Trade Revitalization, Exploration, and Clashing Worlds

Vocabulary flashcards covering European exploration, trade networks, the Renaissance, and the Spanish conquest of the Americas.

Spanish Inquisition

A institution used by Ferdinand and Isabella to determine if people in Spain were properly practicing the Catholic faith, enforcing compliance through punishments that could lead to torture or death.

Expulsion of 1492

A Spanish royal decree requiring Jewish people to either convert to Catholicism or leave Spain, leading to the departure of many people along with significant resources.

Ming Dynasty Trade

A trading system overwhelmingly focused on internal Chinese demand and markets, utilizing the Great Canal for low-cost transportation of goods like porcelain, silk, rice, cotton, and paper.

Porcelain

A major trade commodity during the Ming Dynasty that was overwhelmingly consumed internally, bought by the rich for themselves and by normal people for their families.

Caravanserais

Structures built by the Ottoman Empire along overland trade routes where caravans of up to one thousand camels could stop and rest, generating revenue for the empire and helping fund its military.

Humanism

A Renaissance way of thinking emphasizing that the world is interesting and worth studying by using one's senses to investigate and relate to it.

Printing Press

A machine that sped up the printing process across Europe, allowing ideas to circulate faster and more widely.

Lateen-rigged Sails

Movable sails used on Portuguese ships designed to capture wind from any direction.

Tenochtitlan

The capital of the Aztec Empire, built on Lake Texcoco after seeing an eagle on a sign, which grew into one of the top 5 largest cities in the world with canals navigated by canoes.

Natural Man

A concept used by Columbus to describe the native people of the Americas as humans not corrupted by human structures.

Flowery Wars

Long-running, small-scale conflicts waged by the Aztecs among small numbers of people to capture individuals for human sacrifice.

Hernan Cortes

A Spanish conquistador who led an expedition of 500 people, horses, and guns to conquer the Aztec Empire between 1519 and 1521.

Dona Marina

An individual who served as a translator for Hernan Cortes during the conquest of the Aztec Empire.

Ceremonies of Possession

Legal rituals during which Spanish colonizers read documents aloud to indigenous residents to prove land was vacant or improperly used to justify taking it.

Line of Demarcation

A division of land granting Spanish colonizers the legal right to take native lands on the condition that they converted the local population.

Encomienda

A grant providing a Spanish landholder entitlement to the labor of the indigenous people living on a specific portion of land forever.

Bartolome de Las Casas

A critic of Spanish colonial practices who argued during a famous debate that Spanish actions in the Americas were wrong and that native inhabitants were being mistreated.

Juan Gines de Sepulveda

A Spanish figure who argued against Bartolome de Las Casas, asserting that the native population of the Americas were not natural men but natural slaves.