Early Colonial Period

Virginia Dare

The 1st English baby born in America, she was at Roanoke.

Francisco Coronado

the 2nd attempt to find he Seven Cities of Cibola, Coronado's expedition began in 1540. He explord much of the American Southwest, discovered the pueblo Indians, but returned with no gold. Due to this failure, Spain lost all interest in the Southwest for the next 50 years.

Treaty of Tordesillas

(1494)- it was an agreement between Spain and Portugal that separated the lands of the Portuguese with from those of the Spanish in the New World. Pope Alexander VI had drawn a papal line of demarcation to separate their lands, an this treaty set the line of to give Brazil, discovered by Portugal, to Portugal. The rest of the New World lands went to Spain, and Portugal obtained lands in Asia (as compensation for Spain getting most of the New World).

Caravel

the experts at Sagres Poin combined Muslim, Asian, and European technologies to develop a ship that can travel faster, and farter than any existing ship. The Portuguese used it to sail to the Atlantic coast of Africa, finally rounding the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa in 1488.

Black Death

It was an epidemic of bubonic plague in Europe from 1347-1353. It wiped out at least a third of the population of Europe. The B.D. is also significant because it changed the feudal structure of Western Europe-the labor of peasants became much more powerful because there were fewer of them. Many peasants were able to obtain their own land, and life generally improved. Since each person now had more land, more food was available, and that led to a population explosion! people also had more money to spend on products offered in towns. This led to demand for exotic products from faraway places.

Tenochtitlan

It was the capitol of Aztec Empire. Public rituals in the city included human sacrifice. When Cortes arrived in 1519, the city had a population of 300,000 - 5 times the amount of Spain's largest city. Mexico City is built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan.

Henry VIII

King of England from 1509-47, he is known for his 6 wives and for breaking England away from the Catholic Church. When the pope refused to grant the Henry annulment from his first marriage, Henry broke England from the Catholic Church. He broke from the Church for personal and financial reasons ( he sold the Church lands and the monasteries), and his new Church, the Anglican Church, was pretty much the same as the Catholic Church the only difference was that he was the head of the Church. However, some of the English people really were Protestants, and those who wanted to eliminate Catholicism from Anglican Church were called Puritans. They were persecuted, and many emigrated to the New World.

Sir Francis Drake

.he was an English Pirate who made a fortune attacking Spanish ships. He was the first Englishman to sail around the world, leading the 2nd voyage around the word (Magellan's being the 1st). Drake attacked Spanish Vessels along the way, claimed the Pacific Northwest for England, and returned with gold and spices so valuable that it was worth more than the entire amount of revenue in England in a year! Elizabeth Knighted Drake for this voyage, further enraging the Spanish toward England. Drake is a villain in history, as he killed at least 600 people on an island off Ireland

Bartolomeu Dias

Portuguese explorer who was the first European to round the Cape of Good Hope.

John Cabot

A Genoese explorer sailing with an English crew, Cabot discovered Newfoundland (Labrador).

Encomienda

A Spanish colonial system where the lord was meant to protect the Natives as they worked for him in exchange for labor. It was essentially feudalism but it didn't work as well as feudalism mainly because it became forced slavery, and Natives turned out to be poor slaves because they would either commit suicide or die from disease.

Renaissance

As a result of contact with Muslims during the Crusades and through contact via the increased trade of the Middle Ages, western scholars obtained access to ancient Greek and Roman texts that had been preserved in Muslim libraries. This revived interest in classical Greece and Rome, which led to a "period of intellectual and artistic flowering" during the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries known as the Renaissance. The Renaissance is incredibly important for a number of reasons, including two for the purpose of unit: 1. It made people think of life here on earth as a life worth living to its fullest, instead of a single-minded focus on the afterlife. 2. It led to development in navigational technology that allowed exploration. Explorers wanted to find a quick route to Asia to obtain spices and gold.

Huguenots

French Calvinists.

Jean Ribault

He and 150 Huguenots established a French colony at Parris Island, (in present-day South Carolina). The colony failed, though, when it ran out of supplies. The second colony, at Fort Caroline, Florida, was successfully established in 1564, but was conquered by the Spanish in 1565 and all 500 of its inhabitants, including Ribault, were slaughtered.

Christopher Columbus

He was a Genoan (Italian) who sailed for Spain and "discovered" America in 1492 when he landed at Hispaniola. He sailed west to get to the East, and believed that he had landed off the coast of Asia (which is why he called the natives "Indians"). He made 4 voyages to the New World. He is the only non-American who The US has a holiday after.

