CH 1 AMH

The old world

Great League of Peace

Formed 400 years ago. Each year, the Haudenosaunee Great Council, with male representatives chosen by the women of the 5 nations, met to coordinate dealings with outsiders. The league was a major force in the 1600s and 1700s.

Reconquista

The “reconquest” of Spain from the Moors completed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492.

Caravel

A 15-century European ship capable of long distance travel.

Conquistadores

Spanish term for “conquerors”, applied to Spanish and Portuguese soldiers who conquered lands held by Indigenous peoples in central and southern America as well as the current states Florida Texas New Mexico Arizona Califronia

Tenochtitlan

The capital city of the Aztec Empire; the city was built on marshy islands on the western side Lake Tezcoco, which is the site of present day Mexico city

Aztec

The Mesoamerican empire ruled by the Mexica people that was defeated but the Spanish under Hernán Cortés and his Native allies, 1519-1528

Columbian Exchange

The transatlantic flow of goods and people that began with Columbus’s voyages in 1492.

creoles

Person born in the Americas of European ancestry

Hacienda

Large-scale farm in the Spanish empire worked by Native American labores.

Metizos

Spanish word for persons of mixed Native American + European ancestry

Ninety-Five Theses

The list of moral grievances against the Catholic Church by Martin Luther, a German priest, in1517

Bartolome de Las Casas

A Catholic missionary who renounced the Spanish practice of coercively converting Indians and advocated their better treatment. In 1552, he wrote A Brief Relation of the Destruction of the Indies, which described the cruel treatment of the Indians by the Spanish.

Repartimiento system

Spanish labor system under which Indians were legally free and able to earn wages but were also required to perform a fixed amount of labor yearly, replaced encomienda system.

Black Legend

The idea that the Spanish empire was more oppressive toward Indians than other European empires; used as a justification for English imperial expansion.

Pueblo Revolt

Uprising in 1680 by allied Pueblo led by Pope that temporarily drove Spanish colonists out of New Mexico

bordenland

A place between or near recognized borders where no group of people has complete political control or cultural dominance.