Vocabulary Flashcards
Horticulture
a form of agriculture in which people work small plots of land with simple tools.
Became highly popular in some communities in the Americas around 8000 to 2000 BCE.
Aztecs
an indigenous people who built an empire in present-day Mexico in the centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards.
Tenochtitlán
The capital city of the Aztec Empire.
Chinampas
An aztec technology innovation that was basically artificial islands. The Aztecs took advantage of the well-watered swampy and lake areas by building theses innovations.
Maya
A civilization that established large cities on the Yucatán peninsula with strong irrigation and agricultural techniques. Settled between 900 BCE and 300 CE and was at its peak from 300 CE to its decline in 800 CE (likely from drought and heavy taxation).
Incas
Andean people who built an empire in the centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards amid the fertile land of the Andres Mountains along the Pacific coast. Reaching heights of power in the fifteenth century and had a population of approximately 16 million people. This civilization constructed an expansive system of roads and garrisons which ultimately helped the flow of food, trade goods, and soldiers. Key to their success was the fertile mountain valleys.
Pueblo
American Indian peoples who lived in present-day New Mexico and Arizona and built permanent multi-story adobe dwellings.
Pueblo revolt
1680 uprising of Pueblo Indians against Spanish forces in New Mexico that led to the Spaniard’s temporary retreat from the are. The uprising was sparked by mistreatment and the suppression of Pueblo culture and religion.
Atlatl
a weighted spear-throwing device that allowed hunters to capture smaller game. Was mainly used by hunting societies up north (near present day Colorado to Canada).
Renaissance
The cultural and intellectual flowering that began in the fifteenth-century Italy and then spread north throughout the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. During this time, European rulers pushed for greater political unification of their states.
Also due to this span of time many of the now wealthy individuals required taste in fine Asian manufactured goods, as well as spices from India and China (this eventually leads to Europeans finding ways to establish oceanic trade routes to those lands).
Missionaries
People who travel to foreign lands with the goal of converting those they meet and interact with to a new religion.
caravels
Portuguese developed ships that had vessels with narrow hulls and triangular sails (which were great for navigating the coast of West Africa).
Mariners
A term for sailors
Astrolabe
A tool invented by Greek astronomers and sailors for navigation or astrological problems.
Inquisition
A religious judicial institution designed to find and eliminate beliefs that did not align with official Catholic practices (The Spanish ____ was first established in 1478).
Atlantic World
The interactions between the peoples from the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean –Africa, the Americas, and Western Europe– beginning in the late fifteenth century.
Columbian Exchange
The biological exchange between the Americas and the rest of the world between 1492 and the end of the sixteenth century. Although its initial impact was strongest in the Americas and Europe, it soon felt globally.
staple crops
Crops that are frequently planted and eaten, and therefore a central part of one’s diet. (ex. sugar)
conquistador
Also known as encomenderos, Spanish soldiers who were a central to the conquest of the civilizations of the Americas. Once conquest was complete, conquistadors often extracted wealth from the people and lands they came to rule.
Feudalism
A social and economic system organized by a hierarchy of hereditary classes. Lower social orders owed loyalty to the social classes above them and, in return, received protection or land.
The columbian exchange led to the end of this.
Capitalism
An economic system based on private ownership of property and the open exchange of goods between property holders.
The end of feudalism led to the rise of this.
Aristocratic
Members of the highest class of society, typically nobility who inherited their ranks and titles.
encomienda
System first established by Christopher Columbus by which Spanish leaders in the Americas received land and the labor of all American Indians residing on it. For American Indians, this system amounted to enslavement.
requerimiento
A legal document issued by the Spanish crown (Queen Isabella) in 1513 to justify the Spanish conquest of territory in the Americas.
mission system
System established by the Spanish in 1573 in which missionaries, rather than soldiers, directed all new settlements in the Americas.
Franciscan
Member of a Catholic religious order founded by St. Francis of Assisi in the thirteenth century.
tribute
The exchange of goods or services in return for protection, frequently used as a method of control or exploitation in colonies and territories.
Spanish caste system
A system developed by the Spanish in the sixteenth century that defined the status of diverse populations based on racial hierarchy that privileged Europeans.
Peninsulares
People born in Spain.
Criollos
People born of Spanish parents in the colonies.
Mestizos
People who share both Spanish and American Indian parentage.
Mulattos
People who share both African and Spanish parentage
Calvinism
Developed in Switzerland by John Calvin, a version of Protestantism (embraced by the Dutch in hopes to separate themselves from Catholic Spain) in which civil magistrates and reformed ministers ruled over a Christian society.
Iroquois Confederacy
A group of allied American Indian nations that included the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and later the Tuscarora. The Confederacy was largely dissolved by the final decade of the 1700s.
inflation
Market-wide increase in prices, leading to the devaluation of currency. Pose a major challenge for the ruling class and to the economic stability of England as the sixteenth century came to an end.
Enclosure movements
The privatized use of common land for personal or financial gain by noblemen, who evicted commoners who relied on the land for subsistence. This led to increased social conflict, famine, inflation, and immigration to North America.
These movements reflected the monarchy’s and the nobility’s efforts to seek new sources of wealth (such as the development of Jamestown in the Americas)
These movements also led to a large population of landless, unemployed people who often faced prosecution.
Indentured servitude
Servants contracted to work for a set period of time without pay. Many early migrants to the English colonies indentured themselves in exchange for the price of passage to North America.
joint-stock companies
Companies in which large numbers of investors own stock. They were able to quickly raise large amounts of risk and reward equally among investors.
