Mesoamerica, Atlantic Slave Trade and European Colonization

Cortés

1485-1547, Spanish conqueror of Mexico defeated aztecs to conquer mexico

Moctezuma

A Great Speaker who lived in Tenochtitlan who allowed the Spaniards to come in to his city unharmed. He was later out on house arrest by the Spaniards leading up to him being killed when they massacred his city.

Malinché

A Nahua noblewoman who served as a translator and advisor for Cortes. She was trilingual in Spanish, Nahuatl, and Mayan, so she played a crucial role in the Spanish conquest of Mexico. She did this by commanding the respect of the Nahua people, making it easier to conquer their land.

Quipu

A system of record keeping founded by the Inca People that involved using knots on strings to record the population in a census and divide people into groups of 10, 50, 100, 1,000, 5,000, and 10,000.

Aztecs

An Empire based Tenochtitlan or modern day Mexico City that was founded in 1325. In 1428, the dynasty formed the Triple Alliance and began to expand its territory. At the highest point of the dynasty the empire included 450 separate Altepetl city-states and ruled over a population of 4-6 million citizens.

Brazil

Country in South America which many slaves were deported to.

Ayllu

Groups of the Inca Empire who were Andean and worked the land in several adjacent ecological zones so they could maximize their yield should the crops in one zone fail.

Treaty of Tordesillas

In 1494 a treaty was signed by both the Portuguese and the Spanish to establish a dividing line that stated that all territory west of the line belonged to Castile, and all the islands to the east belonged to Portugal. The "line" was 1,185 miles in length.

Columbus

Italian navigator in Spanish service: traditionally considered the discoverer of America 1492.

Encomienda system

Literal meaning- Entrusted This system was established in 1503 by the Spanish in hopes of clarifying arrangements with the colonists and ending the abuse of indigenous people in America. Peninsulares- Spaniards born in Spain Creoles- Born in New Spain of Spanish Parents Mestizos- born of Spanish and Native American Indian Parents Native American Indian Enslaved Persons- Brought from Africa and the Carribean

Incas

Pachakuti founded this empire in 1438. He launched a series of conquest attacks outward from the capital at Cuzco. At the Empire's highest point, they ruled over a population of 10-12 million people.

Chattel slavery

Slaves were movable property

Pizarro

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Incas in what is now Peru and founded the city of Lima

Tenochtitlan

The Capital of the Aztec Empire that was reclaimed from swampland and housed over 200,000 people. The land was made of swampland, which made it hard to erect buildings. The Aztec people eventually found drier areas in the swampland to build buildings.

Conquistadors

The Spaniards who conquered Mexico, Peru, and Central America and its inhabitants in the 1500s. Many of these people came from families who were known as "middle class" and made their money in the Americas.

Atlantic Trade System

The biggest deportation in history and a determining factor in the world economy of the 18th century. Millions of Africans were torn from their homes, deported to the American continent and sold as slaves. Triangular Trade.

Caribbean

The region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (including the West Indies), and the surrounding coasts.

Middle Passage

The stage of the triangular trade in which millions of Africans were shipped to the New World as part of the Atlantic slave trade.

Chocolate

a food preparation in the form of a paste or solid block made from roasted and ground cacao seeds, typically sweetened.

Maya

a member of a major pre-Columbian civilization of the Yucatán Peninsula that reached its peak in the 9th century a.d. and produced magnificent ceremonial cities with pyramids, a sophisticated mathematical and calendar system, hieroglyphic writing, and fine sculpture, painting, and ceramics.

Yucatan

a peninsula in SE Mexico and N Central America comprising parts of SE Mexico, N Guatemala, and Belize.

abolitionist

a person who favors the discontinuation of a practice or institution, especially capital punishment or (formerly) slavery.

Silver

a precious shiny grayish-white metal, the chemical element of atomic number 47

Tobacco

a preparation of the nicotine-rich leaves of an American plant, which are cured by a process of drying and fermentation for smoking or chewing.

Suriname

a republic on the NE coast of South America: formerly a territory of the Netherlands; gained independence 1975. 60,230 sq. mi. (155,995 sq. km).

Olaudah Equiano

a slave who suffered during the period of slave trade. He was also an afro-British author who told of his enslavement as a child in Africa. He is important because his story details his suffering as well as how he beat the odds of slavery.

Tlaxcala

a state of S central Mexico: the smallest Mexican state; formerly an Indian principality, the chief Indian ally of Cortés in the conquest of Mexico

Sugar

a sweet crystalline substance obtained from various plants, especially sugar cane and sugar beet, consisting essentially of sucrose, and used as a sweetener in food and drink.v -slaves needed in order to produce large quantities

Virginia (Jamestown)

a village in E Virginia: first permanent English settlement in North America 1607; restored 1957.

West Indies

an archipelago (group of islands) in the N Atlantic between North and South America, comprising the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, and the Bahamas.

Plantation

an estate on which crops such as coffee, sugar, and tobacco are cultivated by resident labor.

Slave

condition in which individuals are owned by others, who control where they live and at what they work.

Columbian exchange

period of cultural and biological exchanges between the New and Old Worlds. Exchanges of plants, animals, diseases and technology transformed European and Native American ways of life.

Maroon

rebel slaves in the americas

Altepetl

the 450 city-states of the Aztec Empire. Each city-state had its own leader or "speaker", a palace for its ruler, a pyramid-shaped temple, a government, and a market.

New France

the French colonies and possessions in North America up to 1763.

Arawak

the name for a family of native language that was spoken over a vast regions spanning modern day Venezuela to Florida. The term also refers to the native people who lived on this land before it was conquered.

Nahua

valued the sun as one of their most important deities because the sun controlled the agriculture and crops. The deities consisted of extremely natural things, such as the sun, the animals, the rain etc. (Polytheistic)