1
Offspring of Europeans and Native Americans
Mestizos
Descendants of Europeans born in Latin America
Creoles
Allowed Spanish authorities to draft indigenous workers to work in silver mines
Mita
Area dominated by Portugal from the sixteenth century forward
Brazil
Spanish and Portuguese officials who resided temporarily in Latin America
Peninsulares
Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote
poetry and prose and urged that women be educated
a Spanish conqueror of the Americas
conquistador
forced voyage of enslaved Africans to the Americas
Middle Passage
a ship invented by the Portuguese that made it possible to travel long distances
caravel
a large agricultural estate
plantation
The Portuguese were the first to explore other lands because they had
superior ships.
Spanish and Portuguese kings appointed _____ to govern their colonies in Latin America.
viceroys
Social class in Latin America in the 1500s was based on
status
exchange of plants and animals between the Americas and Europe
Columbian Exchange
settlement of people living in a new territory, linked with the parent country by trade and direct government control
colony
Europeans began to explore and expand in the 1500s because they wanted to
gain riches, find adventure, and spread religion
seventeenth-century economic theory that held that the prosperity of a nation depended on a large supply of gold and silver
mercantilism
Why did the Catholic Church have so much influence in Latin America?
Spanish and Portuguese rulers wanted Native Americans to become Catholic
The conquistadors’ main advantage over the Aztec and Inca empires was their
Spanish and Portuguese rulers wanted Native Americans to become Catholic.
Why could only peninsulares hold important government positions in Latin America?
Peninsulares were born in the parent countries that founded their colonies