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All Age of Exploration Vocabulary
1. Mercantilism – set of principles that dominated economic thought in the 17 th century; it
was the idea that the prosperity and wealth of a nation depended on a large supply of
gold and silver
2. Triangular Trade – a pattern of trade that connected Europe, Africa, Asia and the
American continents; typically manufactured goods from Europe were sent to Africa,
where they were exchanged for slaves, who were then sent to the Americas where they
were exchanged for raw materials that were then sent to Europe
3. Middle Passage – the journey of slaves from Africa to the Americas, so called because it
was the middle portion of the triangular trade route
4. Caravel - a 2 or 3 masted sailing ship that was used by the Spanish and Portuguese in
the 15th and 16th centuries
5. Cartography - the art, technique, or production of compiling or drawing maps or charts
6. Balance of Trade – the difference in value between what a nation imports and what it
exports over time
7. Conquistador – A Spanish conqueror of the Americas
8. Colony – a settlement of people living in a new territory, linked with the parent country
by trade and direct government control
9. Mainland States – part of a continent, as distinguished from peninsulas or offshore
islands
10. Plantation – a large agricultural estate
11. Christopher Columbus – funded by Queen Isabella, he explored islands in the Caribbean
and Honduras thinking he had landed in Asia.
All Age of Exploration Vocabulary
12. Ferdinand Magellan – Portuguese navigator, who led the Spanish expedition of 15191522 that was the first to sail around the world, named the Pacific Ocean and found out
how large it was
13. John Cabot – explored the New England coastline of the Americas for England. Italian
explorer who led the English expedition in 1497 that discovered the mainland of North
America and explored the coastline of New England. Disappeared on his second voyage.
14. Vasco de Gama – Portuguese explore who went around the tip of Africa and cut across
the Indian Ocean to the coast of India. Took a cargo of spices home to make several
thousand percent in profits.
15. Henry Hudson – English explorer who sailed for the Dutch and landed at the coast of
present day New York
16. Amerigo Vespucci – A Florentine who went on several voyages to the new land and
wrote letters describing the lands he saw, which lead to the new land being called
America
17. Gold Coast – area of Africa where the Portuguese discovered gold.
18. Treaty of Tordesillias – 1494, drew a line of demarcation going north to south through
the Atlantic Ocean giving unexplored territories west of the line to Spain and unexplored
territories east of the line to Portugal.
19. New World - name given by Europeans to the Americas, which were unknown in Europe
before Columbus' voyage
20. Prince Henry the Navigator - A Portuguese Prince with two goals. 1 to find a route
around Africa. 2 to find the source of gold in Africa.
21. God, Gold and Glory - This was a summary of the three reasons that Europeans sailed to
new destinations. They wanted gold and silver to enrich their own countries, new
Christian converts among native populations, and glory and fame among their own
people.
All Age of Exploration Vocabulary
22. Francisco Pizarro - New World conqueror; Spanish conqueror who crushed the Inca
civilization in Peru; took gold, silver and enslaved the Incas in 1532.
23. slave trade - business of buying and selling human beings. This was a new system of
trade in the seventeenth century where slaves from Africa were traded instead of
goods. Leaders of slave trade included Portugal and the Dutch
24. King Afonso - King of the Congo who wrote a letter to the King of Portugal expressing
concern that the slave trade was depopulating his country
25. Armada - the Spanish word for a large fleet of ships
26. compass - Adopted from the Arabs, who adopted it from the Chinese, this item allowed
navigation to become much more precise, it uses the earth's magnetic field to indicate
direction
27. Astrolabe - a device that enabled navigators to learn their ship's location by charting the
position of the stars (invented by the Muslims)
28. Columbian Exchange - The exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies
between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages
29. Leif Ericson - The Viking explorer believed to be the first European to reach the New
World (in about 1000 AD).
30. Marco Polo - Italian explorer and author. He made numerous trips to China and
returned to Europe to write of his journeys. His accounts of his travels offered
Europeans a firsthand view of Asian lands and stimulated interest in Asian trade.
31. Bartholomeu Dias - Portuguese explorer who in 1488 was the first European to get
round the Cape of Good Hope (thus establishing a sea route from the Atlantic to Asia)
32. Hernando Cortes - Spanish conquistador who established Veracruz (1st Spanish colony
in Mexico) in 1519, and conquered the Aztec empire in 1521.