AMSCO Ch. 1 Key Names, Events, & Terms Flashcards
Native Americans; land bridge
40,000 years ago waves of migrants from Asia crossed a land bridge that connected Siberia & Alaska (said bridge is now under the Bering Sea). People migrated southward from the Arctic Circle to the southern tip of South America. The first Native Americans divided into hundreds of tribes, spoke different languages, and practiced different cultures. Estimates of the Native population in the Americas in the 1490s vary from 50 to 75 million persons.
These Indians lived in semi-permanent settlements with 300 or less people. The men made tools & hunted game, while the women grew corn, beans, and tobacco. Some tribes were more nomadic than others, such as these Indians whom, on the Great Plains, followed the buffalo herds.
Sioux & Pawnee Indians
These Indians lived in the Southwest in multistoried buildings & developed intricate irrigation systems for farming.
Pueblo Indians
These mound-building cultures evolved in the MI and OH River valleys & elsewhere.
Adena, Hopewell, MI Indians
Iroquois Indians
Formed a political confederacy, the League of the Iroquois, which withstood attacks from opposing Native Americans & Europeans during much of the 17th & 18th centuries.
Mayas
A.D. 300-800
Built remarkable cities in the rain forests of the Yucatan Peninsula (present-day Guatemala, Belize, and southern Mexico).
- Developed calendars that were based on accurate scientific observations.
- Highly organized societies
- Extensive trade
Incas
Peru. Ruled over vast empires.
- Highly organized societies
- Extensive trade
Aztecs
Central Mexico. Ruled over vast empires.
- Capital of Tenochtitlan was equivalent in size & population to the largest European cities
- Highly organized societies
- Extensive trade
Renaissance Era
A rebirth of classical learning & an outburst of artistic & scientific activity during the late 1400’s and early 1500’s.
Technology in the Renaissance Era
Europeans bettered many inventions.
- Gunpowder (originally by the Chinese)
- Sailing Compass (adopted from the -Chinese by Arab merchants)
- Better map making & shipbuilding skills
- Development of the printing press in 1450 allowed information to be decimated more quickly and widely
-Means for colonization
Spain; Moors
In the Middle Ages, Spain had been partly conquered by Muslim invaders, and only 1 Moorish stronghold remained in Spain when Isabella & Ferdinand united their separate Christian kingdoms. They defeated the Moors of Granada in 1492.
Ferdinand & Isabella
Ferdinand was the king of Aragon, and Isabella was the queen of Castile. When they defeated the Moors of Granada in 1492 under their united Christian kingdoms, they brought with them a sign of new leadership, hope, and power to European believers in the Roman Catholic faith.
Protestant Reformation
The revolt in the early 1500s by some Christians in Germany, England, France, Holland, & other northern Euro. countries against the authority of the pope in Rome.
- Caused Catholics of Spain & Portugal + Protestants of England & Holland to want their own versions of Christianity adopted by Africans, Asians, and Americans.
- -Religious motive for exploration & colonization.
Trade
There was an increased trade between European kingdoms and Africa, India, and China resulting from fierce competition along the European kingdoms
-Route from Venice & Constantinople to an overland route that reached to the capital of the Chinese empire was blocked when, in 1453, Ottoman Turks seized Constantinople. People wanted to find new way to Asian trade by sailing across Atlantic or south along West African coast.
Portugal
Very involved in trade and sponsored many explorers
Henry the Navigator
Portugal’s prince who sponsored many voyages of exploration; succeeded in opening up a long sea route around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope
Nation-States
Country in which the majority of people share both a common culture & common political loyalties toward a central government
- Monarchs depended on trade to bring in revenues & the Church to justify their rights to rule
- -Isabella & Ferdinand of Spain, Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal ; used their powers to search for riches abroad and to spread the influence of the Catholic Church to new overseas dominions
Christopher Columbus
1492
Italian-born explorer who claimed land and riches for Spain; backed by Isabella and Ferdinand; was looking for a route to Asia, sailed from the Canary Islands, and landed in the Bahamas; voyages were disappointing, but he was the first person to bring permanent interaction between Europeans and Native Americans
New World
The term given to the land that Christopher Columbus found instead of China and the Indies; America
Amerigo Vespucci
An Italian sailor whom America was named after
Papal Line of Demarcation
1493
Pope drew a vertical, north-south line on a world map, giving Spain all lands to the west of the line & Portugal all lands to the east
Treaty of Tordesillas
1494
Moved papal line of demarcation a few degrees to the west, which passed through Brazil, establishing Portugal’s claim to Brazil
Vasco Nunez de Balboa
Journeyed across the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean
Ferdinand Magellan
Circumnavigated the world
