HIS 202 Midterm Study Guide Flashcards

A comprehensive collection of vocabulary flashcards for the Clark Atlanta University HIS 202 Midterm Exam.

Conquistador

A Spanish explorer and conqueror who played a significant role in defeating Indigenous empires and establishing Spanish colonial rule in the Americas.

Cortes

Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conquistador who led the expedition that conquered the Aztec Empire.

Moctezuma

The ruler of Tenochtitlan and the Aztec Empire during the arrival of Hernán Cortés and the Spanish forces.

La Malinche

An Indigenous Nahua woman who served as an interpreter, advisor, and intermediary for Hernán Cortés during the conquest of the Aztec Empire.

Aztec Empire

An empire in central Mexico ruled by the Mexica people, defeated and conquered by Spanish forces under Cortés in 1521.

Fall of Tenochtitlan

The 1521 capture of the Aztec capital city by Hernán Cortés and his Indigenous allies, marking the end of the Aztec Empire.

Mestizos

Individuals of mixed Spanish (European) and Indigenous American descent in colonial New Spain.

Worldview

The overall perspective or framework of cultural, religious, and philosophical assumptions through which a group or individual interprets the world.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A 1494 agreement between Spain and Portugal that divided newly discovered lands outside Europe along a specified meridian line.

Columbian Exchange

The widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, communicable diseases, and technology between the Americas and the Afro-Eurasian hemispheres following 1492.

Sistema de Castas

A complex racial hierarchy created by Spanish colonial authorities in New Spain to classify individuals based on race and ancestry.

Society

An organized group of individuals living together within an ordered community bound by common laws, institutions, and culture.

Caste

A hereditary social status or class category within a social hierarchy that dictates an individual's privileges and role.

Class

A division or social stratum based on economic standing, wealth, occupation, or birth.

Peninsulares

Spanish-born individuals living in colonial Spanish America who held the highest social status and government positions.

Creoles (Criollos)

People of full Spanish descent born in the Americas, holding social rank directly beneath the Peninsulares.

Economienda System

A Spanish legal system (spelled Economienda System in the text) granting colonists control over Indigenous labor and land in exchange for offering protection and religious instruction.

Martin Luther

A German theologian and priest whose 1517 Ninety-five Theses launched the Protestant Reformation in Europe.

John Calvin

A French Protestant reformer who systematized Reformed theology and emphasized the concept of predestination.

Predestination

The theological belief that God has already determined who will receive salvation prior to creation.

John Rolfe

An early English settler in Jamestown who introduced commercial tobacco cultivation to Virginia and married Pocahontas.

Powhatan

The paramount chief of the Powhatan Confederacy of Algonquian-speaking Native American tribes in the Chesapeake region.

Indian Massacre (1622)

A surprise assault led by Chief Opechancanough and the Powhatan Confederacy against English colonists in Virginia, killing over 300 settlers.

Powhatan Treaty (1646)

A formal treaty ending the Third Anglo-Powhatan War, forcing Native Americans to recognize English sovereignty and setting land boundaries.

Triangular Trade

A three-legged transatlantic trade network connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas involving manufactured goods, enslaved people, and raw materials.

Speculum Oris

A mechanical device used by slave traders on ships to force open the mouths of force-fed enslaved Africans during hunger strikes.

Slave Narratives

Autobiographical accounts written by formerly enslaved individuals recounting their life under chattel slavery and their escape to freedom.

Elmina Castle

A major coastal fort built on the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) by the Portuguese in 1482 that served as a key depot for the transatlantic slave trade.

Middle Passage

The sea voyage across the Atlantic Ocean that brought forcibly abducted African captives to labor in the Americas.

Capitalism

An economic system centered on private ownership of property, free markets, investment, and production for profit.

Boiling House

A building on sugar plantations equipped with large kettles used to heat and reduce sugarcane juice into sugar crystals and molasses.

Roller Mill

Heavy machinery used on sugar plantations to crush harvested sugarcane stalks and extract the raw juice.

