1.4

Columbian Exchange, Spanish Exploration, and Conquest

AP United States History

What crossed the Atlantic

Spanish conquest of the Aztecs

The Meeting of Cortés and Montezuma
Caption: The Meeting of Cortés and Montezuma, 17th-century painting from the Conquest of Mexico series. Source: Wikimedia Commons (public domain, Jay I. Kislak Collection)

Spanish conquest of the Incas

The silver economy

Primary sources

Bartolome de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552)

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (1568)

Key figures

Key events summary

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Vocabulary

Unit 1 topics

Unit 1 overview1.1Contextualizing Period 11.2Native American Societies Before European Contact1.3European Exploration in the Americas1.4Columbian Exchange, Spanish Exploration, and Conquest1.5Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System1.6Cultural Interactions Between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans1.7Causation in Period 1
← Previous1.3 European Exploration in the AmericasNext →1.5 Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System
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