Ch. 1: Columbus

Caravel

A ship that could sail closer to the wind, which aided in exploration so that the explorers were not as afraid to sail.

Encomienda

Allowed the government to give Native Americans to certain colonists in return for making the Natives Christian- basically, the colonizers wanted to exploit the Natives for slavery.

Aztecs

Native Americans in Mexico, known for civilization feats such as their pyramids, human sacrifices, and agriculture /irrigation technology.

Hernan Cortes

panish conquistador /colonizer who brutally wiped out the Aztecs.

Noche Triste

June 30, 1520; Aztecs attacked and drove the Spanish down from Tenochtitlan.

Cahokia

An area near present- day East St. Louis near Mississippi, which natives inhabited.

Father Junipero Serra

Roman Catholic priest who established twenty- one missions in California.

Temples of Tenochtitlan

were destroyed to make Christian cathedrals.

Ferdinand Magellan

First circumnavigation of the globe.

Incas

Native Americans in Peru, known for their civilizations feats such as Machu Picchu, city- states that eventually emerged all throughout South America.

Conquistadors

Conquerors that brutally decimated the Native populations by exploiting the Natives weakness of disease and using brutal massacres to destroy the populations.

Capitalism

An economic system where the countrys trade and industry are controlled privately by owners who want a profit, rather than the government.

Bartolomé de Las Casas

Nation- states

states with rulers, whose citizens are related through common languages or ancestral descent.

Robert de La Salle

An expeditioner who explored the Mississippi River.

Francisco Coronado

a wanderer, formally marched throughout the land, even going as far as Kansas (he (Robert de La Salle) started w /Arizona and New Mexico)

Giovanni Caboto: (John Cabot)

Explored the northeast coast of North America.

Malinche (Dona Marina):

A Native American slave who knew both Mayan and Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and was captured by Hernan Cortes.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A treaty between Spain and Portugal that stated that Portugal can have half of South America (Brazil mostly) and Spain can have the other half.

Fransisco Pizarro

Brutally conquered the Incas, and stole their resources as well (silver)

Vasco Nunez Balboa

European discoverer of Pacific Ocean → crossed Panamanian isthmus into Pacific Ocean → first european to have reached Pacific from New World.

Three sister farming

a farming system where beans grow on corn stalks and squash covering the planting mounds in order to achieve soil moisture.

Cortes

________ set sail from Cuba to Mexico; also found Malinche.

Moctezuma

Aztec Empires Chieftain, became friends with Cortes (because he thought Cortes was their god Quetzacoatl), which was his ultimate downfall (including the diseases that were brought to the Aztec Empire)

Columbian Exchange

Columbus discovery of the new world led to the usage of international commerce, and goods from all the New World to the Old World (and vice versa) were traded.

Agriculture

especially corn growing- accounted for size and sophistication of Native AMerican civilizations in Mexico and South America.

Isabella Castile

Queen of Spain, who was the wife of Ferdinand of Aragon.

Christopher Columbus

Brutal colonizer who is renowned for his discovery of the Indies, he first discovered San Salvador.