Chapter 14

Treaty of Tordesillas

A 1494 treaty that settled competing claims to Atlantic territories by giving Spain everything to the west of an imaginary line drawn down the Atlantic and Portugal everything to the east

Ptolemy's Geography

A 2nd Century C.E. work that synthesized the classical knowledge of geography and introduced the concepts of longitude and latitude

Which factor at least partially accounted for political and commercial stability in the Middle East during the Abbasid caliphate (750-1258)?

A common language and culture

Caravel

A small, maneuverable, two- or three-masted sailing ship developed by the Portuguese in the 15th Century that gave them a distinct advantage in exploration and trade

How did justifications for slavery change from the fifteenth to eighteenth century?

Arguments supporting slavery began to focus more on science and nature and less on religion.

Which statement best describes Hernán Cortés's crucial advantage in his conquest of the Aztec Empire?

Cortés was able to exploit internal dissention within the Aztec Empire.

Which factor was a major motivation for European exploration?

Desire for material profit

conquistadors

Spanish for "conquerors"; armed Spaniards such as Hern'an Cort'es and Francisco Pizzaro, who sought to conquer people and territories in the New World for the Spanish crown

Columbian exchange

The exchange of animals, plants, and diseases between the Old and the New Worlds

Inca Empire

The vast and sophisticated Peruvian empire centered at the capital city of Cuzco that was at its peak from 1438 until 1533

Aztec Empire

A large and complex Native American civilization in modern Mexico and Central America that possessed advanced mathematical, astronomical, and engineering technology

Encomienda System

A system whereby the Spanish crown granted the conquerors the right to forcibly employ groups of Indians in exchange for providing food, shelter, and Christian teaching

Which statement best characterizes the role of Europe in the system of world trade prior to the voyage of Columbus?

Europe was not the dominant player before Columbus, and the voyages derived from a desire to gain direct access to the goods of overseas trade.

Which statement accurately relates how Europeans engaged with the slave trade in the fifteenth century?

Europeans bought and sold only Africans who had previously been enslaved.

The examples of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and Ferdinand Magellan all exemplify which trait of European overseas exploration in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries?

Royal patronage was important in funding such voyages.

How did Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe affect Spanish colonization?

The great distances of the Pacific convinced the Spanish to abandon efforts to trade in Asia and develop their American colonies instead.

Viceroyalties

The name for the four administrative units of Spanish possessions in the Americas: New Spain, Peru, New Granada, and La Plata

How did the Turks' expansion of the Ottoman Empire and their conquest of the Byzantine Empire and its capital Constantinople in 1453 influence European exploration?

They forced Europeans to search for alternative trade routes to China, bypassing the overland routes now controlled by the Ottoman Empire.

The Mongol emperors of China

encouraged trade with Europe.

The New Laws put forward by King Charles I of Spain in 1542

set limits on the authority of encomienda holders.

In the seventeenth century, the Dutch East India Company

took over much of the East Indies from Portugal.