Unit 1: Period 1: 1491 to 1607

19 terms. Say what each one means, then open the card to check.

• Maize cultivation

  The growing of corn, which spread north from Mesoamerica and gave many Native peoples a steady food supply that could support large, settled towns.

  Example. As maize spread north, many peoples planted it together with beans and squash, three crops that grew well side by side in one field.

• Mississippian culture

  Farming societies of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys and the Southeast, known for large towns, ranked leaders and huge earthen mounds.

  Example. At Moundville, in present-day Alabama, leaders lived atop flat-topped earthen mounds set around a large central plaza.

• Pueblo peoples

  Native peoples of the dry Southwest who farmed maize with careful use of scarce water and lived in permanent towns of stone or adobe buildings.

  Example. Acoma Pueblo, built on top of a steep mesa in present-day New Mexico, has been lived in for many centuries.

• Mobile hunting and gathering

  A way of life in which a group moves through the year to hunt animals and gather wild plants where each is found, instead of farming one place.

  Example. Before horses arrived, many peoples of the western Plains lived in small bands that followed bison on foot and gathered wild plants along the way.

• Northwest Coast societies

  Peoples of the Pacific Northwest who lived in permanent villages with ranked social classes, fed mainly by salmon and other sea and river foods rather than by farming.

  Example. Villages of cedar plank houses held hundreds of people who caught and dried salmon each year and marked status with great feasts.

• Eastern Woodlands mixed economy

  The pattern in the Northeast and Great Lakes forests of farming maize, beans and squash near villages while also hunting, fishing and gathering.

  Example. In Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) towns, women grew corn, beans and squash, while men cleared new fields and went on long hunting and fishing trips.

• Reconquista

  The centuries-long campaign by Christian kingdoms to take the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rulers, completed when Granada fell in 1492.

  Example. Over centuries of fighting, Christian kings rewarded warriors with conquered land and the labor of its people, a habit Spaniards later carried to the Americas.

• Caravel

  A small, fast sailing ship developed by the Portuguese and Spanish that could sail closer to the wind, making long ocean voyages more practical.

  Example. Two of the three ships on Columbus's first voyage, the Niña and the Pinta, were caravels.

• Treaty of Tordesillas

  A 1494 agreement between Spain and Portugal that drew a north-south line through the Atlantic, giving Spain claims to the west and Portugal to the east.

  Example. Under the treaty, Spanish expeditions to Mexico and Peru fell on Spain's side of the line, while Portuguese posts on the African coast fell on Portugal's.

• Columbian Exchange

  The transfer of plants, animals, diseases and people between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres that followed Columbus's voyages.

  Example. Wheat and cattle came west across the Atlantic, while tomatoes and cacao went east to Europe.

• Virgin-soil epidemics

  Outbreaks of diseases such as smallpox and measles among people who had never been exposed to them, and so had no built-up immunity, causing very high death rates.

  Example. When smallpox reached Hispaniola in 1518, it killed a large share of the island's remaining Taíno people within a few years.

• Horses on the Great Plains

  Horses, brought to the Americas by the Spanish, spread north and by the 1700s had reshaped how many Plains peoples hunted, traveled, traded and fought.

  Example. With horses, a Plains band could carry heavier loads when it moved camp, and a family's herd of horses became a measure of its wealth.

• Sugar plantation

  A large estate that grew and processed sugarcane for export; the crop came from the Eastern Hemisphere and its brutal work demanded huge numbers of laborers.

  Example. In the early 1500s, Portuguese planters on the island of São Tomé, off West Africa, grew cane with enslaved African workers, a model later carried to Brazil.

• Conquistador

  A Spanish soldier-adventurer who led the conquest of Native empires and lands in the Americas, usually seeking wealth and royal rewards.

  Example. Francisco Pizarro led fewer than two hundred men into Peru and captured the Inca ruler Atahualpa in 1532.

• Encomienda system

  A Spanish grant that let a colonist demand labor and tribute from the Native people of an area, in return for a duty to protect them and teach them Christianity.

  Example. A colonist holding such a grant on Hispaniola could force the people of nearby villages to work in his gold mines and fields.

• Casta system

  The ranking of people in Spain's colonies by ancestry and birthplace, with Spanish-born people at the top and Native and African people near the bottom.

  Example. A person of mixed Spanish and Native ancestry, called a mestizo, ranked below people of fully Spanish descent.

• Valladolid debate

  A formal debate in Spain in 1550 and 1551 over whether Spain could justly make war on Native peoples and force them to serve, with Las Casas and Sepúlveda on opposite sides.

  Example. The judges at Valladolid never issued a final ruling, but the debate showed how seriously the crown took the question of its right to conquer.

• Spanish mission

  A settlement run by Catholic friars to convert Native people, teach Spanish ways and draw on their labor, often guarded by soldiers.

  Example. Around 1600 and after, Franciscan friars set up missions among the Guale and Timucua peoples of Florida and Georgia, where converts farmed for the mission.

• Atlantic slave trade

  The forced shipment of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, begun by the Portuguese and greatly expanded as American plantations and mines demanded labor.

  Example. Portuguese traders bought captives at posts on the West African coast and shipped them first to Atlantic islands and Europe, and later to the Americas.