APUSH Period 1 (1491-1607): Final Review (Key Concepts and Events)

Aristocratic

Members of the highest class of society, typically nobility who inherited their ranks and titles

Astrolabe

A tool invented by Greek Astronomers and sailors for navigation or astrological problems

Atlantic World

The interactions between the peoples from the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean (Africa, the Americas, and Western Europe) beginning in the late fifteenth century

Aztecs

Spanish term for the Mexica, an indigenous people who built an empire in present-day Mexico in the centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards

Capitalism

An economic system based on private ownership of property and the open exchange of goods between property holders

Caravel

A small and swift sailing ship invented by the Portuguese during the fifteenth century

Columbian Exchange

The biological exchange between the Americas and the rest of the world between 1492 and the end of the sixteenth century. Although its initial impact was the strongest in the Americas and Europe, it was soon felt globally

Conquistadors

Also known as encomenderos, a conqueror, especially one of the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru in the 16th century.

Encomienda

The encomenderos (leading men) received land and unpaid labor from all American Indians residing on it

Feudalism

A social and economic system organized by a hierarchy of hereditary classes. Lower social orders owed loyalty to the social classes above them and, in return, received protection or land

Franciscan

A Catholic religious order known for their vows of poverty, preaching, and service to the poor

Horticulture

A form of agriculture in which people work small plots of land with simple tools

Incas

Andean people who built an empire in the centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards amid the fertile land of the Andes Mountains along the Pacific coast. Reaching the height of their power in the fifteenth century, the Incas controlled some sixteen million people

Inquisition

A religious judicial institution designed to find and eliminate beliefs that did not align with official Catholic practices. The Spanish Inquisition was first established in 1478

Mariners

Sailors

Maya

People who established large cities and the Yucatán peninsula with strong irrigation and agricultural techniques. The Maya civilization was strongest between 300 and 800 CE.

Missionaries

People who travel to foreign lands with the goal of converting those they meet and interact with to a new religion

Mission System

System established by the Spanish in 1573 in which missionaries, rather than soldiers, directed all new settlements in the Americas

Pueblo

American Indian peoples who lived in present-day New Mexico and Arizona and built permanent multi-story adobe dwellings

Renaissance

The cultural and intellectual flowering that began in fifteenth-century Italy and then spread north throughout the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. During this time, European rulers pushed for greater political unification of their states

Requerimiento

A legal document issued by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella that gave priests authority and if anyone resisted, they could be “justly” enslaved or killed

Spanish Caste System

A system developed by the Spanish in the sixteenth century that defined the status of diverse populations based on a racial hierarchy the privileged Europeans

Staple Crops

Food that forms the foundation of a regions diet

Tenochtitlán

Capital of the Aztecs in present-day Mexico City

Tribute

People of American Indian and African ancestry owed work to the Spanish colonial elites