Maritime Empires, Age of Exploration, and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards reviewing Christopher Columbus's voyages, Portuguese trading post empires, mercantilist joint-stock trade, the transatlantic slave trade, and European settlement of the Americas.

Christopher Columbus

An explorer who sought a western sea route to Asian markets, landed in the Bahamas believing he had reached the Indies, explored Cuba, and reported reaching islands off the coast of Asia.

"Indians"

The name applied by Christopher Columbus to the Indigenous inhabitants of the Bahamas due to his mistaken belief that he had landed in the Indies.

Columbus's Cuban Expedition

The expedition to Cuba where Columbus dispatched a delegation inland in search of the court of the Chinese emperor.

Trading Post Empire

An empire model established by the Portuguese along coastlines aimed at controlling maritime commerce and trade routes rather than conquering large territories.

Entrepot

A warehouse, port, or commercial trading center established for the purpose of importing, storing, and distributing trade goods.

Joint-Stock Company

A commercial enterprise, such as the British East India Company or Dutch East India Company, that pooled capital from multiple private investors to finance trade ventures and distribute risk.

Mercantilism

An economic doctrine holding that colonies exist to enrich the mother country by supplying raw materials, generating wealth, and maintaining a favorable trade balance.

Triangular Trade

A three-legged transatlantic trade network connecting Europe (exporting manufactured goods), Africa (supplying enslaved persons), and the Americas (producing raw materials and cash crops).

Middle Passage

The brutal transatlantic voyage that transported enslaved Africans to the Americas, marked by extremely cramped conditions, disease, and high mortality rates.

Enslaved Resistance

Daily and organized actions taken by enslaved people to challenge captivity, including work slowdowns, equipment sabotage, escapes, and open rebellions.

Maroons

Enslaved individuals who escaped captivity and established independent, self-governing communities in remote areas such as swamps and mountains.

Treaty of Tordesillas

The 1494 agreement that divided newly discovered non-European lands between Spain and Portugal along an imaginary meridian in the Atlantic Ocean.

Sugar Cultivation

A highly labor-intensive cash crop industry developed in the Americas that generated vast profits and drove massive demand for enslaved African labor.