European Exploration and Colonization

Flashcards about the European exploration and colonization of the Americas. Covers motives, key players, the Columbian Exchange, social and economic changes, and interactions between Europeans and Native Americans.

What major trend in the 1300s and 1400s in Europe contributed to increased interest in exploration?

European states undergoing political unification, leading to stronger, centralized states and a growing upper class with demand for luxury goods.

What role did the Ottoman Muslims play in motivating European exploration?

They controlled the land-based trade routes between Europe and Asia, limiting European access to Asian markets.

Which European power was the first to establish a trading post empire around Africa and into the Indian Ocean?

Portugal

Which European power sponsored Christopher Columbus's voyage and why?

Spain, seeking a new route to Asian markets after Portugal established a monopoly.

What is the Columbian Exchange?

The transfer of people, animals, plants, and diseases between the East and West (Old World and New World).

Give examples of crops that were transferred from the Americas to Europe and vice versa during the Columbian Exchange.

Potatoes and maize from the Americas, and wheat and rice from Europe.

Give examples of animals that were transferred from the Americas to Europe and vice versa during the Columbian Exchange.

Turkeys from the Americas, and cattle, pigs, and horses from Europe.

What was the effect of introducing new foods and animals to different societies through the Columbian Exchange?

Expanding diets, leading to longer lifespans and population increases in Europe.

Name two diseases that were transferred from Europe to the Americas during the Columbian Exchange.

Smallpox and measles.

What minerals were primarily transferred from the Americas to Europe during the Columbian Exchange?

Gold and silver.

How did the influx of precious metals from the Americas impact the European economy?

Facilitated the European shift from feudalism to proto-capitalism.

What were the main changes that the Spanish implemented that altered the social and economic makeup of the Americas?

The encomienda system, the rise of African slavery, and the casta system.

What was the encomienda system and what problem led to its decline?

Used indigenous forced labor to work plantations and mines, but the indigenous population was decimated by disease.

How did European powers address the labor shortage in the Americas caused by disease?

Partnered with West Africans to bring enslaved Africans to the Americas as a replacement for native labor.

What was the Spanish casta system?

Categorized people based on race and ancestry, creating a new hierarchical system.

How did Europeans and Native Americans differ in their understanding of land use?

Europeans viewed land as a commodity that could be bought and sold, while Native Americans had a more symbiotic and spiritual connection to the land.

What were the primary religious differences between Europeans and Native Americans?

Europeans were primarily Christians, while Native Americans engaged in pantheistic religions.

Who was Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and what was his argument regarding Native Americans?

He argued that Native Americans were less than human and benefited from harsh labor conditions.

Who was Bartolomé de las Casas and what was his argument regarding Native Americans?

He argued for the dignity of Native Americans as human beings.

What are the main motivations for European colonizations, generally summarized?

Gold, God, and glory.

What was the primary goals of the Spanish in colonizing the Americas?

Extraction of wealth (gold, silver, then cash crops) and spreading Christianity.

What were the main result of Spanish goals in colonizing the Americas?

Subjugation of native populations and the imposition of the casta system.

What was the primary goals of the French and Dutch in colonizing the Americas?

Establishing trade partnerships, especially in the fur trade.

What was the primary settlements established by the French and Dutch during colonization?

Quebec for the French, and New Amsterdam for the Dutch.

What primarily motivated the British to colonize the Americas?

Inflation, the enclosure movement, and religious persecution.

What were the sought after result due to British colonizations in the Americas?

Social mobility, economic prosperity, religious freedom.

When was the first permanent settlement founded in the area now known as The United States?

Jamestown in 1607.

What was the primary goal of the Jamestown colony?

Extracting wealth, mainly through tobacco cultivation.

Describe the population of the Chesapeake colonies.

Single men looking for work as indentured servants, later replaced by enslaved Africans.

Who comprised the majority of the Chesapeake colony population?

Mostly single men coming to work.

How did the New England colonies originate?

Settled in 1620 by religious Puritan separatist families seeking to establish a colony shaped by their religious principles and economic prosperity.

What conditions fostered the growth of the British West Indies and Southern Atlantic coastal colonies?

A warm climate and year-round growing seasons, ideal for cash crop economies, especially tobacco and sugar.

What spike in demand was a result in the cash crop economies growing in the British Colonies?

High demand for African laborers on plantations.

Describe the middle colonies.

On the sea with lots of rivers, hubs for trade exporting cereal crops.

What was governing like in the New England colonies.

They were largely self-governing and unusually democratic due to the distance from Britain.

Name two documents that evidence this self-governing and democratic inclination.

The Mayflower Compact and the House of Burgesses in Virginia.

