F26 Colonial Latin America Midterm IDs

Bartolome de las Casas

A 16th-century Spanish Dominican friar, social reformer, and historian known as the 'Protector of the Indians.' He campaigned vigorously against the mistreatment and enslavement of Indigenous populations under the encomienda system, documented colonial atrocities in works such as A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, and defended Indigenous rights and humanity during the Valladolid Debate.

Encomienda

A Spanish colonial labor system in the Americas and the Philippines where the Crown granted settlers authority over specific Indigenous communities to extract tribute and forced labor, ostensibly in exchange for Christian education and protection, but which in practice led to widespread exploitation and depopulation.

Cacique

An Indigenous tribal leader or noble title originating among the Taíno and applied broadly across the Spanish colonial empire. These local rulers often served as political intermediaries between Spanish authorities and Indigenous communities, helping to coordinate tribute and labor demands while striving to maintain traditional authority and privileges.

Malintzin

An enslaved Nahua woman who served as an interpreter, counselor, and intermediary for Hernan Cortes during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Fluent in both Chontal Maya and Nahuatl, her linguistic abilities and diplomatic mediation facilitated vital alliances between the Spanish and Indigenous adversaries of the Mexica.

Limpieza de sangre

A Spanish ideological and legal system that emphasized the importance of proving Christian ancestry without Jewish or Muslim converts (conversos and moriscos). Originating in fifteenth-century Spain, it established ancestry and religious background as markers of social status, legitimacy, and access to positions of power. These statutes discriminated against individuals of Jewish or Muslim descent, even if they and their families had converted to Christianity, reinforcing racialized hierarchies that later influenced colonial Spanish America and the development of caste distinctions.

Gines de Sepulveda

A Spanish humanist, theologian, and philosopher who defended Spanish conquest and colonization of the Americas by arguing that Indigenous peoples were naturally inferior to Europeans. Drawing on Aristotle's concept of natural slavery, Sepúlveda claimed that Indigenous peoples were natural slaves who could legitimately be subjected to Spanish rule. He argued that conquest was justified to punish Indigenous practices such as human sacrifice, suppress supposedly barbaric customs, and facilitate the spread of Christianity. His arguments became central to the Valladolid Debate (1550–1551), where he opposed Bartolomé de las Casas, who defended Indigenous peoples' humanity and rights.

Reconquista

The centuries-long process (traditionally dated 711–1492) through which Christian kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula gradually conquered territories ruled by Muslim states following the Umayyad conquest of Iberia. The Reconquista culminated in 1492 with the conquest of Granada by Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, ending Muslim political rule in the peninsula. It reinforced Christian religious identity, territorial expansion, and the ideological association between military conquest and religious conversion. Its conclusion coincided with the expulsion of Jews from Spain and the expansion of Spanish imperial ambitions into the Americas.

Feitoria

A fortified commercial settlement established by Portuguese merchants and explorers along African, Asian, and other overseas coastlines during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Feitorias functioned as centers for trade, storage, diplomacy, and the collection of valuable commodities such as gold, ivory, spices, and enslaved people. Rather than immediately conquering large inland territories, the Portuguese often used these coastal trading posts to establish commercial monopolies, control maritime trade routes, and expand their influence through local political alliances. They became essential to Portugal's early maritime empire and its development of global trading networks.

Mita

A labor tribute system originally practiced by the Inca Empire in which communities were required to provide rotating labor for public works, agriculture, and military service. Following Spanish colonization, the Spanish adapted this system into a coercive labor draft, particularly under Viceroy Francisco de Toledo in the 1570s. Colonial mita forced Indigenous communities in the Andes to supply workers for Spanish enterprises, most famously the silver mines of Potosí. Although theoretically temporary and rotational, the colonial mita subjected Indigenous workers to dangerous conditions, exploitation, displacement, and declining population. It became a central institution supporting Spanish colonial mining and wealth extraction.

Requirement of 1512

A formal declaration developed by Spanish jurist Juan López de Palacios Rubios in 1512–1513 that Spanish conquistadors were required to read aloud to Indigenous peoples before initiating conquest. The document explained the authority of the Pope and the Spanish Crown over the Americas and demanded that Indigenous peoples accept Christianity and Spanish sovereignty. If they refused or did not comply, the Spanish claimed they were legally justified in waging war, enslaving them, and seizing their land and property. Often read in Spanish without translation or meaningful opportunity for Indigenous communities to understand or respond, the Requerimiento served as a legal and religious justification for conquest and violence.

Tenochtitlan

The capital city of the Mexica (Aztec) Empire, founded in 1325 on an island in Lake Texcoco in present-day Mexico. Tenochtitlan became one of the largest and most sophisticated urban centers in the pre-Columbian Americas, featuring monumental temples, palaces, marketplaces, canals, and agricultural chinampas (artificial farming plots). It served as the political, religious, and economic center of the Aztec Triple Alliance, which dominated much of central Mexico through military conquest and tribute collection. In 1521, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his Indigenous allies conquered Tenochtitlan after a prolonged siege, leading to the destruction of the city and the establishment of Mexico City upon its ruins.

Vasco da Gama

A Portuguese explorer and navigator who became the first European to reach India by sailing directly around Africa's Cape of Good Hope. In 1497–1498, da Gama's expedition established a maritime route connecting Portugal to the Indian Ocean spice trade, arriving in Calicut (Kozhikode), India. His voyages helped Portugal establish a commercial and imperial presence in the Indian Ocean, challenging existing Muslim, Arab, and Indian trading networks. Da Gama's later expeditions employed military violence and coercion to establish Portuguese dominance over maritime commerce, contributing to the development of Portugal's overseas empire.

