Unit 1 APUSH Vocab

The ultimate study guide for vocabulary from Unit 1 of AP United States History!!!

Columbian Exchange

The widespread transfer of plants, animals, technologies, diseases, etc. between the New and Old Worlds following Christopher Columbus’s journey to North America in 1492

Maize

Also known as corn, this crop was first developed in Mesoamerica and spread northward to the rest of North America, fostering economic development, promoting sedentary lifestyles, enabling population growth, stimulating trade networks, and facilitating the rise of more complex civilizations like the Pueblo in the present-day Southwestern United States; in the Northeast, the cultivation of maize, beans and squash (“Three-sisters” farming) facilitated the development of permanent villages and large settlements along the Mississippi River, like Cahokia

Great Basin

A large arid region in the western United States with a lack of drainage to the ocean and diverse environments like mountains and deserts; Native Americans in this area often relied on hunting, gathering, and fishing to survive and practiced limited agriculture

Great Plains

A region once occupied by nomadic Native Americans, which relied on buffalo for sustenance and lacked many natural resources due to the geography of their homeland

Mississippi River Valley

A region where Native American societies thrived due to the fertile land and river systems, allowing agriculture and trade to flourish and prominent civilizations like Cahokia

God, Gold, Glory

Three main reasons (spread Christianity, accumulate bullion, and gain critical fame as as national heroes) for why Europeans explored and colonized, particularly in the New World

Feudalism

A European sociopolitical and economic system (dominant before the Age of Exploration) where land ownership and loyalty formed a hierarchy; the system was later replicated in a fashion with the Spanish encomienda system in the Americas, utilizing Native American labor under the guise of Christianization and protection

Capitalism

An economic system where private individuals and businesses own the means of production and distribution, and where goods and services are primarily allocated through free markets driven by competition and profit motives

Joint-Stock Companies

A business owned by its investors (examples in U.S. history: Virginia Company of London, Hudson’s Bay Company)

Encomienda System

A labor system in Spanish America where it was intended for Native Americans to do public labor like silver mining in exchange for their conversion to Christianity and protection by the Spaniards

Caste (Casta) System

A social hierarchy based on race, topped by Peninsulares (white Europeans born on the Iberian Peninsula), then Criollos (white Europeans born in the Americas), Mestizos (mixed-race individuals, especially those with half-white ancestry), and lastly Native Americans and enslaved Black people.