APUSH I Final Exam Chapter 1

highlighted terms

Corn/maize

• Most important crop to the survival of the colonies in America due to its nutritional value & adaptation to different climates

• Helped population growth & was easy to grow in America

• Spread when Columbus brought them back to Europe

Inca

• Largest empire in pre-Columbian Americas

• Started as a small tribe in Cuzco

• Had very innovative administrative systems & a huge network of paved roads for traveling

Tenochtitlan

• Big city that was the capital of the Aztec Empire

Black Death

• Plague that first struck Europe starting in Constantinople and killed around one-third of the population

• Ruined the already bad economy in Europe

Marco Polo

• Italian explorer who introduced Europeans to Central Asia and China

• Also returned with exotic goods

Prince Henry the Navigator

• Prince of Portugal who wanted to explore the western coast of Africa to:

  • establish a Christian empire there to help in his country's wars against the Moors of Northern Africa 

  • wanted to find gold

Bartholomeu Dias

• Portuguese who rounded the southern tip of Africa (sailed a ship around its southernmost point); the Cape of Good Hope

Vasco da Gama

• A Portuguese sailor who was the first European to sail around southern Africa to the cape of India

Christopher Columbus

• Italian who mistakenly discovered the Americas in 1492 while searching for a faster route to India

• Did this voyage under the Spanish

Ferdinand of Aragon

• King of Spain who married Isabella of Castile

•  This marriage united the nation in the late 15th century & created the strongest monarchy in Europe

• Agreed to Columbus' request to sail to "China" in 1492

• Agreed to the Church that Catholicism was the only religion allowed to be in the Americas

Isabella of Castile

• Queen of Spain who married Ferdinand of Aragon

•  This marriage united the nation in the late 15th century & created the strongest monarchy in Europe

• Agreed to Columbus' request to sail to "China" in 1492

• Agreed to the Church that Catholicism was the only religion allowed to be in the Americas

New World

• the name given by Europeans to the Americas

• This part of the world was unknown to most Europeans before the voyages of Christopher Columbus

Ferdinand Magellan

• Portuguese who found the Magellan strait (southern end of South America) under Spain

• Went from the stormy, Magellan strait into the calm Pacific Ocean

•  he named the Pacific (peaceful) Ocean

• Died in Philippines but completed first circumnavigation (traveling all the way around something) of the globe

Hernando Cortes

• Spanish conquistador (previous Spanish government official in Cuba) who defeated the Aztecs and conquered Mexico

• Did so by leading a military expedition into Mexico and receiving a lot of resistance from the Aztec empire

• His army exposed Aztecs to smallpox, thus getting rid of the population

• Established reputation as the most brutal Spanish conquistador

Aztecs

• Also known as Mexica (what the Aztecs called themselves)

• Created a powerful, advanced empire in central Mexico

• Had a system of tribute

• Believed in human sacrifice; often sacrificed people like prisoners

• Resisted against Cortes & got exposed to smallpox

Montezuma

• Powerful Aztec emperor who got defeated by Spanish conquerors due to smallpox

Conquistadores

• A Spanish conqueror of the Americas

• Hernando Cortes was the most brutal Spanish conquistador

• Got rid of almost all indigenous populations because of warfare & disease

• Were only interested in getting rich in the Americas, & did just that

• Came to an end in the 1540s

Francisco Pizarro

• Spanish explorer who conquered the Incas (also revealed their wealth) in what is now Peru and paved the way for other advances into South America

Encomiendas

• A system in which Spanish colonists were granted the right to demand labor and tribute (money, goods, or work) from Native Americans living in a specific area, in exchange for supposed protection and religious instruction

• Used when dealing with Moors in Spain & when Onate dealt with Pueblos

Pueblo Revolt

• Revolt of indigenous laborers led by Native American Pope

• Happened because the Spanish tried getting rid of Native American rituals they didn’t believe aligned with Christianity

• Major drought & series of raids from Apache groups

• (Apache groups) killed colonists and priests, captured Santa Fe and got Spanish out of modern-day New Mexico for 12 years

Sugarcane

• one of the primary crops of the Americas

• Required a tremendous amount of labor to cultivate

• Market for slavery increased because of it

African slave trade

• African people were captured and sold into slavery to traders from the Mediterranean region

• Were also purchased by Portuguese traders

Columbian Exchange

• The exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages

• Horses and corn were important as the Spanish brought them back to the Americas

• Other American foods that changed European agriculture include squash, pumpkins, beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers & potatoes