APUSH Period 1 (1491–1607): Contact, Conquest, and the Early Atlantic World

European exploration in the Americas

State-backed voyages (first Spanish/Portuguese, later French/English/Dutch) that connected Europe to the Americas and initiated sustained contact, conquest, colonization, and trade.

Columbian Exchange

Post-1492 transfer of plants, animals, people, and pathogens between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, transforming ecosystems, economies, and societies (often unevenly, especially via disease).

Reconquista (1492)

The completion of Spain’s long effort to expel Muslim rule; intensified a crusading spirit and helped link Spanish expansion to Catholic mission.

Ottoman control of land routes

Ottoman dominance over key overland trade routes to Asia, encouraging European states to seek alternative sea routes for Asian goods.

Caravel

A faster, more maneuverable ship design that helped make Atlantic crossings and ocean navigation more reliable.

Lateen sail

Triangular sail design that improved the ability to sail into the wind, supporting longer ocean voyages and return routes.

Tacking

A sailing method used to move against the wind by zigzagging, made more effective by improved sails and rigging.

Compass

Navigation tool that helped sailors determine direction during open-ocean voyages.

Astrolabe/Quadrant

Navigation instruments used to estimate latitude, improving long-distance ocean travel.

Cartography (including portolan charts)

Improved mapmaking; portolan charts helped with coastal navigation and supported more reliable voyages.

Political centralization (Spain)

A strengthened monarchy (especially after the union of major kingdoms) that could fund and organize overseas exploration and empire-building.

Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile

Monarchs whose union helped consolidate Spanish power, enabling Spain to finance voyages and pursue overseas competition and Catholic expansion.

Christopher Columbus (1492)

Explorer backed by Spain seeking a westward route to Asia; his voyages opened sustained transatlantic contact that launched wider Spanish exploration and conquest.

Jamestown (1607)

First permanent English settlement in what becomes the United States, marking a major shift toward lasting English colonization.

Roanoke (1580s)

Early English colonization attempt; illustrates England’s growing interest in Atlantic expansion before successful permanent settlements.

Atlantic world

The interconnected system linking Europe, Africa, and the Americas through regular routes of migration, trade, and forced labor after 1492.

Smallpox

A major Afro-Eurasian pathogen introduced to the Americas that devastated immunologically vulnerable Indigenous populations, contributing to demographic collapse.

Hernán Cortés

Spanish conquistador whose campaign (1519–1521) against the Aztec Empire relied heavily on Indigenous alliances and strategic leadership capture.

Tenochtitlán

Aztec capital; its fall in 1521 was a turning point that enabled Spanish colonial rule in central Mexico.

Francisco Pizarro

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Inca Empire in the 1530s by exploiting political instability and seizing leaders, later tied to mining and forced labor.

Encomienda system

Spanish grant giving an encomendero the right to receive Indigenous labor or tribute from a community, theoretically in exchange for protection and Christian instruction; coercive and often abusive.

Repartimiento

Labor system requiring Indigenous communities to provide rotating workers for Spanish enterprises or public works, presented as regulated but still coercive.

Mita

In the Andes, a Spanish adaptation of an Inca labor draft used especially to supply mining labor under colonial rule.

Caste system (Spanish Americas)

Colonial social hierarchy ranking people by birthplace and ancestry (often racial mixture), shaping rights, status, and access to power.

New Laws of 1542

Spanish crown reforms aimed at limiting abuses of the encomienda system, reflecting tension between moral/legal ideals and colonial profit motives.