Chapter 1: Indigenous America

Flashcards reviewing key vocabulary and concepts from the lecture notes on Indigenous America.

Columbian Exchange

The exchange of people, animals, plants, and microbes between Europe and the Americas, marking a significant turning point in world history.

Turtle Island

A Lenape tradition that describes the earth being created when Sky Woman fell into a watery world and landed on a turtle's back, forming North America.

Monks Mound

The earthen hill in Cahokia that rose ten stories and was larger at its base than the pyramids of Egypt.

Chiefdoms

Indigenous American social hierarchy that gave leaders both secular and sacred authority.

Matrilineal

A system where family and clan identity proceeded along the female line.

Khipu

Knotted strings used by Inca recorders to note information.

Kiva

A small dugout room that played an important role in Puebloan ceremonies.

Cahokia

The largest Mississippian settlement, located east of modern-day St. Louis, with a peak population between ten thousand and thirty thousand.

Ojibwes

Refers to the Algonquian-speaking people who used birch-bark scrolls to record medical treatments, recipes, songs, stories, and more.

The Three Sisters

Corn, beans, and squash; three crops that provided nutritional needs necessary to sustain cities and civilizations in the Eastern Woodlands.

Kwakwaka'wakw, Tlingits, Haidas

Coastal Pacific Northwest peoples who depended on salmon for survival, valuing it spiritually and materially.

Potlatches

Elaborate feasts in the Pacific Northwest celebrating births, weddings, and social status, demonstrating wealth and power.

Astrolabe

Tool to calculate latitude, perfected by Portuguese sailors.

Caravel

A ship well suited for ocean exploration, with a deep draft and the capacity to carry large amounts of cargo.

Encomienda

An exploitive feudal arrangement in which Spain tied Indigenous laborers to vast estates.

Tenochtitlán

An Aztec city that rivaled the world's largest cities in size and grandeur.

Chinampas

Large artificial islands constructed by the Aztecs for growing crops.

La Noche Triste

The night when Montezuma was killed and a third of Cortés's men died as they fought to flee Tenochtitlan.

Quechuas

The Incan term for themselves.

Sistema de Castas

An administrative hierarchy that organized individuals into various racial groups based on their supposed “purity of blood.

Peninsulares

Iberian-born Spaniards who occupied the highest levels of administration in the New World.

Criollos

New World-born Spaniards.

Mestizos

People of mixed Spanish and Indigenous heritage.

Juan Diego

An Indigenous man who reported that he was visited by the Virgin Mary.

Repartimiento

The Spanish legal system intended to replace the encomienda; however, it replicated many of the abuses of the older system.