Chapters 22-27 Review: Early Modern World History

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, historical figures, and political/economic systems from Chapters 22 through 27.

Prince Henry of Portugal

Portuguese royal (1394–1460) who promoted the exploration of the west African coast and established fortified trading posts.

Volta do mar

A navigational strategy meaning "Return through the sea" that relied on deep knowledge of wind patterns and ocean currents.

VOC (Dutch United East India Company)

A highly profitable, privately owned joint-stock company established in 1602 that operated with government support to engage in trade, build posts, and make war.

Seven Years' War (1756–1763)

A global commercial rivalry conflict spanning Europe, India, the Caribbean, and North America, which established British primacy in India and Canada.

Martin Luther

Protestant reformer (1483–1546) who attacked Catholic indulgences in his Ninety-Five Theses (1517) and advocated for Bible translation, closing monasteries, and justification by faith alone.

Peace of Westphalia (1648)

The treaty that ended the Thirty Years' War and established that European states were to be recognized as sovereign and equal.

Spanish Inquisition

An institution founded in 1478 by Fernando and Isabel to detect secret practitioners of Judaism or Islam, and later Protestants, using imprisonment and execution.

Encomienda

A system of forced native labor heavily utilized by the Spanish in the Americas before gradually being replaced by debt peonage.

Audiencias

Local courts designed to supervise Spanish Viceroys ruling New Spain and New Castile to prevent them from building independent power bases.

Engenho

The Portuguese sugar mill complex in Brazil characterized by low profit margins and brutal working conditions where an estimated human life was lost per ton of sugar.

Queen Nzinga

Ruler of Ndongo (r. 1623–1663) who fiercely resisted Portuguese colonization by posing as a male king and forming a temporary alliance with the Dutch.

Middle Passage

The horrific 4-to-6 week transatlantic journey that transported captured Africans to the Americas as part of the slave trade.

Triangular Trade

A three-legged commercial trade network linking European manufactured goods (firearms) to Africa, African slaves to the Americas, and American cash crops back to Europe.

Civil Service Examinations

Intense, multi-day exams based on Neo-Confucianism used in Ming and Qing China to recruit scholar-bureaucrats into government positions.

Bakufu

The military administration ("tent government") established in Japan by Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Dutch Learning

The principal route through Nagasaki for Japanese scholars to study European science, medicine, and art during Japan's period of isolation.

Devshirme

An Ottoman policy in the Balkans forcing Christian families to surrender young boys to military service, where they were raised as loyal Janissaries.

Twelver Shiism

The official Safavid religion instituted by Shah Ismail, centered on belief in twelve infallible imams after Muhammad.

Akbar

Mughal emperor (r. 1556–1605) who created a centralized administration, abolished the jizya tax, and promoted a syncretic "divine faith" to bridge Islam and Hinduism.

Millet system

Ottoman administrative communities that allowed religious minorities self-governance in exchange for loyalty and taxes.