Chapter 25 Vocab Words

Audiencias

Royal courts of university-educated lawyers who reviewed viceroys’ performance, heard appeals against their policies, and reported directly to the Spanish King to prevent colonial independence.

Conquistadores

16th-century Spanish military explorers (e.g., Cortes and Pizarro) who used advanced weapon army and Indiginous allience to overthrow the Aztec and Inca empires, establishing Spanish rule.

Criollos

People of European decent born in the Americas. They occupied high social and economic standing but ranked below European-born peninsulares, leading to tensions that fueled independence movements.

Encomienda

A labor system granting Spanish settlers the right to compel indigenous people (like the Taino) to work in mines/fields in exchange for protection and Christian conversion; it was notorious for brutal abuse.

Engenho

A Brazilian sugar mill complex compassing land, labor, and technology. It functioned as both an agricultural and industrial enterprise, requiring heavy labor and specialized skills.

Hacienda

Large 17th-century Spanish American estates that produced European crops (wheat, grapes) and livestock to supply food and goods to local mining districts and cities.

Indentured Labor

A system where poor Europeans, orphans, or prisoners traded 4-7 years of lab or for passage to the Americas. Most died from overwork or disease before gaining their promised freedom.

Manila

A Spanish colonial city in the Philippines that served as the primary administrative and commercial hub linking Asian trade with Spain’s Pacific empire.

Manila Galleons

Large Spanish trading ships that sailed between Acapulco (Mexico) and Manila (Philippines) from the 16th to 18th centuries, connecting global economies with American silver.

Mestizo

A term for people of “mixed” Spanish and Indiginous ancestry. Their rise reflects the multicultural societies formed in the Americas due to the scarcity of European women among the colonizers.

Métis

People of mixed French and indigenous North American ancestry. They served as cultural and economic intermediaries in the fur trade, highlighting a more cooperative colonization model than the Iberian conquests.

Peninsulares

Migrants born in Europe (Iberian Peninsula) who held the highest positions in the Spanish and Portuguese colonial social hierarchy, above the American born criollos.

Quinto

“The Royal Fifth”; a 20% share of silver production that the Spanish Crown reserved for itself, serving as its principal revenue source from the American colonies.

Taino

The indigenous peoples of the Caribbean encountered by Columbus. They faced rapid population devastation due to forced labor (encomienda), violence, and European diseases like smallpox.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A 1494 agreement where Spain and Portugal divided the world along a North-South line. Spain claimed lands to the west (most of the Americas), and Portugal claimed the lands to the east (Brazil, Africa, Asia).

Zambos

People of mixed indigenous and African ancestry in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, whose existence reflected the extensive racial mixing that occurred due to male-dominated colonization.