unit one vocab

Great Basin

Arid region of the south west United States including Nevada, Arizona and Utah

Colombian exchange

The transfer of goods crops and diseases between the new world and the olde world societies after 1492

Caste system

A set of rigid social categories that determined not only a persons occupation and economic potential, but also his or her position in society

Bartolome de las casas

A catholic missionary who renounced the Spanish practice of forcibly converting Indians and advocated better treatment for them.

In 1552 he wrote “A brief relation of the destruction of indies.” which described the Spanishes cruel treatment of the Indians

Christopher Columbus

Italian navigator who discovered the new world in the service of Spain while looking for a route to china and committed acts of atrocity against native populations

Feudalism

A political system in which nobles are granted the use of lands that legally belong to their king in exchange for their loyalty, military service, and protection of the people who live on the land

Atlantic seaboard

Societies developed a mixed agricultural and hunter-gatherer economy that favored th development of permanent villages

Hernan Cortez

In 1519 he led soldiers to Tenochtitlan, placed it under siege with the help of natives, defeated the Aztec empire and began Spanish empire in Mesoamerica

Capitalism

An economic system based on a free market, open competition, profit motive and private ownership of means of production

Joint stock company

A company made up of a group of shareholders and each shareholder contributes some money to the company and receives some share of the companies profits and debts

Eastern woodlands

In eastern woodlands; was an agricultural society; grew “3 sisters” crops (squash, beans, and corn); were mound builders

Maize

An early form of corn grown by Native Americans which was the most important crop of survival of early Americans

Great Plains

A vast grassland that extends through the central portion of North America, from the Mississippi River valley in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west

Conquistadors

16th century Spaniards who fanned out across the americcas, from Colorado to Argentina, eventually conquering the Aztec and Ivan empires

Encomienda system

Spanish governments policy to “commend,” or give, Indians to certain colonists in return for then promise to Christianize them.

Part of the broader Spanish effort to subdue Indian tribes in the West Indies and on North American mainland