Period 2: Terms List B

Renaissance: period from 1300s-1600s in which Europeans emphasized art, classical history, creativity, education, and innovation; challenged many medieval European ideas and helped begin the Early Modern Period.

Humanism: Belief that people should focus on their powers of reason to explain the world, not only religion, and that people can fully understand everything in nature; based on Classical Greek ideals.

Johannes Gutenberg:  Introduced movable type to western Europe in the 15th century; greatly expanded the availability of printed materials.

Martin Luther: German Catholic monk who initiated the Protestant Reformation; emphasized the primacy of faith in place of Catholic sacraments for gaining salvation; rejected papal authority.

Indulgence: Catholic Church’s practice of forgiving someone’s sins or decreasing punishment so that person spends less time in purgatory before going to heaven.

Predestination: Protestant Christian belief that god already knows if a person will be “saved” (go to heaven) before he/she is born, so a person cannot do good works to make up for sins.

Anglicanism: Protestant religion based in England that made the English monarch the head of the Church; kept traditions from the Catholic Church but developed new interpretations and became more protestant over time.

Puritan: Protestant Christian who wanted to reform the Church of England (Anglican Church) to remove Catholic influences; emphasized education to read the Bible and personal morality and relationship with god.

Catholic Counter Reformation: religious movement to make changes to the Catholic Church in response to the Protestant Reformation; attempted to end practices like simony and priests having children.

Spanish Inquisition: attempt to remove challenges to the Catholic Church from Spain; investigated and punished people accused of having different religious views (Jewish or non-Catholics).

Jesuit: branch of Catholic priests dedicated to education, missions to convert people to Catholicism, scholarship, and defending the Catholic Church; focused on spreading Catholicism and preventing the spread of protestant religions.

95 Theses: document written by Martin Luther, a German priest, who challenged specific practices and traditions of the Catholic Church, including simony and selling indulgences; one of the documents that began the Protestant Reformation.

Sacrament: religious ceremony that represents an important event in life/religion; Catholics believe there are seven sacraments (baptism, confirmation, Holy Communion, marriage, penance, becoming a priest, and last rights) but Protestants only agree on two (baptism and communion).

Edict of Nantes: 1598 decision by the French King Henry IV to give more religious freedoms to Protestants living in the Catholic country; Protestants were allowed to inherit land, attend schools, and receive care in hospitals without being denied because of their religion.

intendant: part of the French bureaucracy; represented the king in specific parts of the kingdom; appointed by the king and had power to supervise/check on other government officials and became more powerful than many local leaders/aristocrats.

East India Companies: British, French, and Dutch trading companies that obtained government monopolies of trade to India and Asia; acted independently in their regions by creating their own alliances, treaties, and governments to promote and control trade.

Columbian Exchange: movement of food, animals, ideas and people from the New World to the Old World and vice versa; resulted in population growth in the “Old World” because of better nutrition; major effect in the Americas was the introduction of European diseases and deaths of Native Americans.

Mercantilism: economic system in which colonies support the Mother Country by producing raw materials and selling them to the European country, which uses then to make manufactured goods they sell to the colonists; the goal is to accumulate as much gold and silver as possible.

Indentured servitude: system in which a farmer paid for someone to travel to the Americas in exchange for that individual working on the farm for a certain amount of time.

Chattel slavery: system of considering slavery as a condition that is inherited from parents (usually mother) instead of as a punishment for a crime, debt, or capture in war; fewer opportunities to gain freedom and more restrictions and limits on freedom.

Casta system: Spanish class system developed in New Spain that placed peninsulares (people born in Europe) at the highest positions with the most benefits and control of the government, criollos (people with European parents born in the colonies) next with some opportunities for political and economic control, mestizos in the middle (parents European and indigenous) with fewer rights, and other groups of multiple ethnicities at the bottom of society.

Encomienda system:  grants of land and indigenous laborers given to Spanish conquerors and settlers in Latin America; based on system of manorialism and established a system in which Europeans were able to benefit the most economically by forcing indigenous people to work for them (focus on mining) in exchange for food, protection, shelter, and becoming Christian.

hacienda system: plantation system developed in New Spain because of increased population of colonists and deaths of enslaved indigenous people; Spanish colonists given land to farm and raise cattle to sell and allowed to use coerced labor based on workers owing money to the landowners and working it off (rarely happened)

African Diaspora: forced removal of African people (larger percentage of men than women) to other parts of the world as forced labor; largest populations in South America, Europe, and Asia.

Bartolomé de las Casas   Dominican friar who supported peaceful conversion of the Native American population; opposed forced labor and advocated for more rights for indigenous peoples.

Moctezuma II:  last independent Aztec ruler; killed during Cortés' conquest.

Galleons:  large, heavily armed ships used to carry silver from New World colonies to Spain and East Asia (to buy goods).

Treaty of Tordesillas: agreed in 1494 between Castile and Portugal; decided by the pope to divide land claims between Spain and Portugal; Spain free to claim land in North and South America (except Brazil) and Portugal able to claim land in Africa and Asia (except Philippines).

Triangular Trade: system of transporting raw materials from the 13 English Colonies to Europe where they were used to create manufactured goods; those goods were traded to African kingdoms in exchange for enslaved people who were transported to the colonies to grow the raw materials.

Joint stock company: owned by multiple investors who bought stocks in the company, which helped them divide the risk (if a ship sank or goods were less valuable, no one person would lose all of the money) and investors would get that same percentage of the profits from selling the goods

Middle Passage   route by which slave traders transported new slaves from Africa to colonies in the Americas; known for the terrible conditions and brutal treatment of the enslaved peoples; 10-15% of people enslaved died.

Trading post empire: system of gaining control of small areas of land and port cities to control trade in a region; made money from taxing and controlling trade.

Engenho: term for Portuguese sugar plantation; goal was to produce as much sugar as possible because of its value, so working conditions were incredibly dangerous and killed many of the enslaved people working there. 

Syncretism: process of combining elements of different cultures into new religions, languages, and systems; developed new traditions in the Americas like creole/Gullah languages and Vodun religion.