AP World History Unit 4: Maritime Empires, Global Exchanges, and Labor Systems (1450–1750)

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering European maritime technology, exploration, colonial conquests, the Columbian Exchange, labor systems, trade networks, religious syncretism, resistance movements, and social hierarchies between 1450 and 1750.

Primogeniture Laws

A legal system where the oldest son inherits all family property, driving younger sons to seek their fortunes abroad.

Omani-European Rivalry

Competition between the Omani Empire and European powers, primarily Portugal, for control over trade routes in the Indian Ocean.

Magnetic Compass

A maritime navigational tool first developed in China and adopted by Europeans to determine direction at sea.

Astrolabe

An instrument adopted by European sailors from ancient Greece and the Arab world that helped mariners determine their latitude.

Lateen Sail

A triangular sail used by Arab merchants in the Indian Ocean that allowed ships to catch wind on both sides and sail against the wind.

Caravel

A small, fast, highly maneuverable Portuguese sailing ship that used lateen sails and could navigate shallow coastal waters and inland rivers.

Carrack

A large, three- to four-masted ocean-going sailing ship developed in 15th-century Europe used by the Portuguese for exploration and trade.

Fluyt (Flaut)

A Dutch cargo vessel designed to maximize cargo capacity and sail with a small crew, significantly reducing trade costs.

Cartography

The science and art of mapmaking.

Astronomical Chart

A map of the stars and planets used by mariners to navigate at night.

Maritime Empires

Sea-based empires established by European nations from 1450 to 1750 to control oceanic trade networks and overseas territories.

Mercantilism

A state-driven economic theory measuring wealth in gold and silver, seeking to maximize exports, minimize imports, and use colonies as closed markets.

Trading Post Empire

An empire built by establishing fortified coastal trading centers (factories) to control trade routes and extract duties without conquering vast inland territory.

Prince Henry the Navigator

A Portuguese prince who sponsored early exploration down the West African coast and brought together sailors, mapmakers, and shipbuilders.

Joint-Stock Company

A limited liability enterprise chartered by the state and funded by private investors who pool capital to finance overseas commercial ventures.

Limited Liability

A legal and financial condition in which investors can lose only the amount of money they personally invested in a business.

Dutch East India Company (VOC)

A powerful Dutch joint-stock company chartered in 1602 with a state monopoly on Indian Ocean trade, especially the spice trade.

Bartholomew Diaz

The Portuguese explorer who became the first European to round the southern tip of Africa (Cape of Good Hope) in 1488.

Vasco Da Gama

The Portuguese explorer who sailed around Africa to reach India by sea in 1498, establishing direct European maritime trade with Asia.

Christopher Columbus

An Italian explorer sponsored by the Spanish crown who sailed across the Atlantic in 1492, initiating sustained contact between Afro-Eurasia and the Americas.

Ferdinand Magellan

A Portuguese explorer heading a Spanish expedition that achieved the first circumnavigation of the Earth between 1519 and 1522.

Galleons

Large, multi-decked, armed Spanish ships used to transport silver bullion across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Manila

The capital of the Spanish Philippines that served as the primary Asian hub for the trans-Pacific silver trade with China.

Northwest Passage

A sought-after, legendary sea route through North America linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to facilitate trade with Asia.

Jacques Cartier

A French explorer who claimed eastern Canada, specifically the St. Lawrence River region, for France.

Samuel de Champlain

A French explorer who founded Quebec in 1608 and established the colony of New France.

Quebec

The first permanent French settlement in North America, founded in 1608 as a fur-trading hub.

New France

French colonial territory in North America that focused on the fur trade with indigenous peoples and extended from Canada down the Mississippi River.

John Cabot

An Italian navigator who explored the coast of North America under the English flag in 1497.

Henry Hudson

An English explorer who navigated the Hudson River and Hudson Bay while searching for the Northwest Passage for the Dutch and English.

Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in North America, established in Virginia in 1607.

New Amsterdam

A Dutch colonial settlement located on Manhattan Island that was later taken over by the English and renamed New York City.

Columbian Exchange

The transfer of diseases, food plants, animals, culture, and human populations between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres following 1492.

The Great Dying

The catastrophic demographic collapse of indigenous American populations caused by Afro-Eurasian diseases such as smallpox, measles, and malaria, killing up to 90 percent in some regions.

Cash Cropping

An agricultural practice dedicated to cultivating a single commercial crop, such as sugarcane or tobacco, primarily for export and sale on the world market.

Engenhos

A Portuguese term meaning 'engines', referring to the sugarcane mills and plantation complexes of colonial Brazil.

African Diaspora

The dispersal and scattering of African peoples and their descendants throughout the Americas and the world as a result of the transatlantic slave trade.

Asante Empire

A powerful West African state that grew wealthy and consolidated power by trading gold, ivory, and enslaved people to Europeans in exchange for firearms.

Kingdom of the Kongo

A Central African kingdom that forged diplomatic ties with Portugal, converted its ruler to Christianity, and engaged in trade involving copper, gold, and enslaved people.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A 1494 agreement mediated by the Pope dividing newly discovered non-Christian lands outside Europe between Spain (west) and Portugal (east).

Atahualpa

The last reigning emperor of the Inca Empire, captured and executed by Francisco Pizarro during the Spanish conquest.

