Zheng He
An imperial eunuch and Muslim, did a series of state voyages through the Indian Ocean from SE Asia to Africa
Arawak
Amerindian peoples who inhabited the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean at the time of Christopher Columbus
Henry the Navigator
Portuguese prince that directed voyages of exploration down the western coast of Africa
Caravel
Small, 3 masted ship used by the Portuguese and Spanish to explore the Atlantic
Gold Coast
Region of the coast of West Africa occupied by modern Ghana, named for it's gold exports to Europe
Bartolomeu Dias
Portuguese explorer who led the first expedition to sail around the southern tip of Africa
Vasco da Gama
Portuguese explorer that led the first naval expedition from Europe to sail to India
Christopher Columbus
Genoese mariner who led the expedition across the Atlantic to the Americas
Ferdinand Magellan
Portuguese navigator who led the Spanish expedition that was the first to sail around the world
Conquistadors
Spanish adventurers who conquered Mexico, Central America, and Peru
Hernan Cortes
Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the conquest of Aztec Mexico for Spain
Moctezuma II
Aztec Emperor who died while in the custody of the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes
Atahualpa
Last ruling Inca emperor of Peru, executed by the Spanish
Francisco Pizarro
Spanish explorer who led the conquest of the Inca empire of Peru
Renaissance
Period of intense artistic and intellectual activity, "rebirth" of Greco-Roman culture
Papacy
The central administration of the Roman Catholic Church, pope is the head
Indulgence
The forgiveness of the punishment due for past sins
Protestant Reformation
Religious reform movement within the Latin Christian Church, resulted in the "protesters"
Catholic Reformation
Religious reform movement within the Latin Christian Church, begun in response to the Protestant Reformation, Clarified Catholic theology reformed clerical training and discipline
Scientific Revolution
Intellectual movement in Europe, associated with planetary motion and other aspects of physics, laid the groundwork for modern science
Enligtenment
Philosophical movement that fostered the belief that one could reform society by discovering rational laws that governed social behavior and were just as scientific as the laws of physics
Bourgeoisie
Well-off town dwellers
Joint-Stock Company
Business backed by a gov charter, that sold shares to individuals to raise money for its trading enterprises and to spend the risks among many investors
Stock Exchange
Place where shares in a company or business enterprise are bought and sold
Gentry
Class of land-holding families in England below the aristocracy
Holy Roman Empire
Loose federation of mostly German states and principalities, headed by an emperor elected by the princes
Hasburg
A powerful European family
English Civil War
Conflict over royal versus parliamentary rights
Versailles
Huge palace built for French king Louis XVI south of Paris. Palace symbolized both French power and triumph of royal authority over the French nobility
Balance of Power
Policy in international relations by which the major Europeans states acted together to prevent any one of them from becoming too powerful
Columbian Exchange
Exchange of plants, animals, diseases and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world
Bartolome de Las Casas
First bishop of Chiapas, devoted most of his life to protecting the Amerindian peoples from exploitation. Achievement was the New Laws of 1542 which limited the ability of Spanish settlers to compel Amerindians to labor for them
Potosi
Located in Bolivia, richest silver mining centers and most populous cities in colonial Spanish America
Encomienda
Grant of authority over a population of Amerindians in the Spanish colonies. Provided the grant holder with a supply of cheap labor and periodic payments of goods by the Amerindians. Obliged the grant holder to Christianize the Amerindians
Creoles
Spanish America, used to describe someone of European descent born in the New World
Hidalgos
Lesser nobles, merchants, artisans etc
Mita
Imposed form of labor, one-seventh of adult male Amerindians were compelled to work for two to four months each year in mines, farms etc
Mestizo
Used by Spanish authorities to describe someone of mixed Amerindian and European descent
Mulatto
Used in Spanish and Portuguese colonies to describe someone of mixed African and European descent
Quilombos
Communities of runaways
Indentured Servant
Migrant to British colonies in the Americas who paid for passage by agreeing to work for a set term ranging from four to seven years
House of Burgesses
Elected assembly in colonial Virginia
Pilgrims
Group of English Protestant dissenters who established Plymouth Colony to seek religious freedom after having lived briefly in the Netherlands
Puritans
English Protestant dissenters who believed that God predestined souls to heaven or hell before birth
Iroquois Confederacy
An alliance of five northeastern Amerindian peoples (after 1722 six) that made decisions on military and diplomatic issues through a council of representatives. Allied first with the Dutch and later with the English, it dominated W. New England. (488)
New France
French colony in North America, capital in Quebec
Coureurs de Bois
(runners of the woods) French fur traders, many of mixed Amerindian heritage, who lived among and often married with Amerindian peoples of North America.
Tupac Amaru II
Member of Inca aristocracy who led a rebellion against Spanish authorities in Peru in 1780-1781. He was captured and executed with his wife and other members of his family.
Charted Companies
groups of private investors who paid an annual fee to France and England in exchange for a monopoly over trade to the West Indies colonies. Companies also provided free passage to the colonies to poor Europeans who went to work as indentured servants. The indentured servants paid off their debts by working 3 or 4 years for established colonists.
Dutch West India Company
Trading company chartered by the Dutch government to conduct its merchants' trade in the Americas and Africa.
Plantocracy
In the West Indian colonies, the rich men who owned most of the slaves and most of the land, especially in the eighteenth century.
Driver
A privileged male slave whose job was to ensure that a slave gang did its work on a plantation.
Seasoning
An often difficult period of adjustment to new climates, disease environments, and work routines, such as that experienced by slaves newly arrived in the Americas.
