US History Dual Enrollment Unit 1 Vocabulary

Aztec

Mesoamerican people who were conquered by the Spanish under Hernan Cortes, 1519-1528

Black Legend

Idea that the Spanish New World empire was more oppressive to the Indians than other European empires; was used as a justification for English expansion

Caravel

a fifteenth century European ship capable of long distance travel

Columbian Exchange

the transatlantic flow of goods and people that began with Columbus's voyages in 1492

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 of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Hacienda

Large scale farm in the Spanish New World empire worked by Indian laborers

Bartolomé 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 Spanish's cruel treatment of the Indians

Mestizos

Spanish word for persons of mixed Native American and European ancestry

Métis

Children of marriages between Indian women and French traders and officials

Reconquista

The "reconquest" of Spain from the Moors, African muslims who had occupied the Iberian Peninsular for centuries

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. This system replaced the encomienda system

Pueblo Revolt

Uprising in 1680 in which Pueblo Indians temporarily drove Spanish colonists out of modern day New Mexico

Encomienda System

A system whereby the Spanish crown granted land to conquistadors. In exchange, conquistodors were to pay taxes to the king, protect his new subjects (the Native Americans) and spread Christianity. The reality of the system was that it quickly became a system whereby the Natives were enslaved.

Anasazi

Important culture of what is now the southwest (1000-1300 C.E.). Centered on Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and Mesa Verde in Colorado, the Anasazi culture built multistory residences and worshipped in subterranean buildings called kivas

Cahokia

an ancient settlement of southern mound-building Indians, located near present day St. Louis, it served as a trading center for 40,000 at its peak in A.D. 1200.

Casta system

A system in colonial Spain of determining a person's place in society based on different racial categories.

Kiva

circular ceremonial religious room built by the Anasazi

Land Bridge Theory

The theory that Native Americans crossed into North America from Asia over a land bridge that once connected North America and Asia.

Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)

An agreement between Portugal and Spain which declared that newly discovered lands to the west of an imaginary line in the Atlantic Ocean would belong to Spain and newly discovered lands to the east of the line would belong to Portugal.

Valladolid Debate (1550-1551)

the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of a colonized people by colonizers.

Animism

The belief that bodies of water, animals, trees, and other natural objects have spirits

Matrilineal

relating to a social system in which family descent and inheritance rights are traced through the mother

Coveture

Principle in English and American law that a married woman lost her legal identity, which became "covered" by that of her husband, who therefore controlled her person and the family's economic resources.