AP World History: Modern · Transoceanic Interconnections

Flashcard deck · Test Prep · AP World History: Modern · History

Covers the Columbian Exchange, conquistadors like Cortés and Pizarro, the encomienda and mita systems, key explorers, and technologies such as the caravel and astrolabe.

Terms in this deck

Cassava

A starchy root crop from South America that spread to Africa through the Columbian Exchange, becoming a crucial calorie source for sub-Saharan populations.

Ferdinand Magellan

Explorer whose expedition (1519-1522) completed the first circumnavigation of the globe, proving the Earth's true size and the Pacific Ocean's vast width.

Vasco da Gama

Portuguese explorer who sailed around Africa to reach India in 1498, opening a direct sea trade route and challenging Muslim and Italian merchant dominance.

Christopher Columbus

Genoese explorer sailing for Spain who reached the Caribbean in 1492, initiating sustained contact between Europe and the Americas.

Magnetic Compass

A Chinese-invented instrument adopted by European sailors to determine direction, making open-ocean navigation far more reliable.

Virgin Soil Epidemic

An epidemic that strikes a population with no prior exposure or immunity to a disease, resulting in exceptionally high death rates.

Horses in the Americas

European-introduced animals that transformed Indigenous warfare, hunting, and mobility, especially for Plains peoples of North America after re-introduction.

Bartholomeu Dias

Portuguese captain who rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, proving a sea route from Europe to Asia around Africa was possible.

Maize (Corn)

A staple crop originating in Mesoamerica that spread globally through the Columbian Exchange, becoming a vital food source in Africa, Europe, and Asia.

Mita System

An Incan labor tax adapted by the Spanish to force Indigenous people to work in mines and on public projects, causing severe population loss.

Astrolabe

A navigational instrument used to measure the altitude of celestial bodies, helping sailors determine their latitude while at sea.

Conquistador

A Spanish soldier-explorer who conquered Indigenous civilizations in the Americas in the early 16th century, claiming territories for the Spanish Crown.

Demographic Collapse

The dramatic population decline of Indigenous American peoples, mostly caused by epidemic disease, reducing some populations by 50 to 90 percent within a century.

Cape of Good Hope

The southern tip of Africa, rounding which allowed Europeans to sail from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, bypassing overland trade routes.

Sugar Cane

A crop brought by Europeans to the Americas, where it thrived in tropical colonies and drove massive demand for enslaved African labor.

Smallpox

A highly contagious viral disease introduced by Europeans to the Americas, causing catastrophic mortality among Indigenous populations with no prior immunity.

Caravel

A small, fast Portuguese sailing ship with triangular lateen sails that allowed sailing against the wind, revolutionizing long-distance ocean exploration.

Encomienda System

A Spanish labor system granting colonists the right to demand labor and tribute from Indigenous people in exchange for protection and Christian instruction.

Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)

An agreement between Spain and Portugal dividing newly explored non-European lands between them along a meridian line west of the Cape Verde Islands.

Gold, God, and Glory

The three main motivations driving European explorers: acquiring wealth, spreading Christianity, and gaining national prestige and fame.

Prince Henry the Navigator

Portuguese prince who sponsored early Atlantic and African coastal expeditions, establishing a school for navigators and launching Portugal's maritime empire.

Lateen Sail

A triangular sail adopted from Arab mariners that allowed ships to sail into the wind, greatly improving maneuverability on open ocean voyages.

Portolan Charts

Detailed navigational maps of coastlines and harbors used by medieval and early modern sailors to guide voyages along known routes.

Columbian Exchange

The widespread transfer of plants, animals, diseases, people, and ideas between the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia following Columbus's 1492 voyage.

Potato

An Andean crop transferred to Europe via the Columbian Exchange that dramatically improved nutrition and population growth, especially in Ireland and Eastern Europe.

Francisco Pizarro

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Inca Empire in the 1530s, exploiting civil war and disease to capture and execute the ruler Atahualpa.

Mercantilism

An economic theory holding that a nation's wealth depends on accumulating gold and silver, achieved by maximizing exports and minimizing imports through colonies.

Silver Mining (Potosí)

The massive silver extraction at Potosí in present-day Bolivia, providing Spain enormous wealth and fueling global trade networks in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Hernán Cortés

Spanish conquistador who defeated the Aztec Empire by 1521 using military force, Indigenous allies, and the devastating impact of European disease.