Mit'a System

An Inca mandatory public labor duty adapted and distorted by Spanish colonial authorities to compel indigenous workers into dangerous silver mining operations.

Chattel Slavery

A form of coerced labor wherein an enslaved person is treated as personal property, bought and sold, with servitude defined along racial lines and inherited by offspring.

Middle Passage

The traumatic transatlantic voyage of slave ships transporting captured Africans from West Africa to the plantation colonies of the Americas.

Polygyny

The practice of a man having multiple wives, which increased in parts of West Africa due to severe gender imbalances created by European slave traders preferring male captives two to one.

Creole Languages

Mixed languages developed in the Americas (such as the Caribbean and Brazil) through the linguistic synthesis of European, African, and indigenous tongues.

Indentured Servitude

A labor arrangement in which a worker signs a contract binding them to work without pay for a designated period (usually 4 to 7 years) in exchange for transatlantic passage.

Encomienda System

A Spanish colonial labor system in which settlers (encomenderos) were granted authority over indigenous peoples to compel their labor in exchange for food and Christian instruction.

Hacienda System

Large landed agricultural estates in Spanish America where indigenous laborers were bound to the land and subjected to coerced agricultural work.

Commercial Revolution

A period of European economic transformation, inflation, and creation of global oceanic commerce networks spanning the 16th and 17th centuries.

Price Revolution

A widespread period of high inflation across 16th-century Europe caused by rapid population growth and massive imports of American silver and gold.

Triangular Trade

A three-way Atlantic trade network carrying European manufactured goods to Africa, enslaved Africans to the Americas, and American raw materials to Europe.

Tokugawa Shogunate

The unified military government of Japan that expelled Christian missionaries, violently suppressed Christianity, and enacted isolationist policies, permitting trade only with the Dutch.

The Fronde

A series of civil revolts in France beginning in 1648, led by nobles and peasants resisting royal absolutism and wartime tax increases, which lasted for six years.

Maroon Societies

Autonomous communities of self-liberated runaway enslaved Africans established in remote regions of the Caribbean and South America (such as Brazil).

Queen Nanny

A military leader of the Windward Maroons in Jamaica who defended her community against British colonial forces, resulting in an official 1738 peace treaty recognizing their freedom.

Religious Syncretism

The blending and combination of differing religious beliefs, practices, and traditions into a novel spiritual system.

Vodun

A syncretic faith that developed among enslaved populations in Haiti, resulting from the combination of West African animist beliefs with Roman Catholic doctrines.

Santeria

A syncretic religion developed in Cuba that combined traditional West African Yoruba beliefs with Roman Catholicism.

Candomblé

An Afro-Brazilian syncretic religion rooted in African spiritual traditions combined with elements of Catholicism.

Virgin of Guadalupe

A Mexican Catholic manifestation of the Virgin Mary appearing as an indigenous woman, representing an iconic symbol of religious syncretism.

Viceroys

Royal governors appointed directly by European monarchs to administer colonies such as New Spain and Peru.

Audiencias

Advisory councils and royal appellate courts established by the Spanish Crown to review the decisions of viceroys and protect Spanish colonial subjects.

Ana Nzinga

The 17th-century ruler of Ndongo and Matamba who militarily and diplomatically resisted Portuguese colonial incursions and slave raids in Southwest Africa.

Pugachev Rebellion

A 1773 Cossack-led peasant revolt against Russian imperial authority and Catherine the Great, which was ultimately crushed and caused the Russian state to harden serfdom.

Pueblo Revolt

A 1680 uprising of Pueblo peoples against Spanish colonizers in modern New Mexico that successfully expelled the Spanish for over a decade.

Metacom's War (King Philip's War)

A 1675–1678 conflict between New England English colonists and an alliance of indigenous nations led by Wampanoag chieftain Metacom.

Glorious Revolution

The 1688 transfer of power in England that deposed the Catholic King James II and placed Mary II and William of Orange on the throne, creating a constitutional monarchy.

Boyars

The traditional landowning aristocratic noble class in feudal Russia whose political independence was subordinated and later abolished under absolutist tsars like Peter the Great.

Timar

An Ottoman administrative system where revenues from state-owned land grants were allocated to military cavalrymen in exchange for their service.

Casta System

A Spanish colonial racial hierarchy in the Americas that classified individuals into socio-legal strata based on their racial heritage and degree of Spanish blood.

Peninsulares

Spaniards born on the Iberian Peninsula who lived in the Americas, holding the highest political, legal, and clerical offices in colonial society.

Criollos (Creoles)

Individuals of pure Spanish ancestry born in the Americas, occupying the social tier immediately beneath the peninsulares.

Mestizos

People of mixed European and indigenous American ancestry in the Spanish casta system.

Mulattoes

People of mixed European and African ancestry in the Spanish colonial racial hierarchy.

Zambos

Individuals of mixed African and indigenous American ancestry in the Spanish casta system.

Queues

The braided Manchu hairstyle that Han Chinese men were legally mandated to wear under the Qing Dynasty as a public sign of submission to Manchu rule.

Sephardic Jews

Jews whose ancestral heritage originates from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), many of whom were expelled in the late 15th century and emigrated to the Ottoman Empire.

Barbary Pirates

North African corsairs operating along the Mediterranean coast who raided European shipping and coastal towns for booty and captives to enslave.