North America & Exploration Flashcards

Flashcards reviewing key vocabulary from lecture notes on the struggle for North America, European exploration, and the Atlantic slave trade.

Christopher Columbus

Italian explorer sailing for Spain who landed in the Americas.

Colony

Land controlled by another nation.

Conquistadors

Spanish explorers who conquered the Americas in the 16th century.

Hernando Cortés

Conquistador who defeated the Aztec Empire, conquering Mexico.

Francisco Pizarro

Conquistador who defeated the Incan Empire, conquering Peru.

Atahualpa

Last Incan emperor, defeated and killed by the Spanish.

Mestizo

Person with mixed Spanish and Native American blood.

Encomienda

System of mining and farming using natives as slave labor.

New France

Area of the Americas explored and claimed by France.

Jamestown

First permanent English settlement in North America.

Pilgrims

Group of English people who founded the colony of Plymouth in 1620.

Puritans

Group of English people who founded a colony at Massachusetts Bay in 1630.

New Netherland

Dutch colony begun in an area that is now New York.

French and Indian War

War between Britain and France over land in North America.

Metacom

Native American leader who led an attack on the villages of Massachusetts; also called King Philip.

Wealth

The primary reason for exploration was the desire for new sources of wealth, specifically spices and luxury goods from Asia

Spread of Christianity

Europeans believed they had a sacred duty to continue fighting Muslims and convert non-Christians.

"God, Glory, and Gold"

A summary of the motivations for exploration.

Caravel

A sturdier ship with triangular sails adopted from the Arabs that allowed sailing against the wind.

Astrolabe

Perfected by Islamic astronomers and mathematicians, used to determine latitude by sighting the stars.

Magnetic Compass

A Chinese invention, used to accurately track direction.

Wind Rose

A tool perfected by the Portuguese that showed from which direction the wind was blowing.

Pilot Books/Navigation Charts

Captains recorded measurements and observations of ocean current patterns for future voyages.

Prince Henry the Navigator

A strong supporter of exploration who founded a navigation school in 1419, gathering mapmakers, instrument makers, shipbuilders, scientists, and sea captains.

Bartolomeu Dias (1488)

Sailed around the southern tip of Africa (Cape of Good Hope) after a storm blew his ships around it.

Vasco da Gama (1497-1499)

Reached Calicut, India, establishing a direct sea route to India.

Pope Alexander VI (1493)

Proposed the Line of Demarcation, dividing the Atlantic Ocean north to south.

Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)

Spain and Portugal agreed to move the Line of Demarcation farther west, granting Portugal parts of modern-day Brazil.

Afonso de Albuquerque

Portuguese sea captain who emphasized crushing Muslim-Italian domination over Asian trade.

Dutch East India Company

A powerful company that drove out the English and established dominance over the Asian region.

English East India Company

Focused on establishing outposts in India, trading Indian cloth in Europe.

Atlantic Slave Trade

Buying and selling Africans for work in the Americas.

Encomienda System

Native laborers were technically not property of Spanish landlords.

Indentured Servitude

Europeans worked for a set number of years to pay off the cost of their voyage to the Americas.

Wage Labor

Workers are paid for their labor and enter the relationship voluntarily.

The Middle Passage

The voyage that brought captured Africans to the West Indies and later to North and South America.

Triangular Trade

A transatlantic trading network along which slaves and other goods were carried between Africa, England, Europe, the West Indies, and the colonies in the Americas.

Mercantilism

An economic policy under which nations sought to increase their wealth and power by obtaining large amounts of gold and silver and by selling more goods than they bought.

Favorable Balance of Trade

An economic situation in which a country sells more goods abroad than it buys from abroad.

Columbian Exchange

The global transfer of plants, animals, and diseases that occurred during the European colonization of the Americas.

Capitalism

An economic system based on private ownership and the investment of money in business ventures in order to make a profit.

Joint-Stock Company

A business in which investors pool their wealth for