Reconquista

The centuries-long Christian campaign to reclaim the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rulers, ending in 1492 and fueling Spanish crusading spirit into exploration.

Silk Road Decline

The fall of the Mongol Empire and Ottoman control of overland trade made the Silk Road less viable, motivating European sea exploration.

Plantation System

An agricultural system in tropical American colonies using enslaved or coerced labor to produce cash crops such as sugar, tobacco, and cotton for export.

Transatlantic Voyage

Ocean crossings between Europe and the Americas that became routine after 1492, linking the Old and New Worlds economically and biologically.

Asiento

A contract granting European nations the right to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish colonies, becoming a major point of commercial competition among European powers.

Viceroy

A royal governor appointed by the Spanish or Portuguese crown to oversee colonial territories on the monarch's behalf.

Factory (Feitoria)

Portuguese fortified trading posts established along African and Asian coasts to control commerce and store goods without colonizing large territories.

Galleon

A large, heavily armed Spanish sailing vessel used to transport silver from the Americas to Spain across the Atlantic and Pacific.

British East India Company

An English joint-stock company chartered in 1600 that traded in Asia and eventually governed large parts of India, representing private-state colonial power.

Tordesillas Line

The 1494 boundary dividing newly discovered non-Christian lands between Spain and Portugal, placing most of the Americas under Spanish influence.

Ottoman Barrier to Trade

Ottoman control of eastern Mediterranean trade routes after 1453 pushed European powers to seek alternative sea routes to Asia.

Columbian Exchange Crops to Europe

American crops like tomatoes, peppers, and cacao transformed European diets, improving nutrition and contributing to population growth over time.

Favorable Balance of Trade

A mercantilist goal requiring exports to exceed imports in value, so a nation accumulates more precious metals than it spends.

Joint-Stock Company

A business organization in which investors pool capital and share both profits and risks, enabling expensive overseas trading and colonial ventures.

Tonnage and Guns

Larger, armed European ships called carracks combined cargo capacity with firepower, enabling both trade and military dominance at sea.

Padrão

Stone pillars erected by Portuguese explorers along African and Asian coasts to claim territory and mark navigation routes for future voyages.

Dutch East India Company (VOC)

Founded in 1602, the VOC was the most powerful joint-stock trading company, dominating the spice trade and establishing Dutch commercial empire in Asia.

Deadreckoning

A navigation method estimating a ship's position using speed, direction, and elapsed time when direct observation of stars was impossible.

Bullionism

The mercantilist belief that national wealth equals the stock of precious metals a country holds, driving colonial mining and trade policies.

Cross-Staff

A navigational instrument used by sailors to measure the angle of the sun or stars above the horizon to determine latitude.

Viceroyalty of Peru

The major Spanish colonial administrative division covering most of South America, centered on Lima and rich in silver production.

Carrack

A large, multi-decked sailing ship used by European explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries capable of long ocean voyages.

Middle Passage

The brutal transatlantic voyage endured by enslaved Africans packed into ships, characterized by extreme overcrowding, disease, and high mortality rates.

Tobacco

An American crop adopted by Europeans and Africans after 1492, becoming a major cash crop cultivated by enslaved labor in colonial Virginia and the Caribbean.

Atlantic Slave Trade

The forced transportation of millions of Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas to provide labor on plantations and in mines from the 16th to 19th centuries.

Triangular Trade

A three-legged Atlantic trading system exchanging European goods for African enslaved people, who were sold in the Americas for raw materials sent back to Europe.

Spice Trade

European desire to access Asian spices like pepper and cinnamon drove exploration, as overland routes were costly and controlled by Ottoman and Italian middlemen.

Manila Galleon Trade

A Pacific trade route from 1565 to 1815 connecting Manila in the Philippines with Acapulco, Mexico, exchanging Asian goods for American silver.

New Spain

The Spanish colonial territory centered in Mexico and Central America, established after the conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521.

Estado da India

The Portuguese maritime empire in the Indian Ocean, a network of fortified trading posts rather than a land-based colonial empire.

Dias Rounding Africa

Bartholomeu Dias sailed around the southern tip of Africa in 1488, proving a sea route to Asia was possible and opening the Indian Ocean to Portuguese ships.

Dahomey Kingdom

A West African kingdom that became a major supplier of enslaved people to European traders, growing powerful through slave raiding and trade profits.

