| A | B |
|---|
| Conquistador | Spanish word for 'conqueror'; person who conquered the native people in the Americas. |
| Immunity | natural protection |
| Hernan Cortes | Spanish conquistador; one of the earliest explorers who landed on the coast of Mexico. |
| Tenochtitlan | capitol of the Aztec empire; destroyed by the Spanish and later rebuilt as Mexico City. |
| Malinche | young Native American woman; knew Maya and Aztec languages and quickly learned Spanish; served as translator and advisor to Cortes and helped him arrange alliances with enemies of the Aztecs. |
| Alliance | formal agreement between two or more nations or powers to cooperate and come to one another's defense. |
| Moctezuma | Aztec empower who died fighting the Spanish. |
| Francisco Pizarro | Spanish conquistador; arrived in Peru in 1532; captured and killed the Inca ruler Atahualpa; continued to explore across Ecuador and Chile. |
| Civil War | a war fought between groups of people who live in the same nation. |
| Viceroy | representative who ruled one of Spain's provinces in the Americas in the king's name; one who governed in India in the name of the British monarch. |
| Ecomienda | right the Spanish government granted to its American colonists to demand labor or tribute from the Native Americans. |
| Bartolome de Las Casas | pleaded with Spanish king to end abuse to Native Americans; Spain passed laws forbidding enslavement of Native Americans. |
| Peon | worker forced to labor for a landlord in order to pay off a debt. |
| Peninsulare | member of the highest class in Spain's colonies in the Americas. |
| Creole | in Spain's colonies in the Americas, an American-born descendent of Spanish settlers. |
| Mestizo | in Spain's colonies in the Americas, a person of Native American and European descent. |
| Mulatto | in Spain's colonies in the Americas, a person who was of African and European descent. |
| Privateer | pirate |
| New France | land claimed by France in present-day Canada. |
| Revenue | money taken in through taxes. |
| Pilgrims | English Protestants who rejected the Church of England; sought religious freedom when they settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. |
| Compact | agreement |
| French and Indian War | war between Britain and France (1754-1763) over control of North America; many Native Americans groups were allied with the French. |
| Treaty of Paris | agreement that ended the French and Indian war in 1763; France ceded Canada and its land east of the Mississippi River to Britain but regained sugar-producing islands in the Caribbean and slave-trading outposts in Africa. |
| Olaudah Equiano | young Nigerian captured by slave traders and brought to the Americas in the 1750s. |
| Triangular Trade | colonial trade route among Europe and its colonies, the West Indies, and Africa in which goods were exchanged for slaves. |
| Middle Passage | the second stage of the triangular trade when African slaves were transported to the Americas where they were exchanged for sugar and molasses. |
| Mutiny | revolt aboard a slave ship by the captives. |
| Columbian Exchange | transporting plants and animals from the Americas to Europe and transporting plants and animals from Europe to the Americas, which began with Columbus. |
| Inflation | economic cycle that involves a rapid rise in prices linked to a sharp increase in the amount of money available. |
| Price Revolution | rapid rise in inflation during the 1500s caused by the enormous amount of gold and silver flowing into Europe from the Americas. |
| Capitalism | economic system in which the means of production is privately owned and operated for profit. |
| Entrepreneur | person who assumes financial risks in the hope of making a profit. |
| Mercantilism | policy by which a nation sought to export more than it imported in order to build its supply of gold and silver. |
| Tariff | tax on imported goods |
