Deck 18: Trade and Empire in the Indian Ocean and South Asia 1450 - 1750

Question 1

In the 16^th century, East African trade was monopolized by

A) the Portuguese
B) the French
C) the Dutch
D) no single power

Answer 1

D

Question 2

In the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the largest East African ports

A) rivaled the major cities of Europe
B) were little more than towns by modern standards
C) were each crowned with opulent mosques of coral
D) lacked walls, reflective of their open attitude toward trade

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Key African exports to Asia included

A) textiles and silver
B) gold and elephant tusks
C) spices and gold
D) tobacco and textiles

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Violent piracy seems to have become a serious threat to Indian Ocean commerce only after

A) the discovery of African gold
B) Chinese porcelain became a prized European commodity
C) the Chinese abandoned their naval efforts following the death of Zheng He
D) the arrival of the Portuguese

Question 5

Ivory traded in East African ports came from the interior, where inhabitants

A) were induced to hunt elephant by the high compensation, despite the danger
B) collected ivory from elephant graveyards
C) collected tusks as a byproduct of subsistence hunting
D) refused to hunt elephant, creating a market for hunters for the coasts

Question 6

When the Portuguese arrived in East Africa around 1500, they

A) created a place for themselves in the marketplace by offering Africans goods from North America that they could not get elsewhere
B) had nothing to offer that the Africans valued, so began enforcing monopolies on certain items and taking over vital ports
C) were unable to gain a foothold in trade and so abandoned the effort
D) immediately conquered Mutapa to secure control of the gold supply

Question 7

By the time the Portuguese arrived in India around 1500, much of the subcontinent was dominated by __________ kingdoms.

A) Hindu
B) Muslim
C) Buddhist
D) Christian

Question 8

Vijayanagara remains one of the most enigmatic empires of the early modern period because

A) of its swift demise and the near-total loss of its written records
B) the language used by its rulers and bureaucrats has not been deciphered
C) it was an isolationist state, with few outside contacts
D) it used only oral recordkeeping

Question 9

Hindu rulers were often seen as

A) warriors of the faith
B) first among equals
C) divine kings
D) gods

Question 10

Life in Vijayanagara cycled between two phases:

A) the dry season and the rainy, monsoon season
B) a period of religious festivals and one of trade
C) a period of peace and one in which the king traveled the empire attacking neighboring states
D) the agricultural growing season and the fallow period, in which the community focused on trade

Question 11

Krishna Deva Raya welcomed the Portuguese because they offered him easier access to

A) gold
B) horses
C) diamonds
D) tobacco

Question 12

The Vijayanagara empire's economy was based on

A) rice cultivation
B) trade
C) diamond mining
D) the printed textile industry

Question 13

Following Krishna Deva Raya's death in 1529, Vijayanagara fell victim to

A) the Portuguese
B) the Mughals
C) internal succession rivalries, and then Muslim aggressors
D) famine caused by repeated rice crop failures

Question 14

As the Mughals conquered new lands in India,

A) they required conquered people to maintain their own religions
B) they required Hindus, but not Jains and Zoroastrians, to convert to Islam
C) they required all subjects to convert to Islam
D) allowed Hindus to maintain their religion, but offered incentives for conversion to Islam

Question 15

In 1527, Mughal Babur's army defeated a Hindu Rajput force that hugely outnumbered them with the help of

A) war elephants
B) gunpowder weapons
C) archers
D) warhorses

Question 16

In 1739, Muhammad Shah finally lost Delhi and the great Mughal treasury to

A) Persia
B) Portugal
C) Vijayanagara
D) Maratha

Question 17

By the time of Akbar's rule, most taxes

A) went unpaid
B) were paid in rice
C) were paid in textiles
D) were paid in cash

Question 18

The Mughal Empire introduced ___________________ to India.

A) civil service examinations
B) bureaucratic record-keeping of farmers' tax assessments
C) aqueducts and other massive public works projects
D) a system of tribute

Question 19

Sikhism was something of a hybrid between

A) Hinduism and Jainism
B) Islam and Hinduism
C) Jainism and Zoroastrianism
D) Islam and Christianity

Question 20

When the Portuguese arrived in India, they found

A) a ready market for their products
B) European rivals had already established footholds
C) they had little to offer in trade that Indians wanted, other than gold and silver
D) a closed society that wanted nothing to do with them

Question 21

The fortified trade posts established by the Portuguese in Africa and around the Indian Ocean were called

A) dhows
B) rajas
C) carreiras
D) feitorias

Question 22

Portuguese Christian missionaries attempts to convert the people of India found widespread success

A) among Sikhs
B) among Parsis
C) among Hindus
D) virtually nowhere

Question 23

Europeans were able to conquer large landmasses in Asia and to plant colonies of the sort found in the Americas because of

A) the sudden, unexpected collapse of the Mughals and other gunpowder-fueled Asian states in the later eighteenth century
B) their development of superior firearms
C) their overwhelming manpower
D) their nimbler, faster ships

Question 24

The Dutch managed to drive the Portuguese out of

A) all of their Indian Ocean holdings
B) nearly all their Indian Ocean holdings except Goa
C) Goa
D) some of their trading posts, but never for very long

Question 25

The first step in the Dutch East India Company's effort to completely control trade was to monopolize

A) textiles
B) coffee
C) spices
D) tobacco

Question 26

The Dutch devoted

A) at least as much cargo space to interregional trade as to exports
B) vastly more cargo space to exports than the interregional trade
C) virtually all their cargo space to interregional trade
D) no space to interregional trade, as VOC ships were exclusively used for exports

Question 27

The Acehnese defeated many would-be conquistadors for several reasons, but perhaps most importantly because of

A) the unusual geography of Aceh
B) their rulers' refusal to participate in trade
C) their abundant black pepper supplies
D) a newfound religious fervor

Question 28

Aceh was an Islamic society

A) and was consequently strongly patriarchal
B) and required women to join their husbands households, but permitted them an unusual amount of independence
C) but women controlled and inherited all property and men joined their wives households upon marriage
D) but women spent most of their lives engaged in religious study while their husbands managed the affairs of everyday life

Question 29

When first visited by the Dutch and English, the Aceh sultan was particularly interested in

A) their offers of gold
B) their hostility to Portugal
C) their gunpowder weapons
D) their offers to assist in conquering Melaka

Question 30

The final sultan of Aceh was deposed in 1699 after

A) leading a failed attempt to conquer Melaka
B) losing control of the pepper marked
C) a fatwa from Mecca declaring women unfit to serve as sultans
D) being defeated by the Dutch