Chapter 1: The Americas, Europe, and Africa Before 1492 and Chapter 2: Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

How did the first people arrive in the Americas?

They migrated from Asia, likely across Beringia during the Ice Age

Why was agriculture important to Native societies?

It allowed people to settle permanently, grow food, and develop larger, more complex societies

When was Tenochtitlán founded?

1325

What were the Aztecs known for?

Their large empire, tribute system, warfare, chinampas, and capital city of Tenochtitlán

When did the Western Roman Empire fall?

476 CE

What was the Renaissance?

A period of renewed interest in classical learning, art, science, and humanism

When did the Black Death reach Europe?

The 1340s

What were the three major motivations for European exploration?

God, Gold, and Glory — religion, wealth, and national power

Which European country was an early leader in Atlantic exploration?

Portugal

Who supported early Portuguese exploration?

Prince Henry the Navigator

What was Elmina Castle?

A Portuguese trading post built in 1482 in West Africa that later became involved in the Atlantic slave trade

Why did Ferdinand and Isabella support Columbus?

They wanted wealth, greater power, and to spread Christianity

What happened on 10/12/1492?

Christopher Columbus reached the Bahamas

What was the Treaty of Tordesillas?

The 1494 agreement that divided much of the newly claimed world between Spain and Portugal

Who was Amerigo Vespucci?

An explorer who recognized that the Americas were a separate landmass from Asia

Why is America named “America”?

Martin Waldseemüller used Amerigo Vespucci's name on a map in 1507

Who was Hernán Cortés?

A Spanish conquistador who helped defeat the Aztec Empire

When did Tenochtitlán fall?

August 1521

What helped the Spanish defeat the Aztecs?

Native alliances, divisions within the Aztec Empire, Spanish weapons, and European diseases

Who was Malintzin/La Malinche?

A Native woman who served as an interpreter and intermediary for Cortés

Who was Francisco Pizarro?

A Spanish conquistador who conquered the Inca Empire and captured Atahualpa in 1532

What was the Protestant Reformation?

A religious movement that challenged the authority and practices of the Catholic Church

Who began the Protestant Reformation?

Martin Luther

What did Martin Luther publish in 1517?

The Ninety-Five Theses

Who was John Calvin?

A major Protestant reformer who developed Calvinism and emphasized predestination

Why did Henry VIII break with the Catholic Church?

He wanted an annulment from Catherine of Aragon, but the pope refused

What church did Henry VIII create?

The Church of England

Who was Elizabeth I?

England's queen beginning in 1558 who restored Protestantism

Who were the Puritans?

Protestants who wanted to remove remaining Catholic practices from the Church of England

What happened in 1588?

England defeated the Spanish Armad

What happened at Roanoke?

The English colony disappeared by 1590, becoming known as the Lost Colony

When was Jamestown founded?

1607

Why was Jamestown important?

It became the first permanent English settlement in what became the United States

When was Plymouth founded?

1620

What was the Mayflower Compact?

An agreement among the Plymouth settlers to establish rules for governing themselves

When was Massachusetts Bay founded?

1630

What was France's main focus in North America?

Fur trading and alliances with Native peoples

When did Samuel de Champlain establish Quebec?

1608

What was New Amsterdam?

The main Dutch settlement on Manhattan in the colony of New Netherlands

What was important about Dutch colonization?

The Dutch focused heavily on trade, commerce, and the fur industry

What was the encomienda system?

A Spanish system that gave colonists rights to Native labor, often resulting in exploitation

Who was Bartolomé de Las Casas?

A Spanish friar who defended Native peoples and criticized their mistreatment

What was the Black Legend?

Negative portrayals of Spanish cruelty that were often used by Spain's rivals to criticize Spanish colonization

Why did Europeans use enslaved Africans?

Colonies needed large amounts of labor, especially for plantations such as sugar plantations

What was mercantilism?

An economic system in which colonies supplied resources and labor to strengthen the mother country

What was the Columbian Exchange?

The exchange of plants, animals, people, and diseases between the Americas and Europe/Africa

Name some foods that moved from the Americas to Europ

Corn, potatoes, tobacco, cacao, and beans

Name some things Europeans brought to the Americas.

Wheat, sugar, horses, cattle, pigs, and diseases

Why was sugar important?

It became a highly profitable commodity and increased the demand for enslaved labor

What was one of the most devastating effects of European contact on Native peoples?

European diseases, especially smallpox, caused enormous population losses

Beringia

an ancient land bridge linking Asia and North America

Black Death

two strains of the bubonic plague that simultaneously swept western Europe in the fourteenth century, causing the death of nearly half the population

chasquis

Incan relay runners used to send messages over great distances

chattel slavery

a system of servitude in which people are treated as personal property to be bought and sold

chinampas

floating Aztec gardens consisting of a large barge woven from reeds, filled with dirt and floating on the water, allowing for irrigation

Crusades

a series of military expeditions made by Christian Europeans to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries

feudal society

a social arrangement in which serfs and knights provided labor and military service to noble lords, receiving protection and land use in return

Inquisition

a campaign by the Catholic Church to root out heresy, especially among converted Jews and Muslims

Koran

the sacred book of Islam, believed by Muslims to be the word of God, dictated to Muhammad through an angel, in the seventh century

matriarchy

a society in which women have political power

mita

the Incan labor tax, with each family donating time and work to communal projects

polygyny

the practice of taking more than one wife

quipu

an ancient Incan device for recording information, consisting of variously colored threads knotted in different ways

Reconquista

Spain’s nearly eight-hundred-year holy war against Islam, which ended in 1492

serf

a peasant tied to the land and its lord

Black Legend

Spain’s reputation as bloodthirsty conquistadors

Calvinism

a branch of Protestantism started by John Calvin, emphasizing human powerlessness before an omniscient God and stressing the idea of predestination

Columbian Exchange

the movement of plants, animals, and diseases across the Atlantic due to European exploration of the Americas

commodification

the transformation of something—for example, an item of ritual significance—into a commodity with monetary value

encomienda

legal rights to native labor as granted by the Spanish crown

Hispaniola

the island in the Caribbean, present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic, where Columbus landed on his first voyage to the Americas and established a Spanish colony

indulgences

documents for purchase that absolved sinners of their errant behavior

joint stock company

a business entity in which investors provide the capital and assume the risk in order to reap significant returns

mercantilism

the protectionist economic principle that nations should control trade with their colonies to ensure a favorable balance of trade

mourning wars

raids or wars that tribes waged in eastern North America in order to replace members lost to smallpox and other diseases

Pilgrims

Separatists, led by William Bradford, who established the first English settlement in New England

privateers

sea captains to whom the British government had given permission to raid Spanish ships at will

probanza de mérito

proof of merit: a letter written by a Spanish explorer to the crown to gain royal patronage

Protestant Reformation

the schism in Catholicism that began with Martin Luther and John Calvin in the early sixteenth century

Puritans

a group of religious reformers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who wanted to “purify” the Church of England by ridding it of practices associated with the Catholic Church and advocating greater purity of doctrine and worship

Roanoke

the first English colony in Virginia, which mysteriously disappeared sometime between 1587 and 1590

Separatists

a faction of Puritans who advocated complete separation from the Church of England

smallpox

a disease that Europeans accidentally brought to the New World, killing millions of Native Americans, who had no immunity to the disease

sugarcane

one of the primary crops of the Americas, which required a tremendous amount of labor to cultivate