Chapter 2: Making an Atlantic World Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, historical figures, and geographic systems from Chapter 2: Making an Atlantic World.

Caravel

A maneuverable ship developed and used by Portuguese mariners to travel farther into the Atlantic Ocean during their overseas expansion.

Astrolabe

A navigational instrument used by Portuguese mariners alongside the magnetic compass and cartography to calculate position and navigate ocean trade routes.

Stateless Societies

Autonomous communities in West Africa organized around lineage structures rather than centralized monarchical or state authority.

Reconquista

The military campaign completed by Ferdinand and Isabella through the conquest of Granada, which unified Spain under a Catholic monarchy and provided a model for later conquistadores.

Conquistadores

Spanish military conquerors driven by motivations of wealth, personal glory, royal service, and religious conversion ("gold, glory, and God").

Taíno

The Indigenous population living in agricultural communities across much of the Greater Antilles who engaged in regional trade prior to European conquest.

Encomienda System

A Spanish system granting colonizers claims to Indigenous labor and tribute in exchange for protection and Christian instruction, which led to widespread exploitation.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A 1494 agreement between Spain and Portugal that established a meridian 270 leagues west of the Azores, assigning lands to the west to Spain and granting Brazil to Portugal.

Malintzin (Malinche)

An Indigenous woman fluent in Maya and Nahuatl who acted as a key translator, negotiator, and intermediary for Hernán Cortés during his campaign against Tenochtitlán.

Tenochtitlán

The sophisticated capital city of the Mexica Empire, constructed with causeways, canals, markets, temples, and aqueducts, which fell to Spanish and Indigenous forces in 1521.

Atahualpa

The Inca ruler captured in 1532 by Francisco Pizarro during a period of civil conflict and widespread epidemic disease in the Andes.

Casta System

A social and racial hierarchy established in Spanish America to categorize and rank people based on their mixed Iberian, Indigenous, and African ancestry.

St. Augustine

A settlement in Florida founded by Spain in 1565, serving as the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the modern continental United States.

Pueblo Revolt of 1680

A coordinated rebellion by Pueblo communities in New Mexico that temporarily expelled Spanish officials and missionaries until Spain regained control in 1692–1693.

Atlantic Island Plantation Model

The system developed on Atlantic islands such as the Canary, Madeira, Azores, Cape Verde, and São Tomé that linked sugar cultivation with coerced and enslaved African labor before spreading to the Americas.

Coastal Forts and Castles

Fortified trading centers established on the West African coast where European merchants paid fees to local rulers in order to trade European goods for gold, ivory, and enslaved people.

Epidemic Disease in the Conquest

Outbreaks of Afro-Eurasian diseases like smallpox that decimated Indigenous populations, severely disrupting local leadership and defense before Spanish forces captured major empires.