Native Americans, Migration, and European Expansion: Key Concepts

A set of Q&A flashcards covering key topics from the lecture notes: Indigenous Americas before and after European contact, major civilizations and sites, and the beginnings of European expansion and colonial systems.

What term did Europeans use to describe the Americas?

The New World.

What is the Columbian Exchange?

The global transfer of people, animals, plants, and microbes between the Old and New Worlds that reshaped economies, ecologies, and cultures.

Name two major pre-contact Native American characteristics mentioned in the notes.

They built settled communities and maintained vast trade networks (along with diverse languages and cultures).

What is Turtle Island?

The Lenape name for North America; a creation story involving Sky Woman, muskrat, beaver, and a turtle’s back.

What are the Three Sisters?

Corn, beans, and squash cultivated together in the Eastern Woodlands to support agriculture.

Where is Monte Verde and why is it significant?

Monte Verde is in present-day Chile; evidence dates human activity to at least 14,500 years ago.

What does the Bering Strait land bridge refer to?

A land/ice bridge connecting Asia and North America that allowed migration about 12–20 thousand years ago.

What is khipu?

An Inca method of record-keeping using knotted strings.

What was Cahokia?

A major Mississippian city near the Mississippi River with up to 10,000–30,000 people and Monks Mound; notable for extensive long-distance trade.

What is a kiva?

A ceremonial room used by Puebloan peoples, often subterranean.

What was Pueblo Bonito?

A large, multi-room Puebloan settlement in Chaco Canyon, NM, with about 600 rooms and five stories; decorated with copper bells, turquoise, and macaws.

What does matrilineal kinship mean in many Native communities?

Ancestry traced through the female line; women often wield significant influence.

Where did intensive agriculture using hand tools develop in Native North America?

The Eastern Woodlands.

What happened to many Native American populations after European contact?

Massive population decline due to diseases such as smallpox, typhus, influenza, measles, and others.

What was the encomienda system?

A Spanish system granting land and a number of Indigenous laborers to colonists; exploited labor and land.

What replaced encomienda in 1542, and did it end exploitation?

The repartimiento; it aimed to be milder but still reproduced many abuses.

Who led the conquest of the Aztecs?

Hernán Cortés, aided by Doña Marina (La Malinche) and Indigenous allies.

What city did Cortés conquer in 1521?

Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital.

Who was Doña Marina (La Malinche)?

An Indigenous translator and advisor to Cortés, whose role is central to the conquest narrative.

What was la Noche Triste?

The Night of Sorrows when Cortés and his allies retreated from Tenochtitlán after an Aztec uprising.

How was the Aztec empire ultimately toppled?

By a combination of indigenous alliances, siege of Tenochtitlán, and devastating disease (notably smallpox).

Who conquered the Inca Empire and when?

Francisco Pizarro in 1533, aided by internal strife and disease.

Where and when was the first enduring European settlement in what is now the United States founded?

St. Augustine, Florida, founded in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.

What was the Sistema de Castas?

A racial hierarchy in Spanish colonies based on “purity of blood,” with tiers like peninsulares, criollos, and mestizos.

What is mestizaje?

The blending of Indigenous and Spanish cultures and peoples in the Spanish Americas.

What is the Virgen de Guadalupe a symbol of?

A national icon for a new mestizo society, arising from a 1531 vision to Juan Diego.

What is chinampas?

Artificial floating gardens used by the Aztecs to sustain Tenochtitlán.

Which major disease-driven event dramatically reduced Indigenous populations after contact?

Large-scale epidemics (notably smallpox) that devastated communities across the Americas.