Chapter 20
Terms
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- Columbian exchange
- the global transfer of plants, animals, and diseases that occurred during the European colonization of the Americas.
- Montezuma II
- the Aztec emperor who agreed to give Cortes a share of the empire's existing gold supply.
- conquistadors
- the Spanish soldiers, explorers, and fortune hunters who took part in the conquest of the Americas in the 16th century.
- capitalism
- an economic system based on private ownership and on the investment of money in business ventures in order to make a profit.
- Jamestown
- a settlement in North America named in honor of King James
- Christopher Columbus
- Made a daring voyage from Spain in 1492 in search of an alternate trade route to Asia and its riches.
- Atlantic slave trade
- the buying, transporting, and selling of Africans for work in the Americas.
- middle passage
- the voyage that brought captured Africans to the West Indies, and later to North and South America, to be sold as slaves-so called because it was considered the middle leg of the triangular trade.
- triangular trade
- the transatlantic trading network along whcih slaves and other goods were carred between Africa, England, Europe, the West Indies, and the colonies in Americas.
- mercantilism
- an economic policy under which nations sought to increase their wealth and power by obtaining large amounts of gold and silver an by selling more goods than they bought.
- Hernando Cortes
- in 1519, he landed on the shores of Mexico. He went onto the American mainlands to claim new lands for Spain.
- Commercial revolution
- the expansion of trade and business that transformed European economies during the 16th and 17th century.
- Francisco Pizarro
- he conquered the Incan Empire in 1532.
- French and Indian War
- a conflict between Britain and France for control of territory in North America, lasting from 1754 to 1763.
- mestizo
- a person of mixed Spanish and Native American ancestry
- encomienda
- a grant of land made by Spain to a settler in the Americas, including the right to use Native Americans as laborers on it.