Social Studies Flashcards
Pre-Columbian Cultures
The cultures of the Americas before European settlement. Usually includes indigenous cultures as they continued to develop centuries or decades after Columbus’ discovery.
Christopher Columbus
Italian explorer who searched for alternate routes to India by traveling west across the Atlantic on four different trips.
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado
Conquistadore who searched for the mythical “Seven Cities of Gold” in 1540. Expedition failed but did pave the way for future European influence in Texas lands.
Presidios
Fortified bases built by the Spanish in the New World.
Northwest Passage
A hypothesized water route from the Atlantic to Pacific Ocean. It would have facilitated trade with Asia, but one was never found. Eventually, the Panama Canal would connect these oceans in Central America.
Teotihuacan
A civilization known for pyramids, temples and roads
Sieur de la Salle
French explorer who founded the first permanent colony in Texas, Fort St. Louis, in 1685.
Conquistadores
Spanish explorers who searched for and found expansive amounts of gold in the New World.
Mayan Native Americans
A civilization known for its advancement in mathematics and writing. Built pyramids.
Encomienda
Grants from the crown giving the receivers the right to extract as much wealth for themselves from a specific area as possible, either through native labor or through the payment of tributes.
Iroquois Confederacy/Iroquois League
A confederacy of six different tribes that was the most powerful native group in the northeast. Expanded tribes through war and conquest.
Alcalde
The head of a town in the Spanish territory in the New World.
Karankawa
Not much is known, but believed to be hunters and gatherers in the Central and Gulf regions who were the first Native Americans to come into contact with European explorers, and suffered greatly because of this.
Jacques Cartier
French explorer who was the first to search for a water route from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Tonkawas
Hunters and gatherers in the Gulf Region of Texas who lived in huts and teepees and were enemies to the Comanches.
Mercantilism
The economic idea that a country needs to amass wealth through more exporting than importing and measures wealth by the amount of gold that a nation possesses.
The British thought that colonies should provide raw goods for cheap to them (cotton) and pay for manufactured goods from them (textiles).
Comanche
Nomadic Native American hunters and gatherers who were fierce warriors and skilled traders, found in the northern Texas grasslands.
Columbian Exchange
The transferring of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old World and the Americas after Christopher Columbus’ arrival.
Acequias
Shared community waterways used to irrigate agriculture in SPanish territories of the New World.
Ferdinand Magellan
Portuguese explorer who organized the first expedition to circumnavigate the Earth.
Mohican Native Americans
A confederacy of five tribes along the Hudson River. Lived primarily on agriculture, but also some hunting and gathering. Lived in longhouses.
Hopi Native Americans
Lived in villages called pueblos in northeastern Arizona. Relied on agriculture. Were known as peaceful people.
New Amsterdam
The most diverse colony which was a Dutch settlement on the southern tip of Manhattan Island.
Mesoamerica
A region in the Americas extending from central Mexico through parts of Central America prior to Spanish exploration.
