Exploration and Colonization

These flashcards cover key terms and their definitions related to the exploration and colonization period.

Ferdinand and Isabella

Financiers and beneficiaries of Columbus' voyages to the New World.

Christopher Columbus

Italian-born navigator sent by the Spanish to explore the New World.

Hernan Cortes

Spanish conqueror of the Aztecs.

Moctezuma

Powerful Aztec monarch who fell to Spanish conquerors.

John Smith

Virginia leader saved by Pocahontas.

Elizabeth I

The unmarried ruler who established English Protestantism and fought the Catholic Spanish.

Jamestown

Riverbank site where Virginia Company settlers planted the first permanent English colony.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

Colony whose government sought to enforce God's law on believers and unbelievers alike.

Nathanial Bacon

Agitator who led poor farmer indentured servants and frontiersmen on a rampage against Indians and colonial government.

Middle Passage

Term for the brutal slave journey from Africa to the Americas.