APUSH Unit 1 Vocabulary (1491 – 1607)

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering 18 key terms and figures from the APUSH Unit 1 lecture notes (1491-1607).

Christopher Columbus

Italian navigator backed by Spain who reached the Caribbean island of San Salvador on Oct. 12, 1492, opening sustained European contact with the “New World”; completed four voyages before dying in 1503.

John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto)

Italian-born explorer who sailed for England in 1497, charting the northeastern coast of North America and strengthening England’s territorial claims.

Ponce de León

Spanish explorer who led voyages to Florida in 1513 and 1521 seeking gold and the mythical fountain of youth; fatally wounded by Native arrows.

Hernando de Soto

Spanish conquistador who marched from Florida to the Mississippi River (1540-1542) in search of riches; credited with “discovering” the river and was buried in it after his death.

Francisco Coronado

Spanish leader who trekked through Arizona, New Mexico, and as far as Kansas (1540-1542) hunting the fabled El Dorado; encountered the Grand Canyon and vast bison herds.

Bartolomé de Las Casas

Spanish missionary and reformer who condemned the encomienda, branding it "a moral pestilence invented by Satan."

Giovanni da Verrazano

Italian explorer dispatched by the French crown in 1524 to survey the Atlantic seaboard of present-day United States.

Don Juan de Oñate

Spanish commander who, in 1598, traversed parts of Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, ruthlessly subduing Pueblo peoples and establishing New Mexico (Santa Fe, 1609).

Robert de La Salle

French explorer who navigated the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi to the Gulf (1680s); in 1682 named the river valley Louisiana for Louis XIV.

Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)

Papal-brokered accord dividing non-European lands: Spain received most territories west of the line; Portugal received those to the east.

Mestizos

People of mixed Spanish and Indigenous ancestry resulting from intermarriage in colonial Mexico.

Mound Builders

Pre-Columbian cultures of the Ohio River Valley and lower Midwest that erected large earthworks and sustained sizable settlements after adopting corn agriculture.

Cahokia

Major Mississippian urban center near modern East St. Louis that housed up to 40,000 people circa A.D. 1100 before its mysterious decline around 1300.

Conquistadores

Sixteenth-century Spanish conquerors who overran the Aztec, Inca, and other American empires for riches; many later intermarried with Native peoples.

Puebloans

Southwestern Indigenous people known for adobe multi-story dwellings and extensive irrigation systems supporting corn cultivation.

Joint-Stock Companies

Early corporate ventures pooling investors’ capital to finance colonization, exemplified by the London and Plymouth companies; forerunners of modern corporations.

Hiawatha

Legendary figure credited with inspiring the formation of the powerful Iroquois Confederacy in the northeastern woodlands.

Encomienda System

Spanish colonial labor arrangement granting settlers control of Indigenous labor under the guise of Christianization—effectively a form of slavery.