Key Terms of Early American Colonization & Global Trade
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Understanding Early American Colonization and Global Trade
Christopher Columbus
An Italian sea captain who initiated European contact with the Americas in 1492.
Colony
A territory or land controlled by another nation, often for economic or strategic benefit.
Hernán Cortés
A Spanish conquistador who led the expedition that conquered the Aztec Empire in the early 16th century.
Conquistador
Spanish soldiers, explorers, and fortune hunters who participated in the conquest of the Americas during the 16th century.
Francisco Pizarro
A Spanish conquistador known for his conquest of the Incan Empire in 1533.
Atahualpa
The last independent Incan emperor, famously captured by the Spanish conquistadors.
Mestizo
A term used in colonial Latin America to describe a person of mixed Spanish and Native American ancestry.
Encomienda
A system used by the Spanish in the Americas, granting a settler the right to a specified number of Native American laborers and land.
New France
The territory colonized by France in North America, serving as the base of France's colonial empire.
Jamestown
England's first permanent colony in North America, established in 1607.
Pilgrims
A group of English Separatists who, in 1620, founded the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts to escape religious persecution.
Puritans
A religious group who sought to purify the Church of England and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 1600s for religious freedom.
New Netherland
The Dutch colonial holdings in North America, later becoming New York.
French and Indian War
A major conflict between Great Britain and France (and their respective Native American allies) for control of North American territory, lasting from 1754 to 1763.
Metacom (King Philip)
A Wampanoag leader, also known as King Philip, who led a significant Native American resistance against colonial villages in Massachusetts during King Philip's War.
Atlantic Slave Trade
The systematic buying, transporting, and selling of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean for forced labor in the Americas.
Triangular Trade
A complex transatlantic trading network that transported enslaved Africans, raw materials, and manufactured goods between Europe, Africa, and the Americas (including the West Indies).
Middle Passage
The brutal and deadly sea journey that forcibly transported enslaved Africans from Africa to the Americas, primarily the West Indies, as part of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Columbian Exchange
The widespread global transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and the Old World in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Capitalism
An economic system characterized by private ownership of the means of production and the investment of capital in business ventures to generate profit.
Joint-Stock Company
A business entity where investors pool their capital to fund a venture, sharing both the risks and the profits proportionally.
Mercantilism
An economic policy prevalent from the 16th to 18th centuries, where nations aimed to maximize their wealth and power by accumulating gold and silver and maintaining a favorable balance of trade (exporting more than importing).
Favorable Balance of Trade
An economic condition where a country's exports exceed its imports, resulting in a net inflow of wealth, often in the form of precious metals.