Unit 1 Vocab

Colonization

When one country or group takes control of a foreign territory.

Conquistador

A Spanish soldier and explorer.

Columbian Exchange

The transfer of plants, animals and diseases between the Americas and Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Northwest Passage

A nonexistent path though North America that early explorers searched for.

Line of Demarcation

Boundary between Spanish and Portuguese territory.

Caravels

A small, fast, and highly maneuverable sailing ship.

Mercantilism

An economic system from the 16th to the 18th century where governments tried to build wealth and power

Imports

Bring goods or services into one country from another to be sold.

Exports

Goods and services produced in one home country and sold to buyers in another country.

Raw Materials

A basic, unprocessed or minimally processed substance used to manufacture finished goods or energy.

Cash Crop

An agricultural product grown specifically to sell for a profit on the market or for export.

Indentured Servitude

A labor system where a person agrees to work without regular pay for a set number of years in exchange for travel costs, food, housing, and basic needs.

Slavery

A system where one person legally owns another person as property and forces them to work without freedom.

Middle Passage

A voyage that brought enslaved Africans across the Atlantic ocean to North America and West Indies.

Triangular Trade

Atlantic trade routes connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas from the 16th to the 19th century.

African Diaspora

The global collection of communities of people of African descent living outside the African continent.

Leif Erikson

A Norse explorer who reached North America (calling it Vinland) around the year 1000, long before Columbus.

Christopher Columbus

An Italian explorer funded by Spain who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and reached the Caribbean in 1492.

John Cabot

An Italian explorer funded by Spain who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and reached the Caribbean in 1492.

Ferdinand Magellan

A Portuguese explorer whose Spanish-funded expedition completed the first recorded voyage around the entire Earth.

Bartolomé de las Casas

A 16th-century Spanish priest who fought against the brutal treatment of Indigenous peoples by Spanish colonists.

Hernán Cortés

A Spanish conquistador who led the military expedition that overthrew the Aztec Empire in 1519–1521.

Moctezuma II

The Aztec emperor who ruled during the arrival of Cortés and died during the initial Spanish takeover of Tenochtitlan.

Francisco Pizzaro

A Spanish conquistador who led the expedition that conquered the Inca Empire in Peru in 1532.

Samuel de Champlain

A French explorer who founded Quebec in 1608 and mapped much of northeastern North America.