AP European History: New Monarchies, Age of Exploration, Slave Trade, and Commercial Revolution

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, historical figures, treaties, and concepts from AP European History topics 1.5 (New Monarchies), 1.7 (Rivals on the World Stage), 1.8 (Colonial Expansion and Columbian Exchange), 1.9 (Slave Trade), and 1.10 (Commercial Revolution).

Capital

Money or property that is used for investment to make more money.

Capitalism

An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.

means of production

The factories, machines, tools, raw materials, land, and financial capital needed to make things.

means

A way to get something accomplished.

market economy

Economic decisions are made by individuals or the open market, rather than the government.

Entrepreneur

A person who organizes, manages, and takes on the risks of a business.

Medici

A powerful Italian family of bankers and merchants whose members effectively ruled Florence for much of the 15th century.

Fuggers

Leading banking family of Germany during the 15th and 16th century.

money economy

An economic system based on money rather than barter.

barter economy

Economic system in which one set of goods or services is exchanged for another.

double-entry bookkeeping

Bookkeepers record all transactions in two places so they can check one list of transactions against the other for accuracy.

joint-stock company

A company made up of a group of shareholders. Each shareholder contributes some money to the company, sharing the risk with others and receiving some share of the company's profits in exchange.

stock

A share of ownership in a company.

Dividends

Payments of cash from a corporation to its stockholders.

Dutch East India Company

A trading company established by the Netherlands in 1602 to protect and expand its trade in Asia.

British East India Company

A joint stock company that controlled most of India during the period of imperialism. This company controlled the political, social, and economic life in India for more than 200 years.

Genoa

A seaport town in Italy.

Amsterdam

Capital of the Netherlands; major trading port and financial center in the Netherlands.

London

Capital of England and the center of Banking and Stock Exchange in England.

commerce

The buying and selling of goods and services; trade.

hierarchy

A system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority.

Manor

A large estate, often including farms and a village, ruled by a lord.

landlord

Owner of rental property.

Peasants

People who worked the land or served the nobles.

Serfdom

Institution in which a peasant is attached to a feudal estate and is not free to leave.

subsistence agriculture

Agriculture designed primarily to provide food for direct consumption by the farmer and the farmer's family, rather than to sell in a market for profit.

Little Ice Age

A century-long period of cool climate that began in the 1590s. Its bad effects on agriculture in northern Europe were notable.

Great Plague

Recurrence of the Black Death in England 1665-1666.

open-field system

Division of large fields into long, narrow strips that are each then farmed by individual peasants.

the commons

Land or resources belonging to the whole of a community. Such as a grazing field for animals.

crop rotation

The planting of different crops in a field each year to maintain the soil's fertility.

two-field system

Planting crops on only half of the cultivated land, leaving the other half to lie fallow (unplanted) for a year to recover its fertility.

three-field system

A rotational system for agriculture in which one field grows grain, one grows legumes, and one lies fallow.

fallow

A plowed field that is not planted in order to let the soil "rest".

Inflation

A continuous rise in the price of goods and services.

Price Revolution

Increase in prices in 16th century-inflation- increased demand for goods-in part because of an influx of gold and silver from the Americas.

Commercial Agriculture

Agriculture undertaken primarily to generate products for sale off the farm for a profit.

Enclosure Movement

Practice of fencing or enclosing common lands into individual holdings, which happened in the 18th c in England.

agricultural commodities

Staple crops and animals produced or raised on farms or plantations to be sold in the market for a profit.

Migrants

People who leave their homes to work for a time in other regions or countries.

Portugal

First European Country to engage in African Slave Trade.

Planter Society

Stretching from the Chesapeake Bay (mid-Atlantic) to Brazil and in other parts of the world that produced crops, especially sugar, cotton and tobacco using slave labor on large estates.

Demographics

The characteristics of a population with respect to age, race, and gender.

Demographic Catastrophe

A high mortality rate in a particular portion of the population (such as Native Americans).

increased demand

When a need for a product goes up, leading to attempts to create more of something (such as cotton or sugar).

Triangle Trade

The extensive exchange of slaves, sugar, cotton, and furs between Europe, Africa, and the Americas that transformed economic, political, and social life on both sides of the Atlantic.

Middle Passage

The horrific sea journey undertaken by slave ships from West Africa to the West Indies.

Forced Migration

Human migration flows in which the people moving are not doing so because of their own choice (such as the slave trade).

Olaudah Equiano

An antislavery activist who wrote a famous account of his enslavement.

Chattel Slavery

A system of bondage in which a slave has the legal status of property and so can be bought and sold like property.

Prince Henry the Navigator

(1394-1460) Prince of Portugal who established an observatory and school of navigation and directed voyages that spurred the growth of Portugal's colonial empire.

Gold Coast

Southern coast of West Africa where Portugese fleets sponsored by Prince Henry the Navigator discovered and stole new source of gold.

Bartolomeu Dias

Portuguese explorer who rounded the tip of Africa.