Dutch Golden Age

A period in the 17th century when the Dutch Republic dominated global trade, finance, and shipping, fueled largely by joint-stock companies and colonial commerce.

Slave Raiding in Africa

European demand for enslaved labor encouraged African kingdoms to raid neighboring groups, supplying captives to Atlantic slave traders.

Zheng He

Chinese admiral who led seven massive naval expeditions across Asia and Africa in the early 1400s, demonstrating China's maritime capability before European expansion.

Criollo (Creole)

A person of European descent born in the Americas, ranking below peninsulares in the Spanish colonial hierarchy but above mestizos and Indigenous people.

Ming Dynasty Maritime Withdrawal

China's decision in the mid-1400s to halt overseas voyages, leaving a power vacuum in Indian Ocean trade that Europeans later filled.

Maroon Communities

Settlements formed by escaped enslaved Africans in the Americas who resisted colonial authority and built independent societies in remote regions.

Cattle and Livestock Transfer

Europeans brought cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats to the Americas, transforming ecosystems and providing new food sources and labor animals.

African Diaspora

The forced dispersal of millions of Africans to the Americas and elsewhere through the slave trade, creating lasting cultural and demographic impacts.

Wind Patterns (Trade Winds)

Predictable seasonal winds that sailors learned to exploit to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans reliably.

Kongo Kingdom

A Central African kingdom that initially traded with Portuguese explorers but was destabilized as the Atlantic slave trade intensified demand for captives.

Specie Flow (Silver Trade)

Massive quantities of American silver flowed through global trade networks to Europe, Africa, and Asia, fueling commerce and inflation worldwide.

Slave Mortality Rates

Enslaved Africans faced brutal conditions during the Middle Passage and on plantations, with extremely high death rates from disease, overwork, and violence.

John Cabot

Italian-born explorer sailing for England who reached North America in 1497, establishing England's early claim to the continent.

Casta System

A racial hierarchy in Spanish colonial society organizing people by ancestry, including categories like peninsulares, criollos, mestizos, and Indigenous people.

Huguenots and French Exploration

French Protestant refugees and explorers who helped drive France's early colonial ventures in North America and Brazil during the 1500s.

Hacienda

A large Spanish colonial estate worked by Indigenous or mestizo laborers, producing agricultural goods and functioning as a center of economic and social power.

Peninsular (Peninsulare)

A Spanish-born colonist living in the Americas who held the highest social status in the colonial caste system.

Cacao

A Mesoamerican crop introduced to Europe after the Columbian Exchange, eventually becoming the basis of chocolate and a significant colonial commodity.

Mestizo

A person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry, forming a significant social class in the Spanish colonial caste system.

Quadrant (Navigation)

A navigational tool used to measure the altitude of the sun or stars, helping sailors determine their latitude at sea.

Influenza Pandemic (Americas)

Influenza was among the Old World diseases introduced after 1492 that killed large numbers of Indigenous people with no prior immunity.

Latitude Navigation

The technique of sailing along a known line of latitude to reach a destination, made possible by improved astronomical instruments.

Amerigo Vespucci

Italian explorer who recognized the Americas as a distinct landmass; his name became the basis for the word America.

Chronometer

A highly accurate clock used at sea to determine longitude by comparing local time with a reference time, improving navigation precision.

Letters Patent

Official royal licenses granted to explorers authorizing them to claim lands on behalf of their sponsoring monarch.

Wheat and Old World Crops to Americas

European settlers introduced wheat, rice, and barley to the Americas, reshaping Indigenous diets and agricultural landscapes.

Forced Labor Systems

Colonial powers used coerced labor including the encomienda, mita, and later chattel slavery to extract resources and build colonial economies.

Measles in the Americas

Like smallpox, measles devastated Native American populations who had no prior exposure or immunity, contributing to catastrophic demographic decline.

Mission System

A network of Catholic religious settlements established by Spain in the Americas to convert Indigenous peoples and integrate them into colonial society.

Chartered Company

A commercial enterprise granted a government monopoly and legal authority to trade in specific regions, blending state and private interests.

Aztec Empire (Mexica)

The powerful Mesoamerican empire conquered by Cortés in 1521; its fall opened central Mexico to Spanish colonization and resource extraction.

Tributary Labor

A system in which Indigenous communities owed periodic labor or goods to colonial authorities, adapting pre-Columbian traditions to Spanish demands.

