Required Content (Period 1) Flashcards
Great Basin
A region in the Western U.S. that has no drainage to the ocean. Low, flat lands that was the home to many Native American tribes.
Mississippi River Valley
Area of land that stretches 2,348 miles from Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota to the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico. Served a key role in transportation and commerce throughout the center of the United States. Purchased by the US in the Louisiana Purchase. Home to many Native American groups.
Atlantic Seaboard
The area of the Atlantic Ocean along the Eastern states of the United States.
New World
A name for the Americas, especially during the time of first exploration and colonization of the Americas by Europeans.
Christianity
The religion derived from the teachings of Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies.
Colombian Exchange
The Columbian Exchange refers to a period of cultural and biological exchanges between the New (North and South America) and Old Worlds (Europe and Asia). Exchanges of plants, animals, diseases and technology transformed European and Native American ways of life.
Feudalism
The dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord’s land and give him homage, labor, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection.
Capitalism
An economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
Joint-Stock Companies
Companies made up of group of investors who bought the right to establish plantations from the king
Encomienda System
conquistadors and other leaders (encomenderos) received grants of a number of Indians, from whom they could exact “tribute” in the form of gold or labor. The encomenderos were supposed to protect and Christianize the Indians granted to them, but they most often used the system to effectively enslave the Indians and take their lands
Native Americans (American Indians)
A member of any of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
West African Slave Trade
The business or process of procuring, transporting, and selling slaves, especially black Africans to the New World prior to the mid-19th century.
Africans
A person from Africa, especially a black person.