Unit/Period 1 Vocabulary for History Studies

African Slave Trade

African people were taken as slaves to be sold in America, in America they would work in mines & plantations. The profit went to europe where they built goods to then be sold to Africans. It was a triangle.

Algonquin

Native Americans found living over a large area from the Atlantic coast to the Great Lakes.

Atlantic World

A pattern of exchange between Western Europe, Western Africa, North and South America, and the Caribbean. Made it easier to get goods from foreign places.

Bartolome De Las Casas

Dominican priest who spoke out against mistreatment of Native Americans

Cahokia

an ancient settlement of southern Indians, located near present day St. Louis, it served as a trading center for 40,000 at its peak in A.D. 1200.

Catholic Missions

A number of settlements and building created by the Spanish in the New World in order to spread religion and stake claims to land.

Charter Company

an association formed by investors or shareholders for the purpose of trade, exploration, and colonization

Christopher Columbus

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

Columbian Exchange

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

Conquistadors

Early-sixteenth-century Spanish adventurers who conquered Mexico, Central America, and Peru. (Examples Cortez, Pizarro, Francisco.)

coureurs de bois

(runners of the woods) French fur traders, many of mixed Amerindian heritage, who lived among and often married with Amerindian peoples of North America.

Encomienda System

system in Spanish America that gave settlers the right to tax local Indians or to demand their labor in exchange for protecting them and teaching them skills.

Henry Hudson

Discovered what today is known as the Hudson River. Sailed for the Dutch even though he was originally from England. He was looking for a northwest passage through North America.

Hopewell ruins

Present-day Ohio. The ruins are large burial mounds.

Six Nations Confederacy

Six First Nations peoples that joined to together under a constitution called the Great Law of Peace and created a democracy.

Iroquois League

a league of Iroquois tribes including originally the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca (the Five Nations)

Maize

An early form of corn grown by Native Americans

Three sisters agriculture

Native American method of planting corn, beans, and squash together

Mayan, Inca and Aztecs

The three most complex Native American communities living in Central and South America

Mercantilism

An economic policy under which nations sought to increase their wealth and power by obtaining large amounts of gold and silver and by selling more goods than they bought

Meso-America

a region stretching from central Mexico to Nicaragua, usually used in terms of the region's ancient civilizations and aboriginal cultures

Mestizos

A person of mixed Native American and European ancestory

Missions

church outposts

New Amsterdam

Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. This later became "New York City"

Pope's Rebellion

An Indian uprising in 1680 where pueblo rebels in an attempt to resist Catholicism and Europeans all together destroyed every catholic church in the province and killed scores of priests and hundreds of Spanish settlers.

Puritans

A religious group who wanted to purify the Church of England. They came to America for religious freedom and settled Massachusetts Bay.

Richard Hakluyt

English promoter of exploration. In 1584 he wrote A Discourse of Western Planting in which he pleaded for colonies to accomplish diverse objects: to extend the reformed religion, to expand trade, to supply England's needs from her own dominions, and various other reasons for exploration.

Roanoke

Established in 1587. Called the Lost Colony. It was financed by Sir Walter Raleigh, and its leader in the New World was John White. All the settlers disappeared, and historians still don't know what became of them.

Samuel De Champlain

French explorer in Nova Scotia who established a settlement on the site of modern Quebec (1567-1635)

Separatists

English Protestants who would not accept allegiance in any form to the Church of England. Included the Pilgrims and Quakers

Sir Walter Raleigh

An English adventurer and writer, who was prominent at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, and became an explorer of the Americas. In 1585, Raleigh sponsored the first English colony in America on Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina. It failed and is known as " The Lost Colony."

Smallpox

The overall deadliest known disease in the history of the world and the main disease that caused the decline of Native Americans in the New World.

Spanish Armada

"Invincible" group of ships sent by King Philip II of Spain to invade England in 1588; Armada was defeated by smaller, more maneuverable English "sea dogs" in the Channel; marked the beginning of English naval dominance and fall of Spanish dominance.

St. Augustine

1st colony in Florida set up by Spain

Tenochtitlan

Capital of the Aztec Empire, located on an island in Lake Texcoco. Its population was about 150,000 on the eve of Spanish conquest. Mexico City was constructed on its ruins.

Spanish Black Legend

referred to the Spanish treatment of native people, spread throughout Europe by Spain's enemies to make them look bad and to encourage other European countries to immigrate to the Americas

Woodland Indians

the third prehistoric Native American culture in Georgia; credited for the development of the bow and arrow, pottery for storage, and intensification of horticulture, as well as building small mounds

Encomienda

A grant of land made by Spain to a settler in the Americas, including the right to use Native Americans as laborers on it

subsistence farming

farming in which only enough food to feed one's family is produced

Valladolid Debate

Concerned the treatment of natives of the New World. It concerned two main attitudes towards the conquest of the Americas. Bartolomé de las Casas argued Amerindians were creations of God and deserved same treatment as Christian Europeans. Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda thought that the natives should be slaves because of their crimes against nature and against God.