AMIND 140 Midterm Quick Guide

A comprehensive vocabulary review of key figures, civilizations, geographical regions, concepts, systems, and historical events from Chapters 1-3 for the AMIND 140 Midterm.

Metacom (King Philip)

Wampanoag leader who resisted English land loss, broken promises, and unequal justice; King Philip's War (1675-76) ended with his death and Native enslavement/displacement.

Samuel de Champlain

French explorer who founded Quebec in 1608 and built Native alliances that supported French trade and expansion.

William Penn

Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, known for initially negotiating treaties and purchasing land more peacefully than many English colonists.

Hiawatha

Leader associated with ending cycles of warfare and helping form the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy.

Pocahontas

Powhatan woman whose life became a misleading English/Disney peace myth; her real story reflects colonization, captivity, conversion, and diplomacy.

Squanto (Tisquantum)

Patuxet interpreter who taught Pilgrims local farming and fishing, who returned after enslavement abroad to find disease had devastated his community.

John Smith

Jamestown leader who pressured Powhatan communities for food and labor; later stories about Pocahontas helped create a colonial myth.

Francisco Vazquez de Coronado

Spanish explorer who searched the Southwest for imagined wealthy cities; his expedition brought violence and failed to find the riches sought.

Kateri Tekakwitha

Mohawk-Algonquin woman who survived smallpox, converted to Catholicism, and became the first Native American Catholic saint in 2012.

Pope

Tewa religious leader of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, which expelled the Spanish from New Mexico for about 12 years.

Ancestral Pueblo

Southwestern farming society and master builders associated with Chaco Canyon and cliff dwellings; reshaped by drought, erosion, crop failure, conflict, and migration, with Pueblo peoples among their descendants.

Hohokam / Huhugam

Southwestern civilization known for large irrigation canals and desert agriculture; environmental and political pressures contributed to their dispersal, and O'odham peoples identify them as ancestors.

Hopewellian Culture

Eastern mound-building culture (about 200 BCE-500 CE) characterized by major ceremonial earthworks and long-distance trade networks.

Mississippian Culture

Large agricultural chiefdoms with mound cities, tribute, hierarchy, and trade; strongest around 1100-1300 CE.

Olmecs

Early Mesoamerican civilization known for monumental art and influence on later societies, connected to the foundations of later Mesoamerican urban culture.

Six Nations

The Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy consisting of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and later Tuscarora; a powerful diplomatic confederacy that balanced French and British interests.

Bering Strait

Region between Siberia and Alaska central to the migration theory that people entered the Americas through Beringia; newer evidence shows human presence earlier than the old Clovis-first model allowed.

Great Basin

Arid western region transformed by long-term desertification, where Native peoples adapted to scarce water and changing resources.

The Dalles

Major Columbia River trade center used for thousands of years, proving extensive Indigenous commerce before Europeans arrived.

Chaco Canyon

Ancestral Pueblo ceremonial, architectural, and trade center; largely abandoned by 1300 amid drought, environmental stress, social tension, and migration.

Cahokia

Huge Mississippian city near present-day St. Louis, with 10,000-30,000 residents, monumental mounds, political hierarchy, and long-distance trade.

Origin Stories

Indigenous accounts explaining creation, homelands, identity, and responsibilities, which function as systems of knowledge that can coexist with science rather than simply false 'myths'.

Bering Strait Theory

Theory that people migrated from Asia through Beringia; an important migration explanation challenged by pre-Clovis evidence and Native origin stories against a single simple model.

Great Migration

Movement and reorganization of Southwestern peoples following volcanic activity, long droughts, soil erosion, crop failure, and violence, showing adaptation rather than disappearance.

Sacred Three Sisters

Corn, beans, and squash grown together—corn supports beans, beans enrich soil, and squash protects moisture—which supported larger settled communities.

Clan Mothers

Haudenosaunee women with political authority who selected or removed chiefs and influenced decisions of war and peace.

Columbian Exchange

Movement of plants, animals, people, ideas, and diseases across the Atlantic after 1492 that transformed diets and economies but devastated Native peoples through disease and conquest.

Old World Diseases

Smallpox, measles, influenza, and other diseases brought from Europe that caused catastrophic Native population loss due to a lack of immunity in communities.

New World Slavery

Form of captivity established by European colonial powers that became racialized, hereditary, commercial, and extremely violent, beginning with Columbus enslaving Indigenous people in 1492.

Requerimiento

Spanish declaration claiming divine and royal authority over Native lands; read in Spanish, often without understanding, it falsely 'justified' conquest, conversion, and enslavement.

Encomienda

Spanish system granting colonists control over Native labor and tribute under the claim of providing Christian instruction, which in practice enabled forced labor and exploitation.

Fur Trade

French-centered exchange of European goods for Native furs that depended on Native knowledge and alliances while transforming economies, diplomacy, warfare, and environments.

Treaties

Formal agreements between Native nations and colonial governments demonstrating Native political sovereignty, though colonists often broke, manipulated, or imposed them to obtain land.

Pueblo Revolt (1680)

Uprising in which Pueblo peoples united under Pope against Spanish religious persecution, forced labor, tribute demands, drought, and violence, expelling Spain for about 12 years; led Spain to end encomienda and show greater religious tolerance upon reconquest.

French and Indian War / Seven Years' War (1754/56-1763)

Global war between Britain and France over territory and trade where Native nations fought strategically on different sides; won by Britain after Native alliances shifted and France weakened.

Treaty of Paris (1763)

Treaty ending the Seven Years' War in which France surrendered most North American claims to Britain and Spain, establishing Britain as the dominant eastern power and altering Native diplomacy.

Spanish Colonization Motives

Motivations centered on gold/wealth, Christian conversion, empire, land, labor, and routes to Asian markets, pursued through missions, conquest, the Requerimiento, and the encomienda system.

French Colonization Motives

Motivations centered on furs, trade, exploration, and empire, operating with a smaller settler population that relied heavily on Native trade and military alliances.

English Colonization Motives

Motivations centered on permanent settlement, farmland, profit, trade, and religious communities, whose settler expansion produced major land loss and warfare for Native populations.