APUSH Unit 1 Vocabulary (1491–1607)

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, historical concepts, societies, and events from APUSH Unit 1 (1491–1607) as presented in the lecture transcript.

Maize

A staple crop (corn) first cultivated in Southern Mexico by at least 5,000 BCE that spread through trade and migration, leading to sedentary, complex societies, social diversification, and advanced irrigation.

Tenochtitlan

The giant capital city of the Aztec Empire in Central Mexico whose massive urban population was sustained through maize cultivation.

Sedentary

A lifestyle centered on living in one permanent location rather than moving around, enabling the creation of complex political and social structures.

Irrigation

The process of diverting natural water sources, such as rivers or streams, toward agricultural crops.

Social diversification

The development of specialized labor roles and hierarchical social classes (powerful versus less powerful groups) as a settlement or society grows in complexity.

Iroquois

A semi-sedentary indigenous group in the Northeast that relied on maize cultivation and used regional timber resources to build longhouses.

Longhouse

A large wooden structure built by Northeast indigenous groups like the Iroquois, capable of housing up to 200 members of an extended family across multiple generations.

Matrilineal

A societal structure in which power, social capital, and property are inherited through the maternal (mother's) line rather than the paternal line.

Mississippian Cultures

Indigenous societies located in the fertile Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys that lived in large trading towns of 4,000 to 6,000 people and formed social hierarchies.

Cahokia

The largest urban settlement of the Mississippian cultures, housing an estimated population of 10,000 to 20,000 people near major river trade networks.

Ute

A nomadic indigenous group in the Great Basin and Great Plains that lived in mobile animal-skin tipis and traveled in extended family groups of 20 to 100 to hunt buffalo, deer, and antelope.

Caravel

A fast, highly maneuverable vessel developed by the Portuguese that utilized triangular lateen sails to sail into the wind.

Astrolabe

A navigational technology adapted from Arab and Chinese origins that allowed European sailors to calculate their latitude at sea.

Joint-stock company

A business model where multiple private investors pool capital to finance exploratory expeditions, distributing financial risk and sharing potential profits.

Trading post empire

An empire structure, pioneered by Portugal along the African coast, focused on establishing control over key strategic coastal trading ports rather than acquiring large land colonies.

Encomienda

A colonial forced-labor system in which the Spanish crown granted land tracts to encomenderos, who subjected resident indigenous people to coerced agricultural and mining labor under the premise of providing protection and Christian instruction.

Spanish caste system

A racial hierarchy imposed by the Spanish in the Americas that categorized social standing based on racial purity, placing Spanish-born individuals at the top and indigenous and African people at the bottom.

Protestant Reformation

A 1517 religious movement initiated by Martin Luther that fractured Western European Christianity into Catholic and Protestant branches.

Reconquista

The military campaign by Spanish Christian monarchs, completed in 1492, that reclaimed all formerly Muslim-controlled areas on the Iberian peninsula and unified Spain as a Catholic state.

Nation-state

A political entity in which a centralized government rules over a population sharing a unified culture, language, and historical identity.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A 1494 agreement mediated by the Pope that established a line of demarcation, granting Portugal territory including parts of Brazil and securing Spain's claim to the remainder of the Americas.

Columbian Exchange

The extensive transfer of plants, animals, diseases, people, and minerals between the Old World (Afro-Eurasia) and the New World (the Americas).

Smallpox

A contagious European disease introduced to the Americas that devastated indigenous populations lacking immunity, reducing some populations by up to 90%.

Taino Rebellion

A 1511 armed uprising in present-day Puerto Rico in which indigenous Taino people resisted Spanish encomienda labor conditions and forced conversion efforts.

Valladolid Debates

A series of formal debates in Spain regarding the legal status, moral treatment, and humanity of indigenous Americans under colonial rule.

Bartolomé de las Casas

A Spanish advocate at the Valladolid debates who argued that indigenous peoples were fully human and should be protected from systems like encomienda.

Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda

A Spanish scholar at the Valladolid debates who argued that indigenous Americans were less than human and benefited from servitude under European control.

Curse of Ham

A biblical passage interpreted by European Christians as marking Noah's son Ham with dark skin and perpetual servitude, used as a religious justification for African slavery.