AP US History Unit 1 Flashcards
Christopher Columbus
European explorer famous for “discovering” the Americas
pre-Columbian era
The period before Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the “New World”
Native Americans
Populated North America during the pre-Columbian era
Not to be confused with all native-born Americans
Most historians believe that they are the descendants of migrants who traveled from Asia to North America between 40,000 and 15,000 years ago
Land bridge from Siberia to Alaska
Native Americans walked across it during their migrations
Bering Strait
As sea levels rose the land bridge was submerged and formed the Bering Strait.
How many Native Americans lived in the New World at the time of Columbus’s arrival?
Between 1 million and 5 million in modern Canada and the US
Another 20 million in Mexico
Who were the Pueblo people?
Native Americans living in the desert southwest with their multistory stone houses with hundreds of rooms
Who were the Chinook people?
The people of the Pacific Northwest who subsisted on hunting and foraging
Who were the Plains Indians?
Nomadic people in the plains of the US
Maize
Also corn
It was a staple crop for the indigenous people in Mexico and it spread to much of North America. The domestication and cultivation of maize allowed for stable economies and organized societies.
Columbian Exchange
the exchange of plants, animals, foods, communicable diseases, and ideas between the New World and the Old World
Colonies
A territory settled and controlled by a foreign power.
Europeans started to form colonies in the Americas after Columbus arrived in the New World
Conquistadors
Europeans that collected and exported as much of the Americas wealth as they could
Encomienda system
A labor system enforced on the Native Americans by the Spanish
Mestizos
Those of mixed European and Native blood
Zambos
Those of mixed African and Native American heritage
Spanish Armada
Spain’s navy
Smallpox
An epidemic from Europeans that killed a majority of the Native American population
Sextant
A navigation instrument that made sailing across the Atlantic safer and more efficient
Joint-stock companies
Corporate businesses with shareholders whose mission was to settle and develop lands in North America
Famous ones:
British East India Company, Dutch East India Company, Virginia Company (settled in Jamestown)
Juan de Sepulveda and Bartolome de Las Casas
Spanish and Portuguese thinkers who proposed different approaches to the treatment of Native populations
Spanish mission system
Converted Mesoamerica to Catholicism
Juan de Onate
Explorer who swept through the American Southwest to create Christian converts by any means necessary - including violence
Voodoo
A religion that is a blend of Christianity and tribal animism (Africans in the Americas)
Maroon people
Escaped slavery and formed cultural enclaves
Sir Walter Raleigh
English, in 1587 sponsored a settlement on Roanoke Island (now part of North Carolina).
Lost Colony
The colony on Roanoke Island disappeared by 1590
Jamestown and Virginia Company
The English settled Jamestown in 1607 and it was funded by a joint-stock company called the Virginia Company
Captain John Smith
he decreed that “he who will not work shall not eat” to help with settlers dying of starvation or disease. After he was injured in a gunpowder explosion and went back to England, the Indians of the Powhatan Confederacy stopped supplying Jamestown with food
Powhatan Confederacy
Indians of this group stopped supplying Jamestown with food
the starving time
During the winter of 1609-1610 starvation was really bad in Jamestown. Nearly 90 percent of its 500 residents perished, with some resorting to cannibalism.
John Rolfe
A survivor of Jamestown. He married Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas which eased the tension between the natives and English settlers. He pioneered the growing of tobacco as a cash crop to be exported back to England.
Tobacco
Was exported back to England which brightened the prospects for English settlement in Virginia. The crop requires vast acreage and depltes the soil so it caused rapid expansion. It also led to the development of plantation slavery.
Chesapeake
All the settlements around Jamestown which today comprises Virginia and Maryland
Indentured servitude
Many people came to the Chesapeake for financial reasons and overpopulation in England. Indentured servitude promised seven years of labor and then freedom. They also got a small piece of property with their freedom which allowed them to survive and vote. Although, nearly half of indentured servants did not survive their term of service.
Headright system
In 1618, the Virginia Company introduced the headright system as a means of attracting new settlers to the region and addressing the labor shortage created by tobacco farming. A “head right” was a tract of land, usually about 50 acres, that was granted to colonists and potential settlers.
House of Burgesses
Established by Virginia in 1619 in which any property-holding, white male could vote. All decisions made by this had to be approved by the Virginia Company.
Slavery
1619 was the introduction of slavery to the English colonies.
