APUSH Unit 1

Canadian Shield

A massive zone undergirded by ancient rock in the northeastern corner of North America, believed to be the first part of the landmass to emerge above sea level.

Great Ice Age

A geological period beginning about $2$ million years ago where two-mile-thick glaciers covered parts of Europe, Asia, and the Americas, significantly shaping the landscape.

Lake Bonneville

A giant prehistoric glacial lake that covered much of present-day Utah, Nevada, and Idaho; its remnants survived as the Great Salt Lake.

Bering Land Bridge

A land isthmus connecting Eurasia and North America, exposed roughly $35,000$ years ago, which allowed nomadic Asian hunters to migrate into the Americas.

Maize

The main crop cultivated by American Indians, also known as Indian corn, which served as the foundation for the complex nation-states of the Aztecs and Incas.

Incas

A highly advanced South American civilization that occupied present-day Peru until it was conquered by Spanish forces under Francisco Pizarro in $1532$.

Aztecs

A powerful Native American empire that controlled the highlands of central Mexico until $1521$, known for advanced mathematics and ritual human sacrifice.

Pueblo

A Spanish word meaning "village," referring to the Native American peoples in the Rio Grande valley who built multistoried, terraced buildings and irrigation systems.

Cahokia

A major Mississippian settlement near present-day East St. Louis, which was home to as many as $25,000$ people around A.D. $1100$.

Three-sister farming

An agricultural system where maize, beans, and squash were grown together to maximize yields, common among the Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee peoples.

Iroquois Confederacy

A military alliance in the northeastern woodlands inspired by Hiawatha that developed political skills to maintain a robust presence for over a century.

Matrilinear

A culture where power and possessions pass down the female side of the family line, common among many North American native tribes like the Iroquois.

Vinland

A place near L'Anse aux Meadows in present-day Newfoundland discovered by Norse seafarers around A.D. $1000$, named for its abundance of wild grapes.

Caravel

A small vessel with high decks and three triangular sails developed by the Portuguese around $1450$ that could sail more closely into the wind.

Plantation

A large-scale agricultural enterprise growing commercial crops, such as sugar, that often utilized forced or slave labor.

Christopher Columbus

An Italian explorer who, while seeking a water route to India for the Spanish monarchs, landed in the Bahamas on October $12$, $1492$.

Columbian Exchange

The international trade system that emerged after $1492$, moving crops, animals, and diseases between the Old World and the New World.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A $1494$ agreement between Spain and Portugal that divided the New World territories; Spain received the bulk of the Americas.

Encomienda System

A Spanish government policy that "commended" Indians to certain colonists in the New World in return for the promise to Christianize them; effectively slavery.

Conquistadores

Spanish conquerors who fanned out across the Americas in the sixteenth century in search of "God, Gold, and Glory."

Vasco Nuñez Balboa

The Spanish explorer hailed as the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean after claiming all lands washed by that sea for his king in $1513$.

Ferdinand Magellan

The leader of the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe ($1519-1522$), though he was killed in the Philippines before the voyage concluded.

Juan Ponce de León

A Spanish explorer who ventured into Florida in $1513$ and $1521$, initially believing it was an island while searching for gold.

Francisco Coronado

A Spanish explorer who wandered through Arizona and New Mexico ($1540-1542$) in search of fabled golden cities, discovering the Grand Canyon.

Hernando de Soto

Spanish explorer who led a gold-seeking expedition through the Southeast ($1539-1542$) and was the first European to cross the Mississippi River.

Francisco Pizarro

The conquistador who defeated the Incan empire in Peru in $1532$ and significantly increased the Spanish supply of silver.

Capitalism

An economic system characterized by private property and open markets, which some scholars believe was fueled by the flood of New World bullion into Europe.

Bartolomé de Las Casas

A reform-minded Spanish missionary and Dominican friar who wrote "The Destruction of the Indies" ($1542$) to protest the mistreatment of Native Americans.

Hernán Cortés

The Spanish conquistador who conquered the Aztec empire in Mexico in $1521$ after a bloody siege of the capital, Tenochtitlán.

Malinche

A female Indian slave who served as an interpreter for Hernán Cortés; she was later baptized with the Spanish name Doña Marina.

Moctezuma

The last of the Aztec rulers who initially welcomed Hernán Cortés, believing he was the god Quetzalcoatl, but saw his empire fall to the Spaniards.

Mestizos

People of mixed Indian and European heritage, particularly common in Mexico, forming a cultural and biological bridge between races.

St. Augustine

A Spanish fortress built in Florida in $1565$, which became the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in the future United States.

Battle of Acoma

A $1599$ conflict in New Mexico where the Spanish under Don Juan de Oñate crushed the Pueblo peoples and severed one foot of each survivor.

Popé's Rebellion

A $1680$ uprising in New Mexico where Pueblo rebels destroyed every Catholic church and killed hundreds of Spanish settlers to resist religious suppression.

Black Legend

The false concept that Spanish conquerors did little but torture and butcher the Indians while stealing their gold and infecting them with smallpox.

God, Gold, Glory

The three primary motivators for early European explorers to spread Christianity, enrich themselves and their monarchs, and gain personal fame.