Euro vocab quiz 1

Samuel de Champlain

French explorer who founded Quebec and helped establish New France.

Bartolomé de las Casas

Spanish priest who spoke out against the mistreatment of Indigenous people under Spanish colonization.

Cartography

the science/art of making maps.

Amerigo Vespucci

Italian explorer who argued that the lands Europeans encountered were a separate continent, not Asia; America was named after him.

Portolani

detailed navigation/sailing maps showing coastlines, ports, and sea routes.

Hernán Cortés

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Aztec Empire in Mexico.

Immunity

the body's resistance to a disease. This mattered because Europeans had greater immunity to some diseases that devastated Indigenous populations.

Mercantilism

economic system where colonies existed largely to increase the wealth and power of the parent country, especially by supplying resources and buying its goods.

Encomienda

Spanish colonial system that gave colonists the right to demand labor/tribute from Indigenous people, supposedly in exchange for protection and Christianization.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa

Spanish explorer who crossed Panama and became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean from the Americas.