Black Legend

The exaggerated anti-Spanish narrative spread by rivals emphasizing cruelty toward Indigenous peoples, used as propaganda to justify competing colonial claims.

Colony as Market

The mercantilist idea that colonies existed primarily to buy the mother country's manufactured goods and supply raw materials.

Tenochtitlán

The great Aztec capital city built on a lake island, destroyed by the Spanish in 1521 and rebuilt as Mexico City.

Repartimiento

A Spanish colonial labor system that required Indigenous villages to supply rotating workers for public projects and mines, replacing but similar to the mita.

Slave Trade on the African Coast

European traders established coastal forts and trading relationships with African rulers to obtain enslaved people for transport to the Americas.

Coffle

A chained line of enslaved people marched from the African interior to coastal slave-trading ports before being loaded onto ships.

Indigenous Resistance

Armed and cultural opposition by Native peoples to European conquest and colonization, ranging from organized military campaigns to everyday defiance.

Papal Donation (Inter Caetera)

A 1493 papal decree granting Spain rights over newly discovered lands in the Americas, forming the basis for Spanish colonial authority.

Encomienda Abuses

The widespread exploitation, overwork, and violence inflicted on Indigenous laborers under the encomienda grant system in Spanish colonies.

Price Revolution

The dramatic inflation experienced in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, largely caused by the massive influx of American silver.

Monopoly Trade Rights

Exclusive government-granted privileges allowing only one entity to trade in a particular commodity or region, central to mercantilist policy.

Requerimiento

A Spanish legal document read aloud to Indigenous peoples demanding submission to the Spanish crown before military conquest could legally proceed.

Bartolomé de las Casas

Spanish priest who became a fierce advocate for Indigenous peoples, documenting and condemning Spanish abuses in the Americas.

Inca Empire

The vast Andean empire conquered by Pizarro in the 1530s; its fall gave Spain control over enormous silver deposits and a large Indigenous labor force.

Chattel Slavery

A system in which enslaved people are legally treated as personal property inherited and bought, distinct from earlier forms of bound labor.

Syphilis (Old World Transfer)

A sexually transmitted disease possibly carried from the Americas back to Europe by returning sailors, spreading rapidly through European populations after 1493.

Depopulation of West Africa

The massive loss of population in West and Central Africa caused by centuries of slave raiding, destabilizing societies and economies.

Slave Fort (Barracoon)

Coastal holding facilities where enslaved Africans were imprisoned while awaiting transport across the Atlantic on slave ships.

Accumulation of Capital

The process by which profits from trade and colonies were reinvested into further commercial ventures, fueling European economic growth and empire.

Syncretism (Religious)

The blending of Indigenous and European (especially Catholic) religious beliefs and practices, common in Spanish colonial societies.

Portuguese Sugar Colonies (Brazil)

Brazil became the world's leading sugar producer in the 1500s, relying on enslaved African labor and establishing the plantation model.

Silver Route (Acapulco to Manila)

The trade path along which Mexican silver was shipped across the Pacific to the Philippines in exchange for Asian luxury goods.

Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

An older network that moved enslaved Africans across the Sahara to North Africa and the Middle East, predating but overlapping with the Atlantic trade.

Biological Exchange (Animals)

The transfer of animals such as pigs, sheep, and goats from Europe to the Americas, reshaping Indigenous diets and ecosystems.

Catholic Church in the Colonies

The Church served as a major institution of colonial control, conversion, and cultural transformation throughout Spanish and Portuguese America.

Piece of Eight (Spanish Dollar)

A Spanish silver coin minted primarily at Potosí that became the first global currency, circulating from Europe to Asia.

Nicolás de Ovando

Spanish governor of Hispaniola who established early colonial administration and labor systems that became models for later Spanish colonies.

Headright System

A land-grant policy used in English colonies offering land to settlers who paid their own or others passage, encouraging migration and labor.

Pepper Trade

The highly profitable commerce in black pepper and other spices that motivated European powers to seek direct sea routes to Asia.

Syncretism in Practice

The practical blending of Catholic rituals with indigenous or African spiritual beliefs, creating hybrid religious traditions in colonial societies.

New World

A European term for the Americas coined after Columbus's voyages, reflecting the European perception of previously unknown continents.

Indentured Servitude

A labor system in which workers contracted to serve a master for a set number of years in exchange for passage to the Americas.

