APUSH Unit 1: Period 1 (1491-1607) Key Concepts and Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering native American cultures, European exploration, economic systems, religious motives, and the Columbian Exchange from APUSH Unit 1.

Maize

A staple crop (corn) first cultivated in Southern Mexico by at least 5,000 BCE that spread through trade and migration, facilitating larger, sedentary, and complex societies.

Tenochtitlan

The large capital city of the Aztec Empire in Central Mexico, made possible by massive maize cultivation.

Sedentary

A way of life in which a society resides permanently in one location rather than moving around, allowing complex political and social structures to develop.

Irrigation

The practice of diverting natural water sources, such as streams or rivers, directly to agricultural crops.

Social Diversification

The structural organization of a complex society into specialized labor roles and distinct social hierarchies.

Iroquois

A semi-sedentary indigenous society in the Northeast that cultivated maize and lived in multi-generational longhouses made of abundant regional timber.

Longhouse

A large multi-generational residential building constructed by Northeastern indigenous groups like the Iroquois, housing up to 200 family members.

Matrilineal

A societal system in which ancestry, family possessions, and political power are inherited through the mother's line.

Mississippian Cultures

Societies situated in the rich soils of the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys that engaged in extensive trade, developed social hierarchies, and built large urban settlements.

Cahokia

The largest Mississippian urban settlement, boasting an estimated population of 10,000 to 20,000 people.

Ute

A nomadic indigenous group of the Great Basin and Great Plains that lived in small extended family units, resided in mobile animal-skin tipis, and hunted buffalo, deer, and antelope.

Chinook and Chumash

Indigenous societies in the Northwest and present-day California that built permanent settlements supported by rich marine and regional resources rather than farming.

Caravel

A highly maneuverable Portuguese ship featuring a triangular lateen sail capable of taking wind from both directions.

Astrolabe

A navigational instrument adapted from Arab and Chinese technologies to determine a ship's latitude at sea.

Joint Stock Company

A commercial enterprise financed by multiple private investors who pool capital to share financial risks and potential profits from overseas exploration.

Trading Post Empire

A empire model focused on controlling strategic coastal trade locations rather than conquering large inland territories, as established by Portugal along the African coast.

Feudalism

An economic and social system prevalent in medieval Europe in which land ownership equates to wealth and status.

Capitalism

An economic system based on private ownership of capital and the means of production to generate wealth.

Encomienda

A coerced labor system in which the Spanish crown assigned tracts of land to colonial encomenderos, who forced resident indigenous populations into plantation farming and mining.

Spanish Caste System

A rigid racial social hierarchy enforced by Spain in its American colonies, prioritizing pure Spanish ancestry at the top and placing indigenous and African peoples at the bottom.

Protestant Reformation

A 16th-century religious movement initiated by Martin Luther in 1517 that fractured Western European Christianity into Catholic and Protestant factions.

Reconquista

The centuries-long military conquest completed in 1492 by Ferdinand II and Isabella, reclaiming formerly Muslim-controlled territory and unifying Spain as a Catholic kingdom.

Nation-state

A sovereign political state whose citizens share a common culture, history, and language.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A 1494 treaty between Spain and Portugal setting a line of demarcation that allocated Brazil to Portugal and the rest of the Americas to Spain.

Columbian Exchange

The trans-Atlantic exchange of plants, animals, diseases, people, and minerals between the Eastern Hemisphere (Old World) and Western Hemisphere (New World).

Smallpox

A European disease introduced to the Americas that devastated indigenous populations, killing up to 90% of some native populations by 1600.

Taino Rebellion

A 1511 armed uprising by native people in modern-day Puerto Rico against Spanish encomienda labor demands and forced Christianization.

Valladolid Debates

A formal debate in Spain over the moral status and treatment of indigenous American peoples in the Spanish colonial empire.

Bartolome de las Casas

A Spanish priest and advocate who argued during the Valladolid debates that indigenous peoples were fully human and should be protected from the abuses of encomienda.

Juan Gines de Sepulveda

A Spanish scholar who argued during the Valladolid debates that indigenous peoples were naturally inferior and benefited from Spanish control.

Curse of Ham

A biblical passage misconstrued by European Christians to claim that dark skin was a divine mark of servitude, justifying African enslavement.