What is the triangular trade?

Describes when trade truly becomes global in nature.

Describe the process and route of the triangular trade.

Rum from New England to West Africa for enslaved people, then the middle passage across the Atlantic to the Caribbean for sugarcane.

What is mercantilism?

An economic system relying on colonies to provide the parent country with raw materials, aiming to maximize gold and silver accumulation.

What were the Navigation Acts? What influence did England seek to control?

Required trade with English colonies to be conducted on English ships and goods to pass through English ports for taxation.

What was the result of European colonization policies regarding their interactions with Native American peoples.

Wars and alliances between colonists and Native American groups due to differing policies and interactions.

What happened in Metacom's war, also known as King Phillip's war?

Metacom led the Wampanoag and allied groups against British settlements due to encroachment on their lands.

What did the Pueblo Revolt represent?

Represented the Pueblo resistance to Spanish land grabs and Christianizing missions.

Describe the British colonial dependence of enslaved African laborers from North to South.

Basically you start at the farthest North and you go to the farthest South, as you go down, the number of enslaved people increases

Why was the idea of slavery so easily justified in the period?

Because people were seen as chattel, or property rather than fully human.

What were enslaved people doing covertly to rebel against the system?

Maintaining their own cultural customs and belief systems from their homelands.

What happened at the Stono Rebellion?

A small group of enslaved people burned plantations and killed white people in South Carolina in 1739, before the rebellion was squashed.

During the colonial era, what Enlightenment influence changed colonial society.

American colonists were influenced by European intellectual movements promoting ideas like natural rights and social contract.

Who were the New Light Clergy who countered the Enlightenment influence in colonial society?

Clergy who preached against enlightenment influence leading to religious revival.

What was a key result of the First Great Awakening?

Led to a common experience for all these different people, was one step in developing a truly national identity for Americans.

What was the practice of British Impressment.

The practice of seizing colonial men against their will, forcing them to serve in the Royal Navy.

What resulted from colonists becoming more Anglicized.

Becoming increasingly aware of their natural rights and starting to view things like impressment as a violation of their rights.

What were the causes of the French and Indian War?

The mutual conflict between the British and French over the Ohio River Valley.

What was the result of the British winning the French and Indian War?

Britain ousted the French from North America, doubling their land holdings to the Mississippi River. The Louisiana Territory went to Spain

What was the proclamation line of 1763?

Declaring that colonists could not go any further west over the original colonial borders.

Why did Britain levy taxes on the colonies after the French and Indian War?

As a result of fighting that war, the British, debt was doubled and the cost of running the colonies increased fivefold. And so the British levied taxes on the colonies to help pay for the war.

Why did new taxes cause so much angst in the colonies?

A long period of solitary neglect.

After this long period of solitary neglect, what feels like the end of era for the economists?

Parliament's cracking down, demanding more tax revenue, and, and it doesn't feel like they can maintain their independence anymore.

Give three illustrations of the British cracking down on colonists.

Stricter enforcement of the Navigation Act, the Quartering Act, the Stamp Act

What objections did the colonists have to the new levels of taxation?

That Parliament is extracting taxes from us without our consent because colonial people have no representation in Parliament.

What justification did Parliament give to colonists not having direct representation?

That Parliament represents all classes of British people, not necessarily all locations.

What was the result of the colonial objection initially?

The Stamp Act congress formal petition to Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act

Following the taxation and response period, what event highlighted the growing British tyranny to colonists?

The Boston Massacre - British imperial officers fire into a crowd of colonists, killed 11 of them.

What act of resistance was significant at the time.

The Boston Tea Party - colonists dumped massive amounts of tea, very expensive, into the Boston Harbor.

What British response was significant that spread support for the patriot settlement?

The Coercive Acts were to shut down, the Boston Harbor until they paid for their lost teeth.

What Enlightenment political ideals affected the American independence movement.

Natural rights, social contract, separation of powers in government.

What was the common sense of Thomas Paine's 'Common Sense'?

That we the American colonies can no longer be, tied to Britain. Independence is the only way forward.

How do we see examples of natural rights in the Declaration of Independence?

You know, all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

What textual evidence supports the social contract ideals in the Declaration of Independence?

Where it says governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

What were the two most significant revolutionary affiliations for American colonists?

Loyalists and Patriots. The Loyalists were those American colonists who opposed independence. The the Patriots, and these were the American colonists who favored independence.

Whose presence resulted in the victory of the Patriot revolution?

The leadership of George Washington, who was the general of the Continental Army

What turning point for the revolutionary war convinced France to ally with Americans against the British?

The Battle of Saratoga in 1777.