Manumission
Grant of legal freedom to an individual slave
Capitalism
An economic system based on open competition in a free market, in which individuals and companies own the means of production and operate for profit.
Mercantilism
An economic policy under which nations sought to increase their wealth and power by obtaining large amounts of gold and silver and by selling more goods than they bought.
Royal African Company
A trading company chartered by the English government in 1672 to conduct its merchants' trade on the Atlantic coast of Africa.
Songhai
A people, language, kingdom, and empire in western Sudan in West Africa. At its height in the sixteenth century, the Muslim Songhai Empire stretched from the Atlantic to the land of the Hausa and was a major player in the trans-Saharan trade.
Hausa
An agricultural and trading people of central Sudan in West Africa. Aside from their brief incorporation into the Songhai Empire, the Hausa city-states remained autonomous until the Sokoto Calipphate conquered them in the early nineteenth century.
Bornu
A powerful West African kingdom at the southern edge of the Sahara in the Central Sudan, which was important in trans-Saharan trade and in the spread of Islam. Also known as Kanem-Bornu, it endured from the ninth century to the end of the nineteenth.
Ottoman Empire
Islamic state founded by Osman in northwestern Anatolia ca. 1300. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire was based at Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) from 1453 to 1922. It encompassed lands in the Middle East, North Africa, the Caucasus, and eastern Europe.
Suleiman the Magnificent
The most illustrious sultan of the Ottoman Empire (r. 1520-1566); also known as Suleiman Kanuni, 'The Lawgiver.' He significantly expanded the empire in the Balkans and eastern Mediterranean. (p. 526)
Janissaries
30,000 Infantry, originally of slave origin, armed with firearms and constituting the elite of the Ottoman army from the fifteenth century until the corps was abolished in 1826.
Raya
Flock of sheep
Askeri
Military class
Tulip Period
(1718-1730) Last years of the reign of Ottoman sultan Ahmed III, during which European styles and attitudes became briefly popular in Istanbul.
Qalyan
To boil, bubble
Hookah
Jar
Safavid Empire
Turkish-ruled Iranian kingdom (1502-1722) established by Ismail Safavi, who declared Iran a Shi'ite state.
Shi'ites
A group that belived that Ali, Muhmmad's son in law, should succeed him and that all future caliphs should be Ali's decendants
Hidden Imam
Last in a series of twelve descendants of Muhammad's son-in-law Ali, whom Shi'ites consider divinely appointed leaders of the Muslim community. In occlusion since ca. 873, he is expected to return as a messiah at the end of time.
Shah Abbas I
The fifth and most renowned ruler of the Safavid dynasty in Iran (r. 1587-1629). Abbas moved the royal capital to Isfahan in 1598.
Mughal Empire
Muslim state (1526-1857) exercising dominion over most of India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Akbar
Most illustrious sultan of the Mughal Empire in India (r. 1556-1605). He expanded the empire and pursued a policy of conciliation with Hindus. (p. 536)
Mansabs
In India, grants of land given in return for service by rulers of the Mughal Empire.
Rajputs
Members of a mainly Hindu warrior caste from northwest India. The Mughal emperors drew most of their Hindu officials from this caste, and Akbar I married a Rajput princess.
Acheh Sultanate
Muslim kingdom in northern Sumatra. Main center of Islamic expansion in Southeast Asia in the early seventeenth century, it declined after the Dutch seized Malacca from Portugal in 1641.
Oman
Arab state based in Musqat, the main port in the southwest region of the Arabian peninsula. Oman succeeded Portugal as a power in the western Indian Ocean in the eighteenth century.
Swahili
A Bantu language with arabic words, spoken along the east african coast
Batavia
Fort established in 1619 as headquarters of Dutch East India Company operations in Indonesia; today the city of Jakarta.
Manchu
Federation of NE Asian peoples who founded the Qing Empire
Daimyo
Feudal lords of Japan who ruled with virtual independents thanks to bands of samurai warriors
Samurai
Class of warriors in feudal Japan who pledged loyalty to a noble in return for land.
Tokugawa Shogunate
The last of the the three shogunates of Japan
Ming Empire
Empire based in China that Zhu Yuanzhang established after the overthrow of the Yuan Empire. The Ming emperor Yongle sponsored the building of the Forbidden City and the voyages of Zheng He. The later years of the Ming saw a slowdown in technological development and economic decline.
Qing Empire
Empire established in China by Manchus who overthrew the Ming Empire in 1644. At various times they also controlled Manchuria, Mongolia, Turkestan, and Tibet. The last emperor of this dynasty was overthrown in 1911 by nationalists.
Kangxi
Qing emperor. Oversaw the greatest expansion of the Qing Empire
Amur River
This river valley was a contested frontier between northern China and eastern Russia until the settlement arranged in Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689).
Macartney Mission
The unsuccessful attempt by the British Empire to establish diplomatic relations with the Qing Empire.
Muscovy
Russian principality that emerged gradually during the era of Mongol domination. The Muscovite dynasty ruled without interruption from 1276 to 1598.
Tsar
From Latin caesar, this Russian title for a monarch was first used in reference to a Russian ruler by Ivan III (r. 1462-1505).
Cossacks
Peoples of the Russian Empire who lived outside the farming villages, often as herders, mercenaries, or outlaws. Cossacks led the conquest of Siberia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Boyars
Land owning aristocracy in early Russia.
Serf
A medieval peasant legally bound to live on a lord's estate
Peter the Great
(1672-1725) Russian tsar (r. 1689-1725). He enthusiastically introduced Western languages and technologies to the Russian elite, moving the capital from Moscow to the new city of St. Petersburg.