AMSTUD UNIT 1 VOCAB

Land Bridge

a strip of land that connects two larger landmasses, enabling migration of plants and animals to new areas

Hokokam, Anasazi, and Pueblos

These American Indians were located in the New Mexico and Arizona region. They developed farming using irrigation systems. (p. 4)

Adena-Hopewell

This American Indian culture centered in Ohio created large earthen mounds as tall as 300 feet. (p. 4)

Woodland mound builders

American Indian tribe east of the Mississippi that prospered because of a rich food supply. (p. 4)

Mayans

1500 B.C. to 900 A.D. This is the most advanced civilization of the time in the Western Hempishere. Famous for its awe-inspiring temples, pyramids and cities. A complex social and political order.

Aztecs

Also known as Mexica, they created a powerful empire in central Mexico (1325-1521 C.E.). They forced defeated peoples to provide goods and labor as a tax.

Incas

Ancient civilization (1200-1500AD) that was located in the Andes in Peru

corn (maize)

A staple crop that formed the economic foundation of Native Indian civilizations.

Algonquian

From Plymouth, wigwams, clothing from animals, good hunters, good at growing food

Siouan

The American Indians had 20 language families and 400 distinct languages. This tribe from the Great Plains was one of the largest. (p. 4)

Longhouses

American Indians along the Pacific Coast lived in the these plank houses. (p. 4)

Iroquois Confederation

The league of Indian tribes in the Northeast that fought with the English in the French-Indian War and supported the Loyalists in the America Revolution.

Gunpowder

Invented within China during the 9th century, this substance was became the dominate military technology used to expand European and Asian empires by the 15th century.

sailing compass

During the Renaissance (15th-16th centuries), this invention was adopted from Arab merchants who learned about it from the Chinese.

Printing Press

A mechanical device for transferring text or graphics from a woodblock or type to paper using ink. Presses using movable type first appeared in Europe in about 1450.

Isabella and Ferdinand

King and Queen of Spain that financed Columbus's trip.

Christopher Columbus

He mistakenly discovered the Americas in 1492 while searching for a faster route to India.

Henry the Navigator

This Portuguese prince who lead an extensive effort to promote seafaring expertise in the 14th century. Sent many expedition to the coast of West Africa in the 15th century, leading Portugal to discover a route around Africa, ultimately to India.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A 1494 agreement between Portugal and Spain, declaring that newly discovered lands to the west of an imaginary line in the Atlantic Ocean would belong to Spain and newly discovered lands to the east of the line would belong to Portugal.

Roanoke Island

Sir Walter Raleigh's failed colonial settlement off the coast of North Carolina

Protestant Reformation

A religious movement of the 16th century that began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the creation of Protestant churches.

Nation-states

states whose populations share a sense of national identity, usually including a language and culture

Horses

Animal introduced by Europeans that transformed the Indian way of life on the Great Plains

diseases

illnesses

Smallpox and Measles

The two most deadly diseases that killed more than 50% and up to 80% of the indigenous population in the Americas. Brought by the Europeans.

Capitalism

An economic system based on private ownership of capital

joint-stock company

A company made up of a group of shareholders. Each shareholder contributes some money to the company and receives some share of the company's profits and debts.

Encomienda System

It gave settlers the right to tax local Native Americans or to make them work. In exchange, these settlers were supposed to protect the Native American people and convert them to Christianity

Asiento System

System that took slaves to the New World to work for the Spanish. Required that a tax be paid to the Spanish ruler for each slave brought over.

Slavery

A system of enforced servitude in which some people are owned by other people.

Conquistadors

Early-sixteenth-century Spanish adventurers who conquered Mexico, Central America, and Peru. (Examples Cortez, Pizarro, Francisco.)

Hernan Cortes

Spanish conquistador who defeated the Aztecs and conquered Mexico (1485-1547)

Francisco Pizarro

Spanish explorer who conquered the Incas in what is now Peru and founded the city of Lima (1475-1541).

Slave Trade

The business of capturing, transporting, and selling people as slaves

Middle Passage

A voyage that brought enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to North America and the West Indies

New Laws of 1542

Bartolome de Las Casas convinced the King of Spain to institute these laws, which ended American Indian slavery, ended forced Indian labor, and began the process of ending the encomienda systems. (p. 11)

Bartolome de Las Casas

First bishop of Chiapas, in southern Mexico. He devoted most of his life to protecting Amerindian peoples from exploitation. His major achievement was the New Laws of 1542, which limited the ability of Spanish settlers to compel Amerindians to labor.

Valladolid Debate

Concerned the treatment of natives of the New World. It concerned two main attitudes towards the conquest of the Americas. Bartolomé de las Casas argued Amerindians were creations of God and deserved same treatment as Christian Europeans. Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda thought that the natives should be slaves because of their crimes against nature and against God.

Juan Gines de Sepulveda

In the Valladolid Debate, this Spaniard argued that the American Indians were less than human. (p. 11)