As a result of this battle, the United States of America was birthed, what took place?

The Battle of Yorktown in 1781

What probably needs to be remember about the Articles of Confederation?

That it put all federal power into a legislative body with no checks and balances or ability to collect taxes or a national military.

What was good about the Articles of Confederation?

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which provided a plan for how unformed territories could apply to the union for statehood and abolished slavery in the Northwestern Territories.

What exposed all of the real weakness of the Articles of Confederation?

An event known as Shays' Rebellion, a rebellion of farmers in Massachusetts, alarmed leaders by showing need for new governing document.

What was the purpose of the Constitutional Convention?

To revise the Articles of Confederation, but it quickly turned into drafting a new constitution.

What were the two early significant plans of agreement as a means of fair representation for states?

Virginia Plan, which outlined that representation in Congress was determined by population. The New Jersey plan, which would represent the people by like one vote per state.

In respect to the result of the Great Compromise, how were the people represented.

In the House of Representatives, the people will be represented by population. In the Senate, each state will be represented equally.

What was comprised from compromising over the issue of slavery at the Connecticut convention?

Stated that for purposes of representation, three fifths of the enslaved population would count towards that goal. Additionally, they prohibited the international slave trade after eighteen o eight.

How did Federalists make their case known in the wake of the new convention.

They write the Federalist Papers defending and explaining the nature of the constitution to the public

Which party eventually won the Constitutional debate?

Federalists won the debate, but only by agreeing to the Anti Federalists demands for a Bill of Rights to be added to the constitution, which it was.

What is Federalism?

Federalism is the sharing of power between the federal government and the state government.

What is generally stated by the tenth amendment?

Unless the Constitution explicitly names a power that belongs to the federal government, that power is reserved for the states.

Describe the separation of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial parties.

The legislative, which was the law making branch, the executive, which was the law enforcing branch, and then the judicial, which was the law interpreting branch.

The development of the idea of the Republican motherhood led to new political ideals, what were they?

Republican motherhood assigns women a new purpose, which is that the best way that women could influence political realities, even though they didn't have power to vote or anything like that, But if women wanted to influence political realities, they could raise virtuous sons, instructed in the principles of liberty.

In the context of the era of Jefferson, the political parties continue to argue about policy. What action led to this era?

With the election of Thomas Jefferson.

During the party of Jefferson what led to new debate in Congress

Territorial holdings.

What are strict constructionists vs loose constructionists.

strict constructionists, says, we only have the power to do what the letter of the constitution says. Loose constructionists are more like, well, we have the power to do whatever the spirit of the constitution says.

What significant territorial expansion was a result of the era of Jefferson?

The Louisiana Purchase.

What critical event was a result of Marbury v Madison?

Establishment supreme court with the prerogative of judicial review, that the Supreme Court is now the final interpreter of the constitution.

Give an example of regional interests conflicting with federal power that led to it's opposition.

The War of 1812

Why, in respects to the confederation, war the Hartford Convention such a significant act?

Was fought because Britain insulted Americans' national honor, with continued use of the policy of impressment.. And during this war and during this New England expresses its opinions that opposed to it and that it should secede from the union

What was the aim of Henry Clay's American System?

To unify the American economy through federally funded internal improvements, a series of protective tariffs, establishing the second bank of the United States.

During westward expansion in the era, in regards to federal power, what led to increased regional tensions throughout congress.

Missouri applies to become a state.

Why was the fact of Missouri joining as a free state such a large regional matter in regards to the congress?

Because in the senate North and the South needed each other in cases of law making, and if Missouri became a freed state the tension towards the south and slavery would tip. And the number to each side would be asymmetrical.

What conditions created as a result of Missouri joining the nation? (The Missouri Compromise, also known as the Compromise of 1820)

That Missouri would enter as a slave state, and then the southern border of Missouri, the 3630 line, would, you know, extend it extend it out past Missouri through the Louisiana Louisiana territory and eventually on to the Pacific Ocean. Below that line, every, you know, every state that applied for to the union to become a state below that line could be a slave state. Everything above it will be a free state.

Due to the United States sought to establish its place as an independent nation on the world stage what happened territorially.

Establishing The US Canadian border at the forty ninth parallel and The US is starting to establish its authority in the whole stinking Western Hemisphere.

What resulted as a direct result of Monroe Doctrine?

This established the Western Hemisphere as a United States sphere of influence. Meaning that, we don't want any meddling of European powers here. We've got this. We will handle it.

What was the market revolution?

Was the linking of northern industry and the linking of Northern industry with western and southern farms, which created advances in technology and had significant effects on the society and culture of The United States.