AP World Unit 4 Vocab

Vocabulary for Unit 4 of AP World

Prince Henry the Navigator

Portuguese prince who sponsored maritime expeditions to build colonies in the North Atlantic and West Africa (1394-1460)

Ferdinand Magellan

First person to lead an expedition to circumnavigate (circle) the globe.

Vasco da Gama

A Portuguese sailor who was the first European to sail around southern Africa to the Indian Ocean.

Christopher Columbus

Italian navigator who sailed for Spain. Mistakenly discovered the Americas in 1492 while searching for a faster route to India.

Northwest Passage

A water route from the Atlantic to the Pacific through northern Canada and along the northern coast of Alaska. Sought by navigators since the 16th century.

Mercantilism

An economic policy under which nations sought to increase their wealth and power by obtaining large amounts of gold and silver and by selling more goods than they bought.

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.

Columbian Exchange

The exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages.

Trading post empire

Empires based on small outposts rather than control of large territories (Portugal)

Jamestown

First permanent English colony in the New World, Virginia (1607).

Hernan Cortes

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Aztec Empire, 1519-1521.

Francisco Pizarro

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Inca Empire in 1532.

Casta system

A system in colonial Spain of determining a person's social importance according to different racial categories.

Triangular Trade

Complex Atlantic trading system. European goods would travel to Africa, enslaved people would go from Africa to the Americas, and sugar and tobacco would head back to Europe.

Ecomienda System

a kind of feudalism granting Spanish colonists control of conquered lands and obliging the natives to provide forced labor and a fixed portion of their harvests.

Chattel Slavery

System in which people were treated as property to be bought and sold.

Cash crop

a crop produced for its commercial value rather than for use by the grower.

Joint-stock company

company owned by investors who bought stock or shares in the company. Investors shared both profit and risk. The Dutch East India Company was an example of this during the 1600's.

Indentured servitude

Form of labor where a person is under contract to work without pay to repay a debt.

British East India Company

A joint-stock company that set up trading posts in India in the 1600s, beginning the British economic interest there.

Fronde

Rebellion led by the French nobles during the reign of King Louis XIV. Only made King Louis XIV more powerful and led to an age of absolutism.

Pugachev Rebellion

Peasant and Cossack uprising in Russia led by Pugachev. This rebellion did not go well and only made Catherine the Great more oppressive towards peasants.

Pueblo Revolt

Violent uprising of Native Americans against the Spanish conquistadores and Catholic missionaries in modern-day New Mexico.

Metacom's War (King Philip's War)

Period of bloody conflict between Wampanoag Indians and Puritan settlers in New England (1675-1676); an example of Indian resistance to English expansion in North America.

Glorious Revolution

A reference to the political events of 1688-1689, when James II (Catholic) abdicated his throne and was replaced by his daughter Mary and her husband, Prince William of Orange (Protestant).

Timar System

System of land in exchange for military service in the Ottoman Empire. The value of land would be based upon rank and the amount of soldiers provided, not passed on to children.

Harem

Living quarters reserved for wives and concubines and female relatives in a Muslim household. Roxelana of the Ottoman Empire was successful in advancing her goals within this.

Maroon Wars

Conflicts between the Jamaica Maroon settlements and the British after the British gained control of the island from the Spanish.

Sephardic Jews

Jews whose traditions originated in Spain and Portugal after the diaspora of Jewish people. They were expelled after the Reconquista and settled around North Africa and the Middle East.

Ashkenazi Jews

Jews whose traditions originated in Central and

Eastern Europe after the diaspora of Jewish people.