Deck 1: Prologue

Question 1

Which of the following is true?

A) Pre-colonial Latin America did not produce densely populated, complex civilizations.
B) Latin America's rivers did not generally serve as routes for trade and navigation in the pre-colonial era.
C) The Inka, Aztec, and Maya were the only agricultural peoples of pre-colonial Latin America.
D) The Inka, Aztec, and Maya were the only sedentary peoples of pre-colonial Latin America.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Among the achievements of the Maya were

A) A sophisticated writing system.
B) A network of roads.
C) A precise calendar system.
D) All of the above.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Aztec society

A) Demanded massive human sacrifice for religious purposes.
B) Was marked by great disparity in wealth between a military and religious elite and the common people
C) Extracted burdensome taxes and tribute from its subjects.
D) All of the above.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Which of the following was NOT a major food source in Latin America before the arrival of Europeans?

A) Corn.
B) Potatoes.
C) Wheat.
D) Avocados.

Question 5

Continuities between the Spanish empire in the Americas and its indigenous predecessors include

A) The core geographical areas of Spanish rule.
B) The extraction of forced labor from the subject populations.
C) The attempt to spread or impose the ruling elite's religion
D) All of the above.

Question 6

Which of the following is FALSE?

A) Some enslaved Africans earned their freedom by fighting as soldiers in the Spanish conquistador armies.
B) Slavery was limited to Brazil and the Caribbean islands.
C) Slaves were forbidden from learning skilled trades such as metalworking or carpentry, to prevent them taking jobs from free workers.
D) Slavery in urban areas did not rely on physical coercion and corporal punishment as it did on plantations.

Question 7

Which of the following is FALSE?

A) A treaty with Portugal and an edict from the Pope gave most of the territory of the Americas to Spain.
B) The Spanish generally took their mission to spread Catholicism in the Americas very seriously.
C) Protestant countries such as England respected Spain and Portugal's claims in the Americas.
D) Conquistadores used the conquest and exploitation of the Americas to adopt titles and prestige that in Europe were reserved for hereditary nobility.

Question 8

In Portuguese Brazil

A) Competition from a Mexican product led to the collapse of the first major export industry.
B) The surviving indigenous population kept control of the coasts, forcing the Portuguese and African slaves up the rivers into the interior.
C) The colonists invented a new model of slave labor and sugar plantations that they then replicated in other colonies such as Madeira.
D) The indigenous Tupí were much more numerous and their demographic collapse much less severe than in Spanish America, making indigenous people a preponderant factor over the African presence.

Question 9

Which of the following best characterizes Spanish administrative authority in the Americas?

A) Representatives of the colonists shaped colonial policy through their participation in the legislature in Spain.
B) The Spanish monarch's orders were usually carried out without question, on pain of death.
C) Officials in the colonies could ignore or selectively enforce Spanish dictates without questioning the overall legitimacy of Spanish authority.
D) Colonial officials kept their personal and business interests separate from their administrative responsibilities.

Question 10

Which of the following was NOT a factor that urged Spain to reform its colonial administration in the eighteenth century?

A) Spanish settlers complained that they could not get work due to competition from cheap indigenous and African labor.
B) The cost of military and naval defense against pirates and smugglers was rising.
C) The colonies were no longer operating profitably.
D) The semi-annual fleet system caused volatile prices and was vulnerable to loss.

Question 11

Territorial and administrative changes in Spanish America in the 17th and 18th centuries included all of the following EXCEPT

A) Doubling the number of viceroyalties from two to four.
B) Losing control of Haiti (Santo Domingo) and Jamaica.
C) Granting independence to the isolated province of Chile.
D) Granting legal trading privileges (the asiento) to the British.

Question 12

Which of the following was NOT one of the goals of the eighteenth-century reforms?

A) To raise revenue for the Crown through more efficient and effective taxation.
B) To reduce corruption in colonial administration.
C) To improve the position of the American-born criollos relative to the Iberian-born peninsulares.
D) To defend the colonies against external attack.

Question 13

Which of the following was NOT a source of discontent in the colonies at the start of the nineteenth century?

A) Enlightenment ideas about progress and the rights of citizens.
B) Strict and hierarchical racial categorization and prejudice.
C) The decline of agricultural production and of once-thriving industries such as mining.
D) The increasing tax burden on even the poorest subjects of the empires.

Question 14

On the whole, the eighteenth-century reforms

A) Weakened Spain's hold on its colonies but strengthened Portugal's hold on Brazil.
B) Weakened Portugal's hold on Brazil but strengthened Spain's hold on