Age of Exploration and Colonial Era Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, individuals, economic concepts, and trading companies from the Age of Exploration and global colonial expansion.

Potosí

One of the richest silver mining centers and most populous cities in colonial Spanish America, in modern Bolivia

Atahuallpa

Last ruling Inca emperor of Peru; executed by the Spanish

mercantilism

European policies (16th-18th centuries) to promote overseas trade and accumulate precious metals by requiring colonies to trade only with their mother country; the British system was defined by the Navigation Acts

caravel

Small, highly maneuverable three-masted ship used by the Portuguese and Spanish in exploring the Atlantic

Puritans

English Protestant dissenters who believed God predestined souls to heaven or hell before birth; founded Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629

Moctezuma II

Aztec emperor who died while in the custody of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés

joint-stock company

Business, often backed by a government charter, that sold shares to individuals to raise money and spread the risks and profits among many investors

Swahili

Bantu language with Arabic loanwords spoken in coastal regions of East Africa

Ferdinand Magellan

Portuguese-born navigator who led the Spanish expedition of 1519-1522, the first to sail around the world

Royal African Company

Trading company chartered by the English government in 1672 to conduct its merchants' trade on the Atlantic coast of Africa

Dutch East India Company

Given a monopoly over trade in the Indian Ocean by the Netherlands in 1602; captured control of long-distance Indian Ocean trade from the Portuguese

coureurs de bois

French fur traders, many of mixed Amerindian heritage, who lived among and often married Amerindian peoples of North America

Henry the Navigator

Portuguese prince who promoted the study of navigation and directed voyages of exploration down the western coast of Africa in the 15th century

Atlantic Circuit

Network of trade routes connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas that underlay the Atlantic system

encomienda

Grant of authority over a population of Amerindians in the Spanish colonies; gave the holder cheap labor and periodic payments of goods, and obliged the holder to Christianize the Amerindians

Gold Coast

Region of the Atlantic coast of West Africa occupied by modern Ghana; named for its gold exports to Europe from the 1470s onward

Iroquois Confederacy

Alliance of five (six after 1722) northeastern Amerindian peoples that made decisions through a council of representatives; allied first with the Dutch and later the English

Francisco Pizarro

Spanish explorer who led the conquest of the Inca Empire of Peru in 1531-1533

Batavia

Fort established around 1619 as headquarters of Dutch East India Company operations in Indonesia; today the city of Jakarta

Arawak

Amerindian peoples who inhabited the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean at the time of Columbus

Middle Passage

Part of the Atlantic Circuit involving the transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas

Christopher Columbus

Genoese mariner who, in the service of Spain, led four expeditions across the Atlantic, reestablishing contact between the Americas and the Old World

stock exchanges

Places where shares in a company or business enterprise are bought and sold

Pilgrims

English Protestant dissenters who established Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts in 1620 to seek religious freedom after living briefly in the Netherlands

Bartolomeu Dias

Portuguese explorer who in 1488 led the first expedition to sail around the southern tip of Africa from the Atlantic and sight the Indian Ocean

Acheh Sultanate

Muslim kingdom in northern Sumatra; main center of Islamic expansion in Southeast Asia in the early 17th century; declined after the Dutch seized Malacca from Portugal in 1641

conquistadors

Early-sixteenth-century Spanish adventurers who conquered Mexico, Central America, and Peru

Bartolomé de Las Casas

First bishop of Chiapas who devoted his life to protecting Amerindians from exploitation; achieved the New Laws of 1542, which outlawed enslavement of Amerindians and limited other forced labor

Indentured servants

Migrants to British colonies in the Americas who paid for passage by agreeing to work for a set term of four to seven years

Hernán Cortés

Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the conquest of Aztec Mexico in 1519-1521

fluyts

Dutch merchant vessel designed for maximum cargo space, small crews, and low production cost; could not be converted into a warship

Oman

Arab state based in Musqat, the main port in the southeast Arabian peninsula; succeeded Portugal as a power in the western Indian Ocean in the 18th century

House of Burgesses

Elected assembly in colonial Virginia, created in 1618

New France

French colony in North America with its capital at Quebec, founded 1608; ceded to the British in 1763 after military defeat

Columbian Exchange

Exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages

Vasco da Gama

Portuguese explorer who in 1497-1498 led the first naval expedition from Europe to sail to India, opening an important commercial sea route

chartered companies

Groups of private investors who paid an annual fee to France and England in exchange for a monopoly over trade to the West Indies colonies

Sir Francis Drake

Privateer, naval officer, and explorer (1540-1596) who circumnavigated the world 1577-1580, attacked Spanish galleons for gold, and was second in command when the Royal Navy defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588

Dutch West India Company

Trading company chartered by the Dutch government to conduct its merchants' trade in the Americas and Africa