Age of Exploration Unit Test Flash cards

Spice Trade

Portuguese had managed to seize control of the spice trade from Muslims traders and garnered substantial profits from India and China.

Christopher Columbus

An Italian explorer sent by Spain who reached the Bahamas and the coastline of Cuba and landed on all the major islands of the Carribean and the mainland of Central America.

Aztec empire before Spanish conquest

Aztec Empire, capital Tenochtitlan on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. Built aqueducts, public buildings, houses, temples. Consolidated rule to most of modern day mexico to the guatemualean border.

Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire

Franciso Pizzarro landed in the Incan empire which had already severelly succumbed to smallpox and civil war and took advantaged to takeover the Inca Empire with the help of Incan allies. Made Inca Empire the new Spanish colony the capital Lima.

Econmienda system

Social and economic system where the Spaniards collect triibute from the native and use them as labrorers. In return they teach them Spanish cultures, suprevise their spiritual needs, and give them wages.

The Mita system

Allowed authorities to draft native labor to work in the silver mines

Bartolome de Las Casas

Dominican Friar who championed Natives, the government abolished the encomineda system and provided more protection for the natives.

Viceroy

Each viceroy served as the king’s chief and military officer and had an advisory council known as audiencias and was tasked with promoting calm, peace and ennoblement.

India

Portugueses arrived to India as the first Europeans and dominated the regional trade scene in the Indian Ocean but at the end of the 16th cenutry English and the Dutch arrived.

• English became most populated and dominated force with Indian trading and brought back cotton goods bartered for spices in the West Indies.

China

Portuguese was the first European contact since Marco Polo and the Chinese shrugged off the Europeans. The Europeans were viewed as an unusual form of barbarian.

• In the end of the 17th century the English had replaced the Portuguese as the dominate trading force

Japan

• Portuguese traders were the first for Japan and traded on a regular basis. (tobacco, clocks, eyeglasses, weapons and inspired architecture)

• Although the success of Catholic missionaries led to angst against westerners and their influence. The two major ports were closed and barred Spain and Portugal from trading. Except the Dutch who only were allowed to trade once a year.

West Indies

French and English used sugar plantations as well as tobascco, cotton and coffee as a source of income. Import tens of thousands of tons a year from enslaved people.

French: Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint-Dominque

English: Jamaica, Bardbados and Bermuda

French North America

French establish a colony in Canada which exported timber, leather, fish, furs however lacked the manpower, population and money the land was ceded to the English.