John Calvin

He was a Protestant reformer in Geneva, Switzerland. He argued that God had already decided who was saved for Heaven and who was doomed to burn eternally in Hell. His beliefs encouraged thrift, hard work, personal responsibility, and prosperity. People who exhibited those traits were seen as possible members of the "elect"- those chosen for Heaven. His followers on France were known as Huguenots, and the majority of French Catholics persecuted them. His followers in England were known as Separatists. Many of them left to settle the New World.

Sir Martin Frobisher

He was an English explorer who conducted 3 voyages in the late 1570's in the North Atlantic attempting to find Northwest Passage to Asia. Instead, he found some Eskimos and fool's gold! He was a great hero during the attack of the Spanish in 1588, and was Knighted by Elizabeth.

Vasco Nunez de Balboa

He was the first European explorer to discover the the Pacific Ocean which he called the " South Sea." He crossed the Isthmus of Panama to discover it.

Roanoke

In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh hired navigators to lead an expedition to the New World. The original intention was that settlement would be made in Chesapeake Bay area since it had milder weather than the northern regions, while still being away from the Spanish in Florida. They were primarily interested in locating minerals, riches, and a favorable report was brought back to Raleigh. The navigators endorsed a three-term-2mile strip of land off the coast of present day North Carolina and south of Albemarle Sound as a likely site for a colony. Raleigh then received a royal grant from Queen Elizabeth I. Raleigh sent a second expedition to the new world in 1585. The new colony was named Virginia, in honor of the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth. A small settlement was created, known as Roanoke, but the colonists returned to England the following year. Raleigh's last attempt was made in 1587. John White was the leader and hoped to establish a self sufficient-colony, instead of being the center of locating gold and silver. The settlers planted crops, made shelter, and in August, the first English child was born in the New World (Virginia Dare). White returned to England for additional supplies, but because of warfare with Spain, he was unable to return to Roanoke for 3 years. When White came back, no settlers were left. The entire colony of 117 men, women, and children were gone. The only clues were the letters CRO carved on tree near the fort and the word "Croatoan" on a post. Croatoan is the name of an island near Roanoke, off the coast of North Carolina, and it is speculated that that the colonists went there, but white never checked it out because of a hurricane that blew his ships off the coast.

Walter Raleigh

In addition to funding the Roanoke expedition, he supposedly took off his cloak and threw it over a mud puddle so Queen Elizabeth wouldn't get her feet wet! What a guy! (sadly, this event is probably just a myth).

Spanish Armanda- 1588

One of the greatest turning points in history was the attack of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Philip II sent 130 ships and 30,000 men to invade England. Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher and other English Privateers commanded smaller, more maneuverable ships. The English filled boats called fireboats with explosives, and the massive Spanish galleons could not move out of the way in time. The Spanish fled and were further humbled when a storm destroyed much of the rest of their fleet. Half of the Armada was destroyed, and the Spanish monopoly of the New World was broken. England went on to become the #1 naval power in the world, and the way was opened for permanent colonies in the New World.

Vasco da Gama

Portuguese explorer who was the 1st European to reach India by sailing around Africa. This led to Portuguese domination of trade in the Far East, making huge profits off of spices, gold, and slaves.

Reconquista

The Christian re-conquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims.

Manteo and Wanchese

They were Native-American emissaries at Roanoke who show differences in views among Indians toward the colonists. Manteo argued that English weapons and technology could help his tribe in conflicts with other tribes. Wanchese, on the other hand, argued that English society, with its very rich and its very poor, showed that they didn't care about the welfare of the less fortunate and such people couldn't be trusted.

Carib

They were a tribe of cannibals living on the islands of the eastern Caribbean Sea. The name of the sea comes from the tribe.

Isabella and Ferdinand

They were the leaders of Castile and Aragon (regions in Spain), respectively. When they were married in 1492, they brought the two lands together creating Spain. They took over the entire Iberian Peninsula , and held the Spanish Inquisition to get rid of all Muslims and Jews from the land. They wanted their wealth to grow and get in on the riches of trade that was making the Italian city-states and Portugal so wealthy, so they sponsored Christopher Columbus's voyages to open new trade routes and conquer more land.

Feudalism

This was a social system usually associated with medieval Europe. Land was dived up among lords, and the lords allowed peasants to live on their land in exchange for certain services. Typically, lords gave their peasants, called serfs, protection. In return, serfs worked the lord's land, giving the lord a portion of their crops. Also, serfs served in the lord's military and worked for free building roads or doing menial jobs for the lord. The only way to escape the system was to flee to a town, and this encouraged the growth of towns.

Giovanni da Verrazano

Tuscan (Italian) explorer sailing for France, Verrazano explored American coast from Cape Fear, North Carolina to the Penobscot River in Maine. He discovered New York Harbor, as well.

