Exploring the Americas: Chapter 3 Review Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering early exploration, African kingdoms, new technology, Spanish conquests, and settlement in the Americas.

Islam

A religion founded in the early A.D. 600s that spread rapidly across the Middle East and Africa.

Crusades

A series of nine European military expeditions launched in 1095 to take back control of Christian holy sites in the Middle East from Muslims, which sparked European demand for Asian trade goods.

Travels

The book written in the late 1200s by Marco Polo describing Asia's people, great riches, and splendid cities.

Renaissance

A period of intellectual and artistic creativity meaning "rebirth," marked by a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman classical works.

Astrolabe

A navigation instrument used by sailors to observe stars and determine their position and latitude.

Caravel

A Portuguese three-masted ship capable of traveling faster, carrying more cargo, sailing in shallow water, and steering into the wind using triangular sails and a stern rudder.

Ghana

A vast West African trading empire that grew rich by taxing trade routes before declining due to attacks by Almoravids.

Mali

A West African kingdom that emerged as Ghana declined, whose ruler King Mansa Musa brought Muslim architecture and Islamic culture to its capital city, Timbuktu.

Songhai Empire

A West African empire that captured Timbuktu in 1468, established a legal system based on Islam, and was conquered by Morocco in the late 1500s.

Gold Coast

The region along the west coast of Africa where Portuguese traders established posts to trade for gold, ivory, and starting in the mid-1400s, enslaved Africans.

Henry the Navigator

The Prince of Portugal who established a center for exploration and brought together astronomers, geographers, and mathematicians to aid shipbuilders.

Bartolomeu Dias

A Portuguese explorer sent in 1487 by King John II who reached the southernmost point of Africa, naming it the Cape of Storms (later named the Cape of Good Hope).

Vasco da Gama

A Portuguese navigator who completed a sea route around Africa to Calicut, India, in 1497–1498.

Vikings

Norse sailors from Scandinavia who established settlements in Iceland, Greenland, and North America in the 800s and 900s, making them the first Europeans in North America.

Christopher Columbus

An Italian navigator who sailed west across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492 under the sponsorship of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, landing on San Salvador in the Bahamas.

Conquistador

A Spanish explorer given the right by Spanish rulers to explore and establish settlements in the Americas in exchange for sharing wealth.

Hernán Cortés

The Spanish conquistador who landed on the east coast of Mexico in 1519 and conquered the Aztec Empire within two years.

Francisco Pizarro

The Spanish conquistador who led an army into the Inca capital of Cuzco in Peru, executed the Inca ruler, and conquered the Inca Empire.

Juan Ponce de León

A Spanish conquistador who explored Eastern and Southern Florida as well as the Florida Keys.

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

A Spanish conquistador who explored Texas and the Gulf Coast.

Hernando de Soto

A Spanish conquistador who explored the west coast of Florida.

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado

A Spanish conquistador who explored California, the Southwest, and the Great Plains.

Pueblo

A type of Spanish settlement established as a town or trading center in the Americas.

Mission

A Spanish religious settlement built to convert local Native Americans to Christianity.

Presidio

A Spanish military fort built near missions to protect settlements from intruders.

Plantation

A large farm used to grow crops, where Spanish colonizers forced Native Americans and enslaved Africans to labor.

Immunity

Natural resistance to disease, which Native Americans lacked against European diseases like smallpox.

Quetzalcōātl

An Aztec deity linked to a prophecy stating that he would return from the East across the ocean to rejoin his people.

Columbian Exchange

The exchange of plants, animals, diseases, people, and ideas between the New World and Old World following Christopher Columbus's voyages.