Chapter 1

Question 1

Canadian Shield

Answer 1

First part of the North American landmass to emerge above sea level.

Question 2

Inca Empire

Answer 2

called Tawantinsuyu by its subjects, was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The Inca civilization arose from the Peruvian highlands sometime in the early 13th century.

Question 3

Aztec Empire

Answer 3

or the Triple Alliance was an alliance of three Nahua city-states: Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan.

Question 4

Nation states

Answer 4

a sovereign territory with one group of individuals who share a common history.

Question 5

Three-sister farming

Answer 5

three main agricultural crops of various Indigenous peoples of North America: winter squash, maize, and climbing beans.

Question 6

Cahokia

Answer 6

Mississippian settlement near present-day East St. Louis, home to as many as twenty-five thousand Native Americans.

Question 7

Caravel

Answer 7

Small reqular vessel with a high
deck and three triangular sails. Caravels could sail more closely into the wind, allowing.
European sailors to explore the western shores of Africa, previously made inaccessible due
to prevailing winds on the homeward journey.

Question 8

Plantaion

Answer 8

Large-scale agricultural enterprise growing commercial
crops and usually employing coerced or slave labor. European settlers established
plantations in Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and the American South.

Question 9

Colombian Exchange

Answer 9

The transfer of goods, crops, and diseases between New and Old World societies after 1492.

Question 10

Treaty of Tordesillas

Answer 10

Signed by Spain and Portugal,
dividing the territories of the New World. Spain received the bulk of territory in the Americas,
compensating Portugal with titles to lands in Africa and Asia.

Question 11

Encomienda

Answer 11

Spanish government’s policy to “commend,” or gave, Indians to certain colonists in return for the promise to Christianize them. Part of a broader Spanish effort to subdue Indian tribes in the West Indies and on the North American
mainland.

Question 12

Noche Triste

Answer 12

was an important event during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, wherein Hernán Cortés, his army of Spanish conquistadors, and their native allies were driven out of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.

Question 13

Capitalism

Answer 13

Economic system characterized by private property, generally.
free trade, and open and accessible markets. European colonization of the Americas, and in
particular, the discovery of vast bullion deposits, helped bring about Europe’s transition to
capitalism.

Question 14

Mestizos

Answer 14

a man of mixed race, especially one having Spanish and indigenous descent.

Question 15

Conquistadores

Answer 15

Sixteenth-century Spaniards who fanned out across the Americas, from Colorado to Argentina, eventually conquering the Aztec and Incan empires.

Question 16

Battle of Acoma

Answer 16

Fought between Spaniards under Don Juan de Oñate and the Pueblo
Indians in present-day New Mexico. Spaniards brutally crushed the Pueblo peoples and
established the territory as New Mexico in 1609.

Question 17

Pueblo Revolt

Answer 17

Pueblo Indian revolt that drove Spanish settlers from New Mexico. The Spanish left behind
some 1500 horses that became the ancestors of the horse herds that spread across the
continent and transformed the lives of many Plains Indians.

Question 18

Black Legend

Answer 18

False notion that Spanish conquerors did little
but butcher the Indians and steal their gold in the name of Christ.)

Question 19

Christopher Columbus

Answer 19

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas.

Question 20

Hernán Cortéz

Answer 20

Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century.

Question 21

Marco Polo

Answer 21

Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295.

Question 22

Moctezuma

Answer 22

Montezuma II, also spelled Moctezuma, (born 1466—died c. June 30, 1520, Tenochtitlán, within modern Mexico City), ninth Aztec emperor of Mexico, famous for his dramatic confrontation with the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Question 23

Vasco da Gama

Answer 23

Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira, was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans.

Question 24

Juan Ponce de León

Answer 24

Juan Ponce de León was a Spanish explorer and conquistador known for leading the first official European expedition to Florida and for serving as the first governor of Puerto Rico. He was born in Santervás de Campos, Valladolid, Spain in 1474.

Question 25

Jacques Cartier

Answer 25

Jacques Cartier was a French-Breton maritime explorer for France. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River,