he could reach Asia, ended up discovering America. Wanted to find route to develop trade, spread christianity, and find soldiers for a religious crusade against muslims.
Reconquista
“the reconquest” of spain from the moors(African muslims) in 1492.
Conquistadores
Spanish explorers with goals of finding wealth, earning the nation gold, and spreading Catholicism through the conquering of the Americas.
Hernan Cortes
Spanish explorer that succeeded in conquering the Aztec Empire in 1519 against the odds with the military technology of iron weapons and gunpowder, help of Aztec warriors, and mainly deadly smallpox
Francisco Pizarro
Conquered the Incan Empire shortly after Cortes by capturing the King, demanding and receiving ransom, but killing the king anyway. Typical strategy for conquistadores because of effectiveness, as it created chaos.
Columbian Exchange
The transfer and combination of goods, people, animals, and cultures across the Atlantic that had never before crossed paths. Crops such as corn, tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, tobacco, and cotton were brought from America, while wheat, rice, sugarcane, horses, cattle, pigs, sheep and disease came from Europe. Brough diseases such as smallpox, influenza, and measles that killed about 80 million natives because of their lack of antibodies. Making conquest much more achievable.
Creoles/criollos
People of European ancestry born in the colonies
haciendas
large-scale farms in the Americas at which the Spanish landlords forced the natives to labor.
Peninsulares
People of European birth that stood atop the social hierarchy and were a very small portion of the population.
Mestizos
People of mixed origin that made up a large part of the population in Spanish America because of the lake of Spanish female settlers. Repopulated the valley of mexico