Amistad

A Spanish slave ship taken over by revolting enslaved Africans in 1839, leading to a milestone U.S. Supreme Court decision granting their freedom.

Revolution

A fundamental and violent or sudden overthrow of an established government or political system by governed citizens.

Atlantic Revolutions

A series of interconnected late 18th- and early 19th-century political revolutions around the Atlantic basin, including the American, French, Haitian, and Latin American revolutions.

Proclamation Line (1763)

A royal decree issued by the British Crown forbidding Anglo-American colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains.

French and Indian War

The North American theater (1754–1763) of the global Seven Years' War, pitting Great Britain against France and its Native allies.

Yorktown (1781)

The decisive military siege in 1781 where combined American and French military forces forced the surrender of British General Cornwallis.

Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and of Alliance (1778)

The bilateral agreements signed in 1778 between France and the United States establishing trade relations and a military defense alliance during the Revolutionary War.

Treaty of Paris (1783)

The peace treaty that officially concluded the American Revolutionary War and recognized the full independence of the United States.

Estates-General

The legislative and consultative assembly of the three estates (Clergy, Nobility, Commoners) in pre-revolutionary France.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

A foundational charter adopted by the French National Assembly in 1789 granting universal human and civil rights.

Napoleon

Napoleon Bonaparte, the French general who seized power in a coup d'état, ending the French Revolution and establishing the French Empire.

Bastille Day

July 14, commemorating the 1789 storming of the Bastille armory and prison in Paris, symbolizing the start of the French Revolution.

Reign of Terror

A violent period (1793–1794) during the French Revolution marked by mass political executions led by the Committee of Public Safety.

Committee of Public Safety

The executive governing body in revolutionary France that maintained dictatorial political control during the Reign of Terror.

Robespierre

Maximilien Robespierre, the radical Jacobin leader who presided over the Committee of Public Safety and the Reign of Terror.

Directory

The five-member executive council that governed revolutionary France from 1795 until its overthrow by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799.

Vodou

A syncretic spiritual belief system practiced in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) that served as a unifying cultural force for enslaved insurgents.

Code Noir

A royal decree promulgated by the French Crown in 1685 regulating the treatment and restrictions of enslaved Africans in French colonies.

Boukman

Dutty Boukman, an enslaved Vodou priest who organized and officiated the historic 1791 gathering at Bois Caïman that inaugurated the Haitian Revolution.

Bois Caiman

The site of a secret 1791 Vodou gathering where enslaved leaders organized and launched the Haitian Revolution.

Toussaint L'Ouverture

The prominent military general and political leader of the Haitian Revolution who ended slavery in Saint-Domingue before his 1802 arrest.

Charles LeClerc

The French general dispatched by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1801 to suppress the Haitian uprising and re-establish slavery.

Dessalines

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the revolutionary leader who defeated French forces, declared Haiti's independence in 1804, and became its first leader.

Louisiana Purchase

The 1803 territorial sale in which France sold its vast North American holdings to the United States following its military defeat in Haiti.

Industrial Revolution

The period of technological and economic transformation beginning in Great Britain that replaced agrarian hand labor with mechanized factory production.

Enclosure Acts

A series of British legislative laws privatizing public communal lands, compelling rural populations to migrate toward industrial factory centers.

Seed Drill

An agricultural device invented by Jethro Tull that mechanically sowed seeds in uniform rows at optimal depths, raising crop yields.

Agricultural Revolution (late 1600s)

An era of British agricultural modernization starting in the late 1600s that dramatically boosted food yields and fueled urban population growth.

Greenwich Mean Time

The standardized global temporal benchmark established in Greenwich, England, crucial for coordinating industrial work, rail transit, and maritime navigation.

Luddites

19th-century English textile artisans who attacked and destroyed automated industrial machinery in protest of wage cuts and job losses.

Factory Act of 1833

British government legislation designed to limit child labor hours and improve safety regulations inside textile manufacturing plants.