Maize
Corn — a staple crop developed in Mesoamerica that spread north, enabling large settled populations among the Pueblo, Mississippian, and Iroquois peoples.
Native SocietiesThree Sisters
Native American agricultural system that planted corn, beans, and squash together — corn supports beans, squash retains soil moisture, and the three crops together provide a complete diet.
Native SocietiesPueblo Peoples
Native societies of the American Southwest who built multi-story adobe villages and used sophisticated irrigation to grow maize in arid conditions.
Native SocietiesIroquois Confederacy
A political alliance of five (later six) Northeastern tribes — Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and later Tuscarora — whose democratic structure later influenced American government.
Native SocietiesMississippian Culture
Pre-Columbian civilization (c. 800–1600) of the Mississippi River Valley, famous for large earthen mounds and the city of Cahokia, the largest urban center north of Mexico.
Native SocietiesCaravel
A small, fast, maneuverable Portuguese ship with triangular (lateen) sails that enabled long-distance ocean exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries.
ExplorationTreaty of Tordesillas (1494)
Spanish-Portuguese agreement, brokered by the Pope, that divided the newly 'discovered' world along a north-south line — Spain claimed most of the Americas; Portugal got Brazil and Africa.
ExplorationFerdinand & Isabella
Spanish monarchs who unified Spain, completed the Reconquista against the Moors in 1492, expelled Jews and Muslims, and funded Columbus's first voyage.
ExplorationChristopher Columbus
Italian navigator sailing for Spain whose 1492 voyage opened permanent contact between Europe and the Americas, launching the Columbian Exchange and centuries of colonization.
ExplorationColumbian Exchange
The transfer of plants, animals, people, technology, and diseases between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres after 1492 — transforming diets, ecosystems, and populations on every continent.
Columbian ExchangeSmallpox
European disease against which Native Americans had no immunity; killed an estimated 50–90% of Indigenous Americans and was the single deadliest weapon of European conquest.
Columbian ExchangeHernán Cortés
Spanish conquistador who toppled the Aztec Empire (1519–21) with a small force, Indigenous allies (especially Tlaxcalans), and the help of smallpox.
Spanish ConquestFrancisco Pizarro
Spanish conquistador who conquered the Inca Empire in the 1530s by exploiting a civil war and capturing Emperor Atahualpa.
Spanish ConquestConquistadors
Spanish soldiers and adventurers (e.g. Cortés, Pizarro) who conquered Indigenous empires in the Americas through warfare, alliances, and the spread of disease.
Spanish ConquestEncomienda System
Spanish colonial labor system granting colonizers the right to extract Indigenous labor and tribute in exchange for 'protection' and Christian instruction — a system of coerced labor.
Labor & SlaveryCasta System
Spanish colonial racial hierarchy — peninsulares (Spain-born) at the top, then creoles, mestizos, mulattoes, with Indigenous and African peoples at the bottom — defining legal and social status by ancestry.
Labor & SlaveryMestizo
A person of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry in Spanish America — a middle category in the casta system that became a large segment of the population.
Labor & SlaveryPeninsulares
Spaniards born in Spain who held the highest political and social positions in Spanish colonial society — distinct from American-born creoles.
Labor & SlaveryAsiento System
Spanish license granting a monopoly to import enslaved Africans into Spanish colonies — a central mechanism of the Atlantic slave trade.
Labor & SlaveryAtlantic Slave Trade
Forced transportation of millions of Africans across the Atlantic to labor in colonial plantations and mines, expanding rapidly as Indigenous populations collapsed.
Labor & SlaveryBartolomé de Las Casas
Spanish Dominican friar who condemned Spanish atrocities against Native Americans, advocated for their rights, and inspired the New Laws (1542) limiting the encomienda.
Cultural InteractionsValladolid Debate (1550–51)
Spanish debate between Bartolomé de Las Casas (defending Native rights) and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (justifying conquest) over the moral treatment of Indigenous peoples.
Cultural InteractionsMission System
Network of Catholic outposts (often Franciscan or Jesuit) used by Spain to convert Indigenous peoples, organize labor, and project imperial control across the Americas.
Cultural InteractionsPueblo Revolt (1680)
Successful uprising of Pueblo peoples in New Mexico, led by Popé, that drove Spanish colonizers out for 12 years — the most successful Indigenous resistance in North American history.
ResistanceJoint-Stock Company
Business arrangement where investors pool capital and share both risks and profits, funding colonial ventures like the Virginia Company — a key innovation enabling permanent settlement.
Causation