Potosi

A major silver-mining city established in 1545 in present-day Bolivia following the discovery of enormous silver deposits at Cerro Rico. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Potosí became one of the wealthiest and most important economic centers of the Spanish Empire, producing vast quantities of silver that circulated throughout global trade networks, including Europe and China. Spanish colonial authorities relied heavily on Indigenous forced labor through the colonial mita, particularly after Viceroy Francisco de Toledo reorganized the labor system in the 1570s. Mining conditions were extremely dangerous, and Indigenous workers experienced exploitation, displacement, and high mortality rates. Potosí became a symbol of both Spanish imperial wealth and the human cost of colonial extraction.

Middle Passage

The forced transatlantic voyage of enslaved Africans from Africa to the Americas as part of the Atlantic slave trade, particularly between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Enslaved people were transported aboard European and later American slave ships under horrific conditions characterized by overcrowding, disease, starvation, violence, and inadequate sanitation. Millions of Africans were forcibly transported, while many others died during capture, imprisonment, or the voyage itself. The Middle Passage was a central component of the triangular trade system, connecting European manufactured goods, African slave markets, and American plantation economies dependent on enslaved labor. It facilitated the expansion of colonial agricultural production, particularly sugar, tobacco, and cotton, while profoundly shaping African diasporic communities and societies throughout the Atlantic world.

Antipodes

A term derived from Greek meaning “opposite feet,” referring geographically to places located on opposite sides of the Earth. During the medieval and early modern periods, the antipodes became a significant concept in European geographical and theological debates concerning the possibility of inhabited lands in the Southern Hemisphere. Some Europeans questioned whether people could inhabit regions opposite Europe, particularly because of uncertainty about how humans could descend from Adam and Eve or how Christianity could reach populations separated by vast oceans. The discovery and exploration of the Americas challenged European assumptions about geography, humanity, and religious universality, forcing intellectuals to reconsider the relationship between biblical knowledge and geographical discovery.

Quilombo

A community established primarily by escaped enslaved Africans and their descendants in colonial Brazil, serving as spaces of resistance against slavery and Portuguese colonial authority. Quilombos varied in size and organization, ranging from small settlements to large, politically organized communities that sometimes included Indigenous people, free Africans, and other marginalized populations. Their inhabitants cultivated crops, developed trade networks, maintained cultural traditions, and defended their autonomy against colonial attempts to destroy them. The most famous example was Palmares, a major quilombo that survived for much of the seventeenth century and resisted repeated Portuguese military expeditions before its destruction in 1694–1695.

Filipinas (Philippines)

An archipelago in Southeast Asia that became a major Spanish colonial territory following the expedition of Miguel López de Legazpi in 1565 and the establishment of Manila in 1571. Named after King Philip II of Spain, the Philippines became a crucial center of Spanish imperial expansion, Catholic missionary activity, and transpacific commerce. Manila served as the endpoint of the Manila Galleon trade, connecting Spanish America (particularly Acapulco) with Asian commercial networks, including Chinese silk, porcelain, and other luxury goods exchanged for American silver. Spanish colonization introduced Christianity, reorganized Indigenous political structures, and imposed colonial taxation and labor obligations, while Indigenous communities continued to resist Spanish authority. The Philippines became an important bridge between the Americas, Asia, and Europe within the early modern global economy.

Treaty of Tordesillas

An agreement signed in 1494 between Spain and Portugal, negotiated with the authority of Pope Alexander VI, that divided newly claimed and potentially discoverable overseas territories between the two Catholic kingdoms. The treaty established an imaginary north–south line approximately 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, granting Portugal rights to territories east of the line and Spain rights to territories west of it. This arrangement helped legitimize Portuguese expansion into Africa and Asia and Spanish colonization throughout much of the Americas. The treaty also explains why Portugal eventually colonized Brazil, whose eastern territory fell within the Portuguese sphere of influence. Indigenous peoples were excluded from negotiations, demonstrating how European powers asserted sovereignty over lands already inhabited by Indigenous communities.

Columbian Exchange

The widespread transfer of plants, animals, diseases, people, and cultural practices between the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia following Christopher Columbus's voyages in 1492. This exchange fundamentally transformed global societies, economies, and environments. The Americas introduced crops such as maize, potatoes, tomatoes, and cacao to Europe, Africa, and Asia, while Europeans brought wheat, sugarcane, horses, cattle, and pigs to the Americas. European colonization also introduced devastating diseases, including smallpox and measles, which contributed to catastrophic Indigenous population declines. The exchange facilitated the expansion of plantation agriculture, the transatlantic slave trade, and increasingly interconnected global economic networks.

Moctezuma

The ninth ruler of the Mexica (Aztec) Empire, who governed from 1502 until his death in 1520. Under his rule, the Aztec Empire reached significant political and territorial expansion, controlling extensive territories through military conquest and tribute collection. In 1519, Moctezuma encountered Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his Indigenous allies, who entered Tenochtitlan and eventually took Moctezuma captive. His relationship with the Spanish remains historically debated, particularly regarding whether he initially accommodated Cortés or attempted to resist Spanish domination. His death in 1520 occurred during the conflict between the Spanish and the Mexica, preceding the eventual fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521.