Age of Exploration and Spanish Conquistadors

Flashcards covering key terms, historical figures, and geographic locations from the lecture on early Portuguese and Spanish exploration, Magellan's voyage, and Spanish conquistadors.

Spice Islands

Islands located in modern-day Indonesia and Malaysia that the Portuguese sought to reach by sailing around Africa to trade for spices.

Isabella of Castile

The Queen of Castile who served as the primary financial backer and political power behind Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage.

Genoa

The powerful Italian port city-state where Christopher Columbus was born and grew up aboard ships.

Pinta

One of the three ships on Columbus's 1492 voyage, whose name means 'feminine small' in Spanish.

Niña

One of the three ships on Columbus's 1492 voyage, whose name means 'small child' in Spanish.

Santa Maria

The lone flagship among Christopher Columbus's three vessels during his first crossing of the Atlantic in 1492.

Hispaniola

The Caribbean island containing present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where Christopher Columbus established his main early landing.

Los Indios

The Spanish term used by Christopher Columbus for native inhabitants in an attempt to sell the idea that he had successfully reached Asia.

Cartographer

A map maker, such as the Italian Amerigo Vespucci, whose name inspired the term 'America'.

Pope Alexander VI

Born Rodrigo Borgia in Spain, he was the Renaissance pope who brokered the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal in 1494.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A 1494 agreement mediated by Pope Alexander VI that assigned the Americas to Spain and Africa and Asia to Portugal.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa

Spanish explorer who crossed the Panamanian Isthmus and became the first European explorer to see the Pacific Ocean from the American continent.

Rio de la Plata

A 5-mile-wide river mouth between modern Uruguay and Argentina that Ferdinand Magellan mistakenly navigated upstream for six weeks thinking it was the Pacific opening.

Strait of Magellan

A dangerous, labyrinthine waterway at the southern tip of South America navigated by Magellan's fleet over six weeks in late 1520.

Cebu

A Philippine island where Ferdinand Magellan landed in March 1521 and traded with local chiefs who agreed to convert to Christianity.

Lapulapu

The chief of Mactan Island in the Philippines who resisted conversion and killed Ferdinand Magellan in battle in April 1521.

Circumnavigation

The act of sailing around the entire globe, first accomplished by Magellan's surviving crew when 18 men returned to Spain in September 1522.

Conquistadores

Spanish military conquerors, such as Hernán Cortés, who sought personal wealth, power, and land under the guise of religious conversion.

Hernán Cortés

Spanish conquistador who launched an unauthorized expedition from Cuba with 800 to 1,000 men to conquer the Aztec Empire in Mexico.

Yucatán Peninsula

The region in eastern Mexico where Cortés landed and encountered remnants of the Mayan civilization and a Spanish priest who could translate Mayan.