Bartolome de las Casas

a Spanish Catholic priest who denounced the coquest of the Native Americans, las Casas said that instead of stealing from them, enslaving them, or killing them! He felt that they deserved to be treated as humans; even arguing that "the entire human race is one." He wrote The Destruction of the Indies, blaming Spanish for the genocide of millions of Natives.

Hernan Cortes

a Spanish explorer who conquered the Aztecs in only 2 years, aided by superior weaponry, horses, and disease. His conquest led to the export of Spain of tremendous quantities of gold and silver, making Spain the most powerful country in the world in the 16th century.

Humphrey Gilbert

along with Sir Walter Raleigh, his half-brother, Gilbert ruthlessly crushed Irish resistance to English settlement there in the second half of the 16th century.

Syphilis

an STD, it was transmitted from Natives to Europeans. It was part of the Great Biological Exchange (Columbian Exchange).

AmerigoVespucci

an explorer from Florence, he traveled to the Caribbean in 1499. He was the first European explorer to describe the land "discovered" by Christopher Columbus to be a New World. This hemisphere is named for him.

St. Augustine

founded by the Spanish in 1565, it is the oldest European city in North America. It is located on the Atlantic coast of Florida. It was built as a fort to provide a staging area to attack and destroy Fort Caroline.

Richard Hakluyt

he argued that England should start colonies to rid England of undesirables like beggars and debtors. He also argued that colonies would provide bases from which the English could raid Spanish ships, provide markets for English products, and grow tropical crops for England so it wouldn't have to rely on trade with Asia for those products.

Martin Luther

he began Protestant Reformation when he posted the 95 Theses on a church door in Wittenburg, Germany on Oct. 31, 1517. His Reformation soon inspired other reforms to split form the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church persecuted his followers, and many of them in England and France eventually emigrated to the New World.

Jacques Cartier

he discovered the St. Lawrence River in 1534, and claimed Canada for France by planting a 30- foot cross!

Prince Henry the Navigator

he established a school of navigation on Sagres Point, Portugal. He brought in instrument makers, ship builders, geographers, and sailors. They developed a new ship called a caravel, and knew that the world was round by 1450. His school directly led the voyages of exploration.

Hernan de Soto

he was a Spanish conquistador who led 700 men into Florida on a mission to find the Seven Cities of Cibola. He and his men marched across the South, including Georgia, the Carolinas,, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. The Chickasaw Natives destroyed half of his army, and de Soto died of a fever in 1542. the expedition had lasted 3 years, found little gold and only 311 members of the expedition survived. De Soto is usually given credit for being the first European explorer to see the Mississippi River.

Cabeza de Vaca

he was a crewman aboard an expedition to Florida led by Panfilode Narvaez that ended in a shipwreck. He and several others wandered the lands of the Gulf Coast for 8 years before being rescued. He wrote a book about his adventures, telling about the Seven Cities of Cibola.

John Hawkins

he was an English privateer and Sea Dog. Hawkins was the 1st Englishman to engage in the slave trade to the New World. The Spanish attacked Hawkins in 1567, bringing England and Spain to the brink of war. Hawkins was the 1st to bring the potato and tobacco to England.

Seven Cities of Cibola

legendary cities made of gold, they inspired Spanish exploration of North America by de Soto and Coronado.

Ponce de Leon

the first Spanish Conquistador to North America. He named Florid, where Natives killed him in 1521.

Philip II

the king of Spain during the 2nd half of the 1500's, Philip saw himself as the defender of the Catholic faith. He attacked England because of: 1. Religion England was Protestant and Spain was Catholic. 2. Piracy- Queen Elizabeth had encouraged the Sea Dogs to attach Spanish vessels and take their treasure. She had even Knighted Drake for doing so. 3. Trespassing - England tried to establish the colony Roanoke, and the Spanish considered all of North America to be their land. 4. Personal - Queen Elizabeth rejected Philip when he asked for her hand in marriage!

Sea Dogs

they were English Privateers. Drake and Hawkins were Sea Dogs.

Mulattos

they were people living in New Spain of mixed African and European descent. They were near the bottom of the social hierarchy, above only Native Americans and slaves.

Mestizos

they were people living in the New Spain (Spanish colonies) of mixed Native American and European descent. They were above mulattos, Native Americans, and slaves on the social ladder.

Elizabeth I

youngest daughter of Henry VII, she ruled England from 1558-1603. She is generally regarded as the greatest ruler in England history. Elizabeth took a moderate approach to religion, and became enormously popular with most of her subjects. English colonization began during her reign, though not successfully.