Stacy/Ellington, Fabric of a Nation 1E - Chapter 1

aristocratic

Members of the highest class of society, typically nobility who inherited their ranks and titles.

astrolabe

A tool invented by Greek astronomers and sailors for navigation or astrological problems.

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.

Aztecs

Spanish term for the Mexica, an indigenous people who built an empire in present-day Mexico in the centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards.

capitalism

An economic system based on private ownership of property and the open exchange of goods between property holders.

caravel

A small and swift sailing ship invented by the Portuguese during the 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 was soon felt globally.

conquistadors

Also known as encomenderos, Spanish soldiers who were 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.

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, the encomienda system amounted to enslavement.

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.

Franciscan

Member of a Catholic religious order founded by St. Francis of Assisi in the thirteenth century.

horticulture

A form of agriculture in which people work small plots of land with simple tools.

Incas

Andean people who built an empire in the centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards amid the fertile land of the Andes Mountains along the Pacific coast. Reaching the height of their power in the fifteenth century, the Incas controlled some sixteen million people.

Inquisition

A religious judicial institution designed to find and eliminate beliefs that did not align with official Catholic practices. The Spanish Inquisition was first established in 1478.

mariners

A term for sailors.

Maya

People who established large cities on the Yucatán peninsula with strong irrigation and agricultural techniques. The Maya civilization was strongest between 300 and 800 C.E.

missionaries

People who travel to foreign lands with the goal of converting those they meet and interact with to a new religion.

mission system

System established by the Spanish in 1573 in which missionaries, rather than soldiers, directed all new settlements in the Americas.

Pueblo

American Indian peoples who lived in present-day New Mexico and Arizona and built permanent multi-story adobe dwellings.

Renaissance

The cultural and intellectual flowering that began in 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.

requerimiento

A legal document issued by the Spanish crown in 1513 to justify the Spanish conquest of territory in the Americas.

Spanish caste system

A system developed by the Spanish in the sixteenth century that defined the status of diverse populations based on a racial hierarchy that privileged Europeans.

staple crops

Crops that are frequently planted and eaten, and therefore a central part of one's diet.

Tenochtitlán

Capital city of the Aztec Empire.

tribute

The exchange of goods or services in return for protection, frequently used as a method of control or exploitation in colonies and territories.