Interactions and Worldviews in Colonial America

These vocabulary flashcards cover the divergent worldviews of Europeans and indigenous peoples, instances of cultural syncretism, military resistance, and the moral debates surrounding colonization.

Worldview

A people's constellation of cultural experiences—including history, belief systems, and language—that dictates how they make sense of the world.

Ethnosentris

The instinct to assume that one's own worldview is the best way to understand the world and to view those with different assumptions as the enemy.

Individual Land Ownership

The European belief that land could be owned by individuals, contrasting with indigenous views of communal land.

Communal Land Use

The dominant indigenous belief that land contains spiritual qualities binding all things together and belongs to all people collectively.

Matrinal

Family and power structures that pass through the mother's descendants, common in some indigenous societies.

Egalitarian

A term describing the more equal gender roles found in many indigenous societies compared to the patriarchal European structure.

Nuclear Family

The family structure emphasized by Europeans as normative, consisting of the immediate family unit.

Extended Families

The family structure common among indigenous peoples, containing multiple generations living together.

Synretatism

The process by which indigenous people who accepted Christianity adapted it to their own worldview, resulting in a blending of cultural or religious beliefs.

Virgin of Guadalupe

A 16th-century figure of the Virgin Mary who appeared to a man of Aztec lineage and is portrayed with brown skin, reflecting a blending of Catholic and indigenous belief systems.

Tino Rebellion

A 1511 rebellion in modern-day Puerto Rico where native people used force to try and drive out the Spanish due to brutal labor conditions and threats to cultural traditions.

Encoma system

A brutal Spanish labor system mentioned as a primary cause of the 1511 Tino Rebellion.

Viodal debates

Formal debates in Spain sparked by reports of brutality in the Americas, questioning the treatment of indigenous people.

Barthole Deascus

A former conquistador and encomando who became a chief advocate for indigenous people, arguing they were fully human and should not be subjected to inhumane treatment.

Juan Guin de Seepda

A figure in the viodal debates who argued that indigenous people were less than human and that subjugation helped them toward full humanity.

Curse of Ham

An episode from the book of Genesis used by Bible scholars to justify the enslavement of Africans by claiming they were the descendants of Ham.

Patriarchal

A social system in which men hold the power, characteristic of the European worldview during the early colonial period.