Vasco da Gama

The first European to reach India by sea sailing around the tip of Africa.

Pedro Alvares Cabral

Portuguese leader of an expedition to India; blown off course in 1500 and landed in Brazil (talk about failing upward!).

Plantation

A large farm in tropical and subtropical climates that specializes in the production of one or two cash crops for sale. Often used slave labor.

Lisbon

Capital of Portugal.

Antwerp

A city in Flanders that became the centre of banking and commerce during the 16th century.

Bristol

English port city center of 16th and 17th c trade.

Columbian Exchange

The exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages.

measles

Disease spread by Europeans in the Americas that led to the death of millions of Native Americans in North and South America.

immunity

The ability of an organism to resist a particular infection--since indigenous peoples of the Americas did not have this, many died.

cash crop

A crop produced for its commercial value rather than for use by the grower. (cotton, sugar, tobacco, for example).

small pox

Disease spread by Europeans in the Americas. Led to the deaths of millions of Native Americans in North and South America.

Christopher Columbus

Mistakenly discovered the Americas in 1492 while searching for a faster route to India.

West Indies

Caribbean Islands.

Treaty of Tordesillas

Set the boundary established in 1493 to define Spanish and Portuguese possessions in the Americas.

Amerigo Vespucci

A mapmaker and explorer who said that America was a new continent, so America was named after him.

New World

The name given by Europeans to the Americas, which were unknown to most Europeans before the voyages of Christopher Columbus.

conquistadors

Spanish soldiers and explorers who led military expeditions in the Americas and captured land for Spain.

Hernan Cortes

Spanish conquistador who defeated the Aztecs and conquered Mexico (1485-1547).

Aztec Empire

Central American empire constructed by the Mexica and expanded greatly during the fifteenth century during the reigns of Itzcoatl and Motecuzoma I.

New Spain

Spanish colonial possessions in Mesoamerica; included most of central Mexico;

encomienda

A grant by the Spanish Crown to a colonist in America giving them the right to demand tribute and forced labor from the Indian inhabitants of an area.

Bartolome de las Casas

Dominican priest who spoke out against mistreatment of Native Americans.

asiento

A slave trade treaty between other countries and Spain which allowed other countries to supply slaves to Spanish colonies.

Vasco Nunez de Balboa

Spanish explorer who discovered the Pacific Ocean.

Francisco Pizarro

Spanish explorer who conquered the Incas in what is now Peru.

Inca Empire

The vast and sophisticated empire in modern day Peru, South America, that was at its peak from 1438 until 1532 when the Spanish defeated it.

Ferdinand Magellan

Portuguese explorer who found a sea route to the Spice Island by sailing around the American continent. His crew was the first to circumnavigate the world.

Spice Islands

Europeans' name for the Moluccas, islands rich in cloves and nutmeg-- modern day Indonesia south of Asia.

New Amsterdam

Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. This later became "New York City" when the British took it over.

John Cabot

1497 claimed Canada for England.

Jacques Cartier

French explorer who explored the St. Lawrence river and laid claim to the region for France (1491-1557).

Samuel de Champlain

Founded Quebec.

New France

French colony in North America, with a capital in Quebec, founded 1608. New France fell to the British in 1763.

War of the Spanish Succession

A conflict, lasting from 1701 to 1713, in which a number of European states fought to prevent the Bourbon family from controlling Spain as well as France.

Seven Years' War

Worldwide struggle between France and Great Britain for power and control of land in North America and India.

coercion

The use of force to get others to do what you want.

decentralized power

A form of government in which individual state or local governments have most decision-making authority, rather than one powerful leader/gov't.

centralized power

Power in the hands of one, single ruler who controls a powerful bureaucracy to control people under its control.

Henry VIII

King of England who broke with the Church to establish Church of England. Fought wars of power with other New Monarchs. Example of New Monarch.

Mary Tudor

Daughter of Henry and Catherine of Aragon; as queen, she tried to restore Catholicism in England.

Act of Supremacy

1534 Declared the king to be head of the English church rather than the Pope (created by Henry VIII).

Elizabeth I

English Queen and politique who united Protestants and Catholics through compromise and led England into its "Golden Age" Example of New Monarch.

New Monarchies

Monarchies that emerged that differed from their medieval predecessors in having greater centralization of power, more regional boundaries, and stronger representative institutions.

modern state

A political unit within which citizens identify with the state (country) rather than personal loyalty to a noble and see the state as legitimate. This state has a monopoly over the use of force and is able to provide citizens with key services.

King Ferdinand

King of Aragon who married and allied with Queen Isabella of Castile, using religion and exploration as a tool to unify the Iberian Peninsula. Example of New Monarch.

Isabella I

Queen of Castile who married and allied with Ferdinand of Aragon, using religion and exploration as a tool to unify the Iberian Peninsula. Example of New Monarch.

Concordat of Bologna

Treaty under which the French Crown recognized the Pope's right to take all tithes (donations to the Church) in France in exchange for the right of the French Monarch to nominate all French bishops and abbots (1516).