The Age of Discovery Flashcards
Conquistador
A conqueror, especially one of the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru in the 16th century.
Colony
A country or area under the full or partial political control of another country, typically a distant one, and occupied by settlers from that country.
Mercantilism
Belief in the benefits of profitable trading; commercialism.
Balance of Trade
The difference in value between a country’s imports and exports.
The Compass
An instrument containing a magnetized pointer that shows the direction of magnetic north and bearings from it.
Joint Stock Company
A company whose stock is owned jointly by the shareholders.
Triangular Trade
A multilateral system of trading in which a country pays for its imports from one country by its exports to another.
Columbian Exchange
A period of cultural and biological exchanges between the New and Old Worlds.
Middle Passage
The sea journey undertaken by slave ships from West Africa to the West Indies.
Treaty of Tordesillas
Divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Portugal and the Crown of Castile.
Henry the Navigator
An important figure in 15th-century Portuguese politics and in the early days of the Portuguese Empire.
Christopher Columbus
An Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa.
Vasco de Gama
A Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
Hernan Cortes
A Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire.
Zheng He
A Hui court eunuch, mariner, explorer, diplomat, and fleet admiral during China’s early Ming dynasty.
Ferdinand Magellan
A Portuguese explorer who organised the Castilian expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522, resulting in the first circumnavigation of the Earth, completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano.
Spice Trade
The trade between historical civilizations in Asia, Northeast Africa and Europe.
Encomienda System
In colonial Spanish America, legal system by which the Spanish crown attempted to define the status of the Indian population in its American colonies.
Dutch East India Company
Was originally established as a chartered company in 1602, when the Dutch government granted it a 21-year monopoly on Dutch spice trade.
Arawak
A member of a people originally of the Greater Antilles and adjacent South America, now living mainly in Guiana.
The Philippines
A truncated form of The Philippine Islands, derived from the King Philippe II of Spain in the 16th century.
Fort Jesus Mombasa
A Portuguese fort located on Mombasa Island.
Kongo Kingdom
Lord or ruler of the Kongo kingdom, but its sphere of influence extended to neighbouring kingdoms, such as Ngoyo, Kakongo, Ndongo and Matamba.
Menin Tribe
A social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader.
