Unit 3: Land - Based Empires

Columbian Exchange

The global transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, and diseases between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

Hernán Cortés

The Spanish conquistador who led the expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire.

Smallpox

A highly contagious Old World disease that devastated indigenous populations in the Americas.

The Great Dying

The massive demographic collapse of Native American populations caused by Afro-Eurasian diseases.

Little Ice Age

A period of global cooling from the 14th to the 19th centuries that shortened growing seasons.

General Crisis

A period of widespread conflict, famine, and political instability across Eurasia caused by climate cooling.

Mercantilism

An economic policy where empires maximized exports and accumulated gold by strictly controlling colonial trade.

Encomienda system

A Spanish colonial labor system that granted conquerors the right to force native populations into labor.

Settler colonies

Imperial territories where foreign families permanently relocated to form communities, dominating native populations.

Yasak

A compulsory tribute in valuable furs demanded by the Russian Empire from Siberian indigenous peoples.

Castas

A rigid racial classification system established in Spanish America to maintain social control.

Peninsulares

Spanish colonial elites who were born directly on the Iberian Peninsula in Spain.

Creoles

People of pure Spanish descent who were born in the American colonies.

Mestizo

A person of mixed Spanish and Indigenous American ancestry.

Mulattoes

People of mixed African and European ancestry within the colonial social hierarchy.

Ming Empire

The Chinese dynasty (1368–1644) that restored native rule, rebuilt the Great Wall, and sponsored maritime voyages.

Emperor Yongle

A prominent Ming ruler who financed Zheng He’s treasure fleets and built the Forbidden City.

Qing Dynasty

The final imperial dynasty of China (1644–1912) ruled by Manchu invaders who expanded territory.

Mughal Empire

A wealthy Islamic gunpowder empire that ruled over a majority-Hindu population in South Asia.

Akbar

A celebrated Mughal emperor known for military expansion and religious tolerance.

Aurangzeb

A pious Mughal emperor who reversed tolerant policies, expanded territory, and enforced orthodox Islamic laws.

Zamindars

Hereditary local tax collectors in the Mughal Empire who acted as regional administrative elites.

Safavid Empire

A Persian gunpowder empire that established Shia Islam as its official state religion.

Songhay Empire

A powerful land-based West African state that controlled the lucrative trans-Saharan trade routes.

Devshirme

The Ottoman system of forcibly taking Christian boys to be trained as elite soldiers (Janissaries) or bureaucrats.

Timar

An Ottoman land grant system given to military officers in exchange for revenue collection and service.

Peter the Great

A Russian tsar who centralized imperial power and forced westernization policies.

Catherine the Great

An autocratic Russian empress who expanded territory into Poland and the Black Sea region.

Protestant Reformation

A 16th-century religious movement initiated by criticisms of Catholic Church corruption.

Martin Luther

The German monk who sparked the Reformation by publishing the Ninety-five Theses in 1517.

Thirty Years’ War

A destructive European conflict (1618–1648) that began over religion but evolved into a political power struggle.

Counter-Reformation

The Catholic Church’s internal reform movement launched to combat the spread of Protestantism.

Jesuits

The Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order dedicated to rigorous education and global missionary work.

Taki Onqoy

A native spiritual resistance movement in Peru that rejected Christianity and European colonization.