US History to 1877: Early Exploration, Las Casas, and the Columbian Exchange

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, historical figures, and analytical concepts from the lecture transcript.

Secondary Source

An account or historical interpretation produced after an event by individuals who were not personally present, such as textbook authors, professors, or modern students.

Dendrochronology

The scientific method of tree ring analysis used at archaeological sites in Newfoundland to reveal a pervasive Viking presence in North America centuries prior to 1492.

Bartolomé de las Casas

A former encomendero who became a Catholic priest in the Dominican order and wrote eyewitness accounts exposing Spanish cruelty toward Native Americans to persuade King Charles I to enact reform.

Encomendero

A Spanish colonist who held a legal grant under the encomienda system giving them the right to extract tribute or labor from Native American populations in regions like Hispaniola and Cuba.

Encomienda System

A colonial Spanish labor system similar to feudalism where local grant holders were expected to protect and convert Native Americans to the Catholic faith in exchange for extracting their labor and tribute.

Columbian Exchange

An umbrella term describing the post-1492 encounter and transatlantic transfer of people, religious ideas, plants, animals, and diseases between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

Alfred Crosby

The historian who coined the term 'Columbian Exchange' to explain the significant historical impact of biological, environmental, and cultural movements between the New World and Old World.

Reconquista

The multi-century series of military campaigns by Christian kingdoms to reclaim the Iberian Peninsula from Islamic principalities (Al Andalus), culminating in 1492.

Inquisition

A judicial institution established in Spain following the 1492 royal decree of mandatory conversion to Christianity, aimed at detecting whether Muslim and Jewish converts were practicing true faith.

Black Legend

The portrayal of Spanish colonizers as uniquely tyrannical, brutal, and cruel, which was derived from accounts by writers like Las Casas and utilized by rival European powers to justify their own imperial ambitions.

Richard Hakluyt

An English Protestant writer who in 1584 urged England to establish colonies in North America to counter Spanish tyranny and Catholic influence.