APUSH: Period 1 (1491-1607) Vocabulary

Three Sisters

Three staple crops (corn, beans, squash) favored by many native tribes in North America. Their collective name references their interdependence: the cornstalks provided a structure for the beans to grow to, and the squash held moisture in the soil for all three.

Great League of Peace

Also called the Haudenosaunee. A political confederation of five (later six) Iroquois tribes, which sought to coordinate collective action. Each tribe maintained its own political system and religious beliefs. Believed to have formed around 1450.

Christopher Columbus

Italian explorer and colonizer. While attempting to prove a westward sea route for East Asian trade existed, he stumbled across the Bahamas in October 1492. The first European to visit the islands of Hispaniola and Cuba.

Amérigo Vespucci

Italian explorer and cartographer. His 1499-1502 trip along the South America coast determined that the New World was a distinct continent from Asia.

Columbian Exchange

The transmission and interchange of plants, animals, diseases, cultures, human populations, and technologies between the New World and the Old World. Greatly benefited Europe and Asia while simultaneously bringing catastrophe to American Indian populations and cultures.