key words 1-4

Black Legend

  • Refers to Spain’s reputation as bloodthirsty conquistadors.

Calvinism

  • A branch of Protestantism started by John Calvin.
    • Emphasizes:
    • Human powerlessness before an omniscient God.
    • The idea of predestination.

Columbian Exchange

  • The movement of plants, animals, and diseases across the Atlantic.
  • Resulted from European exploration of the Americas.

Commodification

  • The transformation of something, such as an item of ritual significance, into a commodity with monetary value.

Encomienda

  • Refers to the legal rights to native labor as granted by the Spanish crown.

Hispaniola

  • The island in the Caribbean, present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic, where Columbus landed on his first voyage to the Americas.
  • Established a Spanish colony there.

Indulgences

  • Documents for purchase that absolved sinners of their errant behavior.

Joint Stock Company

  • A business entity where investors provide capital and assume the risk to reap significant returns.

Mercantilism

  • A protectionist economic principle.
    • Nations should control trade with their colonies to ensure a favorable balance of trade.

Mourning Wars

  • Raids or wars that tribes waged in eastern North America.
    • Purpose: To replace members lost to smallpox and other diseases.

Pilgrims

  • Separatists led by William Bradford.
  • Established the first English settlement in New England.

Privateers

  • Sea captains licensed by the British government to raid Spanish ships at will.

Probaza de mérito

  • Proof of merit: a letter written by a Spanish explorer to the crown to gain royal patronage.

Protestant Reformation

  • A schism in Catholicism.
    • Began with Martin Luther and John Calvin in the early sixteenth century.

Puritans

  • A group of religious reformers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
    • Aimed to “purify” the Church of England of Catholic practices and advocate for greater purity in doctrine and worship.

Beringia

  • An ancient land bridge that linked Asia and North America.

Black Death

  • Two strains of the bubonic plague that swept through western Europe in the fourteenth century.
    • Caused the death of nearly half the population.

Chasquis

  • Incan relay runners used to send messages over great distances.

Chattel Slavery

  • A system of servitude in which people are considered personal property.
    • They can be bought and sold.

Chinampas

  • Floating Aztec gardens made from large barges woven from reeds, filled with dirt, and floating on water.
    • Designed to allow for irrigation.

Crusades

  • A series of military expeditions by Christian Europeans.
  • Aimed to recover the Holy Land from Muslims during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.

Feudal Society

  • A social arrangement where serfs and knights provided labor and military service to noble lords.
  • In exchange, they received protection and land use.

Inquisition

  • A campaign by the Catholic Church to root out heresy.
    • Especially targeted converted Jews and Muslims.

Koran

  • The sacred book of Islam.
    • Believed by Muslims to be the word of God, dictated to Muhammad through an angel in the seventh century.

Matriarchy

  • A social system in which women hold political power.

Mita

  • The Incan labor tax requiring families to donate time and effort to communal projects.

Polygyny

  • The practice of taking more than one wife.

Quipu

  • An ancient Incan device used for recording information.
    • Consists of variously colored threads knotted in different ways.

Reconquista

  • Spain’s nearly eight-hundred-year holy war against Islam.
    • Ended in 1492.

Serf

  • A peasant bound to the land and its lord.

Roanoke

  • The first English colony in Virginia that mysteriously disappeared between 1587 and 1590.

Separatists

  • A faction of Puritans advocating for complete separation from the Church of England.

Smallpox

  • A disease accidentally introduced to the New World by Europeans.
    • Caused the deaths of millions of Native Americans who had no immunity.

Sugarcane

  • One of the primary crops of the Americas.
    • Required tremendous labor for cultivation.

Headright System

  • A system granting parcels of land to settlers who could pay their way to Virginia.

Indenture

  • A labor contract promising young men and sometimes women money and land after a set period of work.

Jesuits

  • Members of the Society of Jesus, an elite Catholic religious order founded in the 1540s.
  • Dedicated to spreading Catholicism and combating the spread of Protestantism.

Maroon Communities

  • Groups of escaped enslaved individuals who resisted recapture and eked living from the land.

Middle Passage

  • The perilous and often deadly transatlantic crossing of ships carrying captured Africans from the African coast to the New World.

Musket

  • A light, long-barreled gun used in Europe.

Patroonships

  • Large tracts of land and governing rights granted to merchants by the Dutch West India Company to encourage colonization.

Repartimiento

  • A Spanish colonial system requiring Native American towns to supply workers for colonizers.

Timucua

  • The native people of Florida displaced by the Spanish during the founding of St. Augustine, the first Spanish settlement in North America.

Wampum

  • Shell beads used in ceremonies and as both jewelry and currency.

Deism

  • An Enlightenment-era belief in the existence of a supreme being who does not intervene in the universe.
    • Represents a rejection of the belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind.

Dominion of New England

  • James II’s consolidated New England colony, including all colonies from New Haven to Massachusetts and later New York and New Jersey.

English Interregnum

  • The period from 1649 to 1660 when England had no monarch.

Enlightenment

  • An eighteenth-century intellectual and cultural movement emphasizing reason and science.
    • In contrast to superstition, religion, and tradition.

First Great Awakening

  • An eighteenth-century Protestant revival.
    • Emphasized individual, experiential faith over church doctrine and the close study of scripture.

Freemasons

  • A fraternal society founded in the early eighteenth century.
    • Advocated Enlightenment principles of inquiry and tolerance.

French and Indian War

  • The last significant imperial struggle between Great Britain and France from 1754 to 1763.
    • Also known as the Seven Years’ War; resulted in a decisive British victory.

Glorious Revolution

  • The overthrow of James II in 1688.
  • A series of English mercantilist laws enacted from 1651 to 1696.
    • Aimed at controlling trade with the colonies.

Nonconformists

  • Protestants who did not conform to the doctrines or practices of the Church of England.

Proprietary Colonies

  • Colonies granted by the king to a trusted individual, family, or group.

Restoration Colonies

  • The colonies established or supported by King Charles II during the Restoration (including the Carolinas, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania).

Salutary Neglect

  • The lax enforcement of the Navigation Acts by the English crown in the eighteenth century.