The Colonial Foundations of Latin America

Vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts, historical figures, institutions, and terms from the colonial foundations of Spanish and Portuguese America.

Mayans

An indigenous population occupying the Yucatán Peninsula, southern Mexico, and Guatemala who built a major civilization starting around 500 B.C.E. featuring independent city-states and advances in architecture, mathematics, astronomy, and chronology.

Toltecs

Invaders from the central Mexican highlands who dominated classic Mayan society from 972 to 1200 and absorbed it between 1200 and 1540.

Tenochtitlán

The capital city of the Aztec empire, constructed around 1325 on the site of contemporary Mexico City.

Moctezuma II

The hereditary Aztec ruler who possessed immense political authority at the time of the Spanish arrival.

Tlaxcala

A neighboring state that successfully maintained its independence from the Aztecs while engaging in constant warfare with Tenochtitlán.

Incas

An Andean empire stretching 3000 miles from northern Ecuador through Peru to southern Chile, ruled by a highly disciplined central bureaucracy.

Trepanning

An extraordinary surgical technique of operating on the human skull, utilized by the Incas to treat head injuries.

Hernán Cortés

Spanish conquistador who set out from Cuba in 1519 with 550 men and 16 horses, ultimately overthrowing the Aztec empire by 1521.

Cuauhtémoc

The courageous Aztec leader who headed the final military resistance against the forces of Hernán Cortés.

Atahualpa

The Inca ruler whose preoccupation with an internal civil war facilitated Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca empire by 1533.

Mestizos

Individuals of mixed Spanish and indigenous descent who grew to become the primary ethnic group in much of Spanish America.

Council of the Indies

The supreme governing institution based in Spain that oversaw colonial administrative affairs in the New World.

Viceroyalty

The primary administrative territory in Spanish America, governed by a viceroy appointed directly by the monarch.

Obedezco pero no cumplo

A Spanish phrase meaning 'I accept your authority but will not execute this law,' illustrating the practical autonomy exercised by local colonial officials regarding royal decrees.

Mercantilism

The economic philosophy holding that economic activity should increase state power and prestige, quantified primarily through the accumulation of gold and silver bullion.

New Laws of 1542

Royal decrees enacted by the Spanish monarch to protect indigenous populations by shifting them from conquistador guardianship to direct crown control.

Criollos

People of European descent born in the Americas who often held local economic power and developed rivalries with Spanish-born officials.

Peninsulares

Native-born Spaniards who recently arrived in the Americas, usually holding high political offices reserved by the crown.

Machismo

The social ethos of masculine superiority that emerged early across diverse ethnic and social strata in Latin America.

Doña Jerónima de Peñalosa

A prominent sixteenth-century Peruvian widow who autonomously managed and expanded vast family holdings including farms, mines, real estate, and a sugar mill.

Asiento

The exclusive commercial contract granted to the British to supply African slaves to Spanish American colonies following the War of the Spanish Succession.

Haciendas

Large landed estates in Spanish America characterized by debt peonage, hereditary titles, and significant local autonomy.

Treaty of Tordesillas

The 1494 agreement establishing a boundary 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, allocating lands to the west to Spain and lands to the east to Portugal.

Pedro Alvares Cabral

The Portuguese sea captain who made landfall on the coast of modern-day Brazil in 1500 and claimed it for Portugal.

Tupí-Guaraní

The major indigenous language group inhabiting coastal regions from modern Venezuela to Paraguay prior to Portuguese settlement.

Brazilwood

An early export product from Portuguese America prized in Europe as a source of dye, which gave Brazil its modern name.

Bandeirantes

Portuguese-Brazilian backwoodsmen who conducted interior raids to enslave indigenous peoples and ultimately uncovered valuable mineral deposits.

Minas Gerais

A region in interior Brazil where rich gold deposits were discovered in the 1690s, sparking a major mining boom.

Bourbon Reforms

An extensive set of 18th-century administrative and economic measures introduced by Spanish monarchs to bolster colonial defenses and expand state revenues.

Intendancy System

An administrative restructuring under King Charles III that replaced local corregidores with crown-appointed intendants directly accountable to the monarch.