APWH CH 4+5 vocab

Hernán Cortés

Spanish conquistador who led the expedition that conquered the Aztec Empire in modern Mexico

Great Dying

Term used to describe the devastating demographic impact of European-borne epidemic diseases on the Americas; in many cases, up to 90 percent of the pre-Columbian population died

Little Ice Age

A period of unusually cool temperatures from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries, most prominently in the Northern Hemisphere

General Crisis

The near-record cold winters experienced in much of China, Europe, and North America in the mid-seventeenth century, sparked by the Little Ice Age; extreme weather conditions led to famines, uprisings, and wars

Columbian Exchange

The enormous network of transatlantic communication, migration, trade, and the transfer of diseases, plants, and animals that began in the period of European exploration and colonization of the Americas

Mercantilism

The economic theory that governments served their countries' economic interests best by encouraging exports and accumulating bullion (precious metals such as silver and gold); helped fuel European colonialism.

Mestizo

A term used to describe the multiracial population of Spanish colonial societies in the Americas. Recently, the word has been criticized for being associated with colonialism and racial stratification

Mulattoes

A derogatory term commonly used to describe people of mixed African and European origin

Settler colonies

Imperial territories in which Europeans settled permanently in substantial numbers. Examples include British North America, Portuguese Brazil, Spanish Mexico and Peru, Australia, New Zealand, Algeria, and South Africa

Russian Empire

A Christian state centered on Moscow that emerged from centuries of Mongol rule in 1480; by 1800, it had expanded into northern Asia and westward into the Baltics and Eastern Europe

Yasak

Tribute that Russian rulers demanded from the Indigenous peoples of Siberia, most often in the form of furs

Ming dynasty

Chinese dynasty (1368-1644) that succeeded the Yuan dynasty of the Mongols; noted for its return to traditional Chinese ways and restoration of the land after the destructiveness of the Mongols.

Qing expansion

The growth of Qing dynasty China during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries into a Central Asian empire that added a small but important minority of non-Chinese people to the empire's population and essentially created the borders of contemporary China

Ottoman Empire

Major Islamic state centered on Anatolia that came to include the Balkans, parts of the Middle East, and much of North Africa; lasted in one form or another from the fourteenth to the early twentieth century

Devshirme

A term that means "collection or gathering"; it refers to the Ottoman Empire's practice of removing young boys from their Christian subjects and training them for service in the civil administration or in the elite Janissary infantry corps

Safavid Empire

Major Turkic empire established in Persia in the early sixteenth century and notable for its efforts to convert its people to Shia Islam

Mughal Empire

A successful state founded by Muslim Turkic-speaking peoples who invaded India and provided a rare period of relative political unity (1526-1707); their rule was noted for efforts to create partnerships between Hindus and Muslims

Zamindars

An elite class of the Mughal Empire whose members controlled large tracts of land and collected taxes on behalf of the imperial court

Akbar

The most famous emperor of India's Mughal Empire (r. 1556-1605); his policies are noted for their efforts at religious tolerance and inclusion

Aurangzeb

Mughal emperor (r. 1658-1707) who reversed his predecessors' policies of religious tolerance and attempted to impose Islamic supremacy

Songhay Empire

Major Islamic state of West Africa that formed in the second half of the fifteenth century

Pueblo Revolt

A major revolt of Native American peoples against Spanish colonial rule in late-seventeenth-century New Mexico

Protestant Reformation

Massive schism within Christianity that had its formal beginning in 1517 with the German priest Martin Luther; the movement was radically innovative in its challenge to church authority and its endorsement of salvation by faith alone, and also came to express a variety of political, economic, and social tensions

Martin Luther

German priest who issued the Ninety-Five Theses and began the Protestant Reformation with his public criticism of the Catholic Church's theology and practice

Thirty Years' War

Catholic-Protestant struggle (1618-1648) that was the culmination of European religious conflict, brought to an end by the Peace of Westphalia and an agreement that each state was sovereign, authorized to control religious affairs within its own territory

Counter-Reformation

An internal reform of the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century stimulated in part by the Protestant Reformation; at the Council of Trent (1545-1563), Catholic leaders clarified doctrine, corrected abuses and corruption, and put a new emphasis on education and accountability.

Taki Onqoy

Literally, "dancing sickness"; a religious revival movement in central Peru in the 1560s whose members preached the imminent destruction of Christianity and of the Europeans and the restoration of an imagined Andean golden age

Jesuits in China

Series of Jesuit missionaries from 1550 to 1800 who, inspired by the work of Matteo Ricci, sought to understand and become integrated into Chinese culture as part of their efforts to convert the Chinese elite, although with limited success.

Wahhabi Islam

Major Islamic movement led by the Muslim theologian Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792) that advocated an austere lifestyle and strict adherence to the Islamic law; became an expansive state in central Arabia

Wang Yangming

Influential Ming thinker (1472-1529) who argued that anyone could achieve a virtuous life by introspection and contemplation, without the extended education and study of traditional Confucianism

The Dream of the Red Chamber

Book written by Cao Xueqin that explores the life of an elite family with connections to the court; it was the most famous popular novel of mid-eighteenth-century China

Mirabai

One of India's most beloved bhakti poets, who transgressed the barriers of caste and tradition

Sikhism

Religious tradition of northern India founded by Guru Nanak (1469-1539); combines elements of Hinduism and Islam and proclaims the brotherhood of all humans and the equality of men and women

Scientific Revolution

The intellectual and cultural transformation that shaped a new conception of the material world between the mid-sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries in Europe; instead of relying on the authority of religion or tradition, its leading figures believed that knowledge was acquired through rational inquiry based on evidence, the product of human minds alone.

Copernicus

Polish mathematician and astronomer who was the first to argue in 1543 for the existence of a sun-centered universe, helping to spark the Scientific Revolution

Galileo

An Italian scientist who developed an improved telescope in 1609, with which he made many observations that undermined established understandings of the cosmos

Newton

English scientist whose formulation of the laws of motion and mechanics is regarded as the culmination of the Scientific Revolution

European Enlightenment

European intellectual movement of the eighteenth century that applied the principles of the Scientific Revolution to human affairs and was noted for its commitment to open-mindedness and inquiry and the belief that knowledge could transform human society

Voltaire

The pen name of François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), a French writer whose work is often taken as a model of the Enlightenment's outlook; noted for his deism and his criticism of traditional religion

Condorect

The Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) was a French philosopher who argued that society was moving into an era of near-infinite improvability and could be perfected by human reason

kaozheng

Literally, "research based on evidence"; Chinese intellectual movement whose practitioners were critical of conventional Confucian philosophy and instead emphasized the importance of evidence and analysis, applied especially to historical documents