Key Vocabulary
Establishing settlements and gaining control over another land and its people.
Colonization
This explorer mapped much of the Gulf Coast in 1519.
Alonso Álvarez de Pineda
Missions attempted to spread this religion.
Christianity
A Spanish explorer and soldier who claimed land for Spain.
Conquistador
Missions needed protection, so Spain built these nearby.
Presidios
How and where communities are established across an area.
Settlement pattern
This explorer searched the Southwest for the Seven Cities of Gold.
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado
Spain used missions to strengthen its control over this region.
Texas
This conquistador searched the Southwest for the Seven Cities of Gold.
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado
Pineda explored the Gulf Coast, resulting in this important geographic product.
Gulf Coast
A Catholic religious leader who worked to spread Christianity.
Friar
This French explorer established Fort St. Louis in Texas.
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
Cattle, sheep, goats, and horses are examples of these animals.
Livestock
This animal introduced by the Spanish changed Indigenous transportation and hunting.
The horse
European contact caused many Indigenous deaths because it introduced these.
European diseases
A Spanish military fort built to protect missions and settlements.
Presidio
This shipwreck survivor traveled across Texas and wrote about its land and Indigenous peoples.
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
This system supplied water to mission fields.
Irrigation
This conquistador defeated the Aztec Empire in present-day Mexico.
Hernán Cortés
Spain increased settlement efforts after La Salle established this French settlement.
Fort St. Louis
A Spanish religious settlement created to spread Christianity and Spanish culture.
Mission
The three main Spanish motives are often summarized by these three words.
God, gold, and glory
Spain hoped missions would turn Indigenous peoples into Christians and loyal subjects of this country.
Spain
An organized journey taken for a specific purpose.
expedition
Conquistadors brought unfamiliar diseases, causing this major effect on Indigenous communities.
population decline