Spanish Armada (1588)

A large Spanish naval fleet sent to invade England that was defeated, signaling a shift in Atlantic naval power toward England and the Netherlands.

Forced Conversion

The coercive requirement that indigenous peoples and others adopt Christianity, widely practiced by Spanish and Portuguese colonial authorities.

Tribute System (Colonial)

A colonial policy requiring indigenous communities to pay goods, labor, or currency to Spanish authorities, replacing pre-Columbian tribute structures.

Casa de Contratación

A Spanish regulatory body founded in 1503 that controlled all trade and emigration to the Americas, enforcing mercantilist policies.

Strait of Magellan

The narrow sea passage at the southern tip of South America that Magellan's fleet navigated in 1520, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

São Tomé

A Portuguese island colony in the Gulf of Guinea that became an early sugar-producing center using enslaved African labor, a model later copied in Brazil.

Columbian Exchange (Return Voyage)

The transfer of American silver, crops, and goods back to Europe and Asia, reshaping global economies and dietary patterns.

Royal Fifth (Quinto Real)

A Spanish tax requiring one-fifth of all precious metals and treasure extracted from colonial mines to be paid to the Crown.

Sternpost Rudder

A steering device mounted on the back of a ship that gave sailors greater control, making longer ocean voyages more manageable.

Francis Drake

An English privateer and navigator who circumnavigated the globe from 1577 to 1580 and raided Spanish colonial settlements in the Caribbean.

Columbian Exchange (Ecological Impact)

The broad ecological transformation caused by the exchange of species between hemispheres, permanently altering ecosystems, diets, and populations worldwide.

Portuguese Slave Trade (West Africa)

Portugal's systematic capture and purchase of enslaved Africans beginning in the 1440s, establishing the earliest European-run Atlantic slave trade.

Audiencia

A royal court in Spanish colonial America that served both judicial and administrative functions, acting as a check on viceroys.

Caravel Design Improvements

Upgrades to the caravel hull and rigging made longer ocean voyages possible, allowing Europeans to sail into open Atlantic waters more reliably.

Privateers

Sailors authorized by a government to attack enemy merchant ships, used by England and France to disrupt Spanish colonial shipping.

Inquisition in the Colonies

The extension of the Catholic Church's Inquisition to Spanish America, used to enforce religious orthodoxy among colonists and convert indigenous peoples.

Creolization

The blending of African, European, and indigenous cultures in colonial societies, producing new languages, religions, and social customs.

Tlaxcalan Alliance

The military alliance between Hernán Cortés and the Tlaxcalan people, enemies of the Aztec, that was crucial to the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlán.

Sea Dogs

English privateers, such as Francis Drake, who raided Spanish treasure ships and ports in the late sixteenth century with royal backing.

Cash Crop Economy

A colonial economic system focused on producing high-value crops like sugar, tobacco, and cotton for export to European markets.

Council of the Indies

A Spanish governing body that oversaw colonial administration in the Americas, issuing laws and appointing officials to the New World.

Indigenous Alliances

Strategic partnerships formed between European conquistadors and rival indigenous groups, such as Tlaxcalans, that enabled the conquest of large empires.

Atlantic World

A historical concept describing the interconnected system of trade, migration, and cultural exchange linking Europe, Africa, and the Americas after 1492.

Line of Demarcation

A boundary established by papal authority dividing newly explored non-Christian lands between Spain and Portugal for colonial claims.

Mariner's Astrolabe

A simplified version of the astrolabe used at sea to measure the altitude of celestial bodies, helping sailors determine latitude on ocean voyages.

Cacao Trade

The export of cacao from the Americas to Europe, where it was processed into chocolate and became a luxury commodity consumed by elites.

Depopulation and Labor Shortage

The dramatic loss of indigenous population from disease and exploitation created a severe labor shortage that accelerated the importation of enslaved Africans.

Columbian Exchange (Disease Vector)

The unintentional transfer of pathogens from Europeans and their animals to immunologically vulnerable indigenous American populations.

Global Silver Circulation

The worldwide flow of Spanish-American silver through trade networks that connected the Americas, Europe, and Asia, fueling a global commercial economy.

Ming China and Silver Demand

China's requirement that taxes be paid in silver created enormous demand for Spanish-American silver, driving the Manila Galleon trade and global commerce.

Columbian Exchange (Long-term Demographic Effect)

New World crops introduced to Africa and Asia gradually increased food supplies and supported population growth over several centuries.

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