APUSH Unit 1: Early Exploration and Native Cultures (1491-1607)

Christopher Columbus

An Italian navigator who was funded by the Spanish government to find a passage to the Far East. He is given credit for discovering the 'New World,' when he landed on and named the Caribbean island of San Salvador on October 12, 1492. He conducted three other journeys prior to his death in 1503.

John Cabot

Italian named Giovanni ——— who explored the northeastern coast of North America for England in 1497.

Ponce de León

Spanish explorer who sailed to the America in 1513 and 1521, exploring Florida in search of gold and perhaps the fabled 'fountain of youth,' before being killed by a Native American arrow.

Hernando de Soto

Spanish conquistador who led expedition from Florida west to the Mississippi (1540-1542) with 600 men in search of gold. He discovered the Mississippi River, before being killed by Indians and buried in the river.

Francisco Coronado

From 1540 to 1542, he explored the pueblos of Arizona and New Mexico looking for the legendary city of gold El Dorado, penetrating as far east as Kansas. He also discovered the Grand Canyon and huge herds of bison.

Bartolomé de Las Casas

A Spanish missionary who was appalled by the method of encomienda systems, calling it 'a moral pestilence invented by Satan.'

Giovanni da Verranzo

Another Italian explorer, he was sent by the French king in 1524 to probe the eastern seaboard of what is today's U.S.

Don Juan de Oñate

Leader of a Spanish group that traveled parts of Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas in 1598. He brutally crushed the Pueblo Indians he met and proclaimed the province of New Mexico in 1609, founding Santa Fe.

Robert de La Salle

French explorer who led an expedition through the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi in the 1680s. He was the first European to float down the Mississippi River to the gulf and named the river valley Louisiana after his king, Louis XIV, in 1682.

Treaty of Tordesillas

An agreement in 1494, negotiated by the catholic Pope, between Spain and Portugal dividing the world's lands into two hemispheres. Spain got the vast majority, the west, and Portugal got the east.

Mestizos

The ———- were the mixed race of people created when the Spanish intermarried with the surviving Indians in Mexico.

Mound Builders

The ——————— of the Ohio River Valley and the Mississippian culture of the lower Midwest did sustain some large settlements after the incorporation of corn planting into their way of life during the first millennium A.D.

Cahokia

A Mississippian settlement near present-day East St. Louis, Ill., was perhaps home to 40,000 people in about A.D 1100, but mysteriously, around the year 1,300, both the Mound Builder and the Mississippian cultures declined.

Conquistadores

Spanish explorers that invaded Central and South America for its riches during the 1500s. In doing so, they conquered the Incas, Aztecs, and other Native Americans of the area. Eventually, they intermarried with these tribes.

Puebloans

The ——— Indians lived in the Southwestern United States. They built extensive irrigation systems to water their primary crop, which was corn. Their houses were multi-storied buildings made of adobe (dried mud).

Joint stock companies

These were developed to gather the savings from the middle class to support finance colonies. Examples were the London Company and Plymouth Company. They're the forerunner of modern day corporations.

Hiawatha

He was legendary leader who inspired the Iroquois, a powerful group of Native Americans in the northeastern woodlands of the U.S.

Encomienda system

Plantation systems where Indians were essentially enslaved under the disguise of being converted to Christianity.