Deck 2: Encounter

Question 1

Most of the rewards received by the Spanish colonists for their conquests consisted of

A) gold and silver.
B) vast extensions of land.
C) Indian workers entrusted to them for labor.
D) public offices, a source of great power and prestige.

Answer 1

Indian workers entrusted to them for labor.

Question 2

Why did the Spanish conquerors already have a "crusading mentality" upon arriving to America?

A) They lived in a rugged and mountainous land.
B) Iberia had served as a bridge between Europe and Africa.
C) The prolonged Christian reconquest of Iberia shaped their attitudes.
D) They became involved in intense overseas exploration.

Answer 2

The prolonged Christian reconquest of Iberia shaped their attitudes.

Question 3

The Spanish defeat of the Aztecs and the Incas was

A) surprising considering the Spanish army was much smaller than those commanded by the indigenous emperors.
B) inevitable given that the natives believed the Spaniards were gods.
C) hard to understand given the superior power of the Indian bows and arrows.
D) understandable because the Spaniards had a larger army.

Answer 3

surprising considering the Spanish army was much smaller than those commanded by the indigenous emperors.

Question 4

The Portuguese settled the two thousand miles of Brazilian coast by doing which of the following?

A) They brought a large contingent of soldiers to establish military posts along the coast.
B) They took advantage of the Catholic Church's missions along the coastline.
C) They parceled out big chunks of the territory to wealthy "captains."
D) They requested that the native Tupi acknowledge the sovereignty of the king.

Question 5

Upon reaching Hispaniola in the early 1490s, Columbus and his partners did which of the following?

A) promptly organized expeditions to Mexico and Peru
B) spent more than a decade dealing exclusively with the local Taino/Arawak people
C) spent a few years dealing exclusively with the Tupínambá people in today's Brazil
D) organized the conquest of the Caribbean empire

Question 6

Mestizo children were

A) mostly illegitimate offspring of Indian fathers and Spanish mothers.
B) treated similarly to Spaniards if they had Spanish siblings.
C) unable to inherit much from their Spanish fathers.
D) an insignificant and small group from early on.

Question 7

Which of the following statements best describes Africa by the time of conquest?

A) Slavery was an unknown institution in Africa.
B) Africa and Europe formed one single continent.
C) Slavery was a social institution basic to economic life.
D) Africans promoted slave markets since the early 1300s.

Question 8

The main difference between the sedentary, semisedentary, and nonsedentary indigenous groups that inhabited the Americas before the Europeans arrived was

A) the way they adapted to their land.
B) how they organized their empires.
C) the role that women played within their social groups.
D) their social divisions.

Question 9

What did the Inca, Aztec, and Maya have in common?

A) They all spoke the same language.
B) They worshipped the same gods.
C) They fought against the Spanish in similar ways.
D) They had sustainable forms of agriculture.

Question 10

Why is it important to understand the relationship between the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula and the history of conquest in the Americas?

A) The Moors managed to fight their battles on both continents.
B) During the Conquest of the New World, the Iberians copied some of the successful strategies they used in the reconquest of the peninsula.
C) After conquering the Americas, many Iberian groups helped with the reconquest.
D) The Iberian Peninsula and the Americas were discovered simultaneously by the Europeans.

Question 11

The Moors occupied the Iberian Peninsula for 800 years. Which of the following was a consequence of this occupation?

A) Iberia became a multiethnic society.
B) Iberia accepted Muslim rule.
C) Iberia banned the importation of slaves coming from Africa.
D) All Jews on the Iberian Peninsula were forced to exile.

Question 12

What was the initial Iberian reaction to life in the Americas during the early conquest)?

A) They became workers in the mines.
B) They refused to do any manual work considering it contrary to the ideal of "success."
C) They made pacts with the natives to bring African slaves to do most of the work.
D) They opened coffee plantations with the support of the natives and the African slaves.

Question 13

The reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula shaped the history of Spain and Portugal in multiple ways. Which of the following was a direct consequence of the reconquest?

A) The concentration of power in the Catholic Church.
B) The hiking of tribute and service from peasants.
C) The growing influence of the Christian nobles.
D) The collapse of some Christian kingdoms.

Question 14

Why did the African slaves survive to populate Brazil while large numbers of Tupi died?

A) African slaves rebelled against the Portuguese.
B) African slaves had iron weapons to fight the Portuguese.
C) African slaves had built immunity against, and therefore were not vulnerable to, European diseases.
D) African slaves were nonsedentary agriculturalists.

Question 15

During the reconquest

A) the authorities accepted religions other than Catholicism as part of their multiethnic past.
B) Moors and Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism.
C) Catholics were forced into exile.
D) all Moors were expelled from Spain.

Question 16

Brazil's indigenous forest dwellers

A) survived the Portuguese conquest because they knew the terrain.
B) attacked and resisted the Europeans with all their might.
C) were attacked and enslaved by the Portuguese, many dying in the process.
D) did not enter into contact with the Europeans until decades after they first arrived to the region.

Question 17

What best characterizes the first reaction that the Portuguese had toward their land in Brazil?

A) They thought it was an attractive territory full of resources worth exploiting.
B) They were marveled by the fact that it was full of hard-working natives able to process silver and gold.
C) They thought it was an easy-to-conquer region with loyal subjects.
D) They believed it was a place that did not have much to offer aside from the Brazilian wood.

Question 18

Why did Tenochtitlan become important to Spanish conquerors?

A) It was the capital of the Inca Empire.
B) They used its structure to build the capital city of the Spanish Empire.
C) It was the capital of the Aztec Empire.
D) It was the center of the Catholic faith when the Europeans arrived to the Americas.

Question 19

Besides his strategy and weaponry, as well as knowledge of his adversaries, what else helped Hernán Cortés defeat the Aztecs?

A) The Aztecs believed they were gods.
B) the smallpox virus
C) Moctezuma
D) the Incas

Question 20

Which of the following defines the largest number of New World inhabitants at the time of the Encounter?

A) nonsedentary or semisedentary people
B) people of African descent
C) sedentary people
D) Incas and Aztecs

Question 21

From what type of group do most of the indigenous groups still living in Latin America descend?

A) sedentary
B) nonsedentary
C) semisedentary
D) nonsedentary and sedentary equally

Question 22

What type of society did fully sedentary people of the New World tend to be?

A) egalitarian
B) democratic
C) totalitarian
D) strongly stratified by class

Question 23

What language did the people of Cuzco Inca Empire) speak?

A) Spanish
B) Nahuatl
C) Quechua
D) Mexica

Question 24

Which areas were most affected by the slave trade in Africa?

A) South Africa, West Africa, and Angola
B) South Africa, West Africa, and Mozambique
C) West Africa, Angola, and Mozambique
D) All parts of Africa were equally affected by the trade.