Chapter 1 Vocab Flashcards
Marco Polo
Italian explorer who spent many years in China or near it. His return to Europe in 1295 sparked a European interest in finding a quicker route to Asia
Francisco Pizarro
New World conqueror or Spanish conquistador who crushed the Incan civilization in Peru, took their gold and silver, and enslaved in Incas in 1532
Ponce de Leon
Spanish explorer who sailed to the New World in 1513 and in 1521. He explored Florida, thinking it was an island, while looking for gold and perhaps the fabled “fountain of youth”. He failed in his search for the fountain of youth but established Florida as territory for the Spanish, before being killed by a Native America arrow
Hernando de Soto
A Spanish conquistador. He explored in the 1540s from Florida west to the Mississippi with six hundred men in search for gold. He discovered the Mississippi River, before being killed by Indians and buried in the river
Montezuma
Aztec chieftain who encountered Cortes and the Spanish and seeing that they rode horses, Montezuma assumed that the Spanish were gods. He welcomed them hospitably, but the explorers soon turned on the natives, crushed them, and ruled them for three centuries
Christopher Columbus
An Italian navigator who was funded by the Spanish government to find a passage to the Far East. He is given credit for discovering the “New World”, even though at his death he believed he had made it to India. He made four voyages to the “New World”. The first sighting of land on October 12, 1492, and three other journeys until the time of his death in 1503
Treaty of Tordesillas
In 1494, Spain and Portugal were disputing the lands of the New World, so the Spanish went to the Pope, and he divided the land of South America for them. Spain got the vast majority, the west, and Portugal got the east
Mestizos
The mestizos were the mixed race of people created when the Spanish intermarried with the surviving Indians in Mexico
Renaissance
After the Middle Ages there was a rebirth of the culture in Europe where art and science were developed. It was during this time of enrichment that America was discovered
Canadian Shield
The geological shape of North America estimated at 10 million years ago. It held the northeast corner of North America in place and was the first part of North America theorized to come above sea level
Mound Builders
The mound builders of the Ohio River Valley and the Mississippi culture of the lover Midwest did sustain some large settlements after the incorporation of corn planting onto their way of life during the first millennium A.D. The Mississippian settlement at Cahokia, near present-day East St. Louis, III, was perhaps home to 40,000 people in about A.D. 1100. But mysteriously, around the year 1,300, both the Mound Builder and the Mississippian cultures had fallen to decline
Spanish Armada
“Invincible” group of ships sent by
