Key Figures and Concepts of the Age of Exploration and Enlightenment

Key Figures of the Age of Exploration

Hernán Cortés: Spanish explorer who landed on the coast of Mexico in 1519. In 1521, he and his Indian allies captured and demolished Tenochtitlan.

Malinche: A young Indian woman who served as Cortés's translator and adviser. The Spanish called her Doña Malinche.

Moctezuma: Aztec emperor who drove the Spanish from Tenochtitlan. He was killed in the fighting.

Francisco Pizarro: Spanish explorer who captured and killed Atahualpa.

Atahualpa: Incan ruler who won the throne from his brother in a bloody civil war.

Colonial Administration and Society

Council of the Indies: Established to pass laws and maintain strict control over the colonies.

Encomienda: The right to demand labor or tribute from Native Americans in a particular area.

Peninsulares: People born in Spain.

Creoles: American descendants of Spanish settlers.

Mestizos: People of Native American and European descent.

Mulattoes: People of African and European descent.

Privateers: Pirates who operated with the approval of European governments.

Key Figures in Colonization

Samuel de Champlain: He built the first permanent French settlement in Quebec.

Louis XIV: He prohibited Protestants from settling in New France.

Jamestown: First permanent English colony in Virginia.

Pilgrims: A band of English Puritans who landed at Plymouth.

Conflicts and Treaties

French and Indian War: A war between Britain and France in North America (1754-1763).

Treaty of Paris: Officially ended the worldwide war between Britain and France in 1763.

African and Dutch History

Asante: Osei Tutu, an able military leader, organized the Asante kingdom in the late 1600s.

Boers: Dutch farmers who settled around Cape Town.

Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment

Key Concepts

Rationalism: The belief that knowledge is gained by thinking things through using reason.

Heliocentric Theory: The idea that the sun is the center of the Solar System.

Heresy: A belief that goes against Church teaching.

Inductive Reasoning: The process of looking at specific facts and making a general rule based on these facts.

Scientific Method: A method that uses observation, experiments, and careful reasoning to gain new knowledge.

Key Figures

Ptolemy: Greek philosopher who created a model which placed Earth at the center of the universe.

Nicolaus Copernicus: Polish astronomer who concluded that Earth and other planets revolved around the sun.

Johannes Kepler: German astronomer who discovered the laws that describe the movements of planets in the solar system.

Galileo Galilei: Italian mathematician who built his own telescope and supported Copernicus’s heliocentric theory.

Isaac Newton: English mathematician who proposed the idea of gravity and made important advances in the study of light, mathematics, and motion.

The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment: People began to believe that natural laws controlled the universe and might also explain human behavior. This period is also known as the Age of Reason.

The Enlightenment's ideas crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Britain's colonies, eventually leading to a revolution and the formation of the United States of America.

The idea that all people are born with certain rights, found in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, comes from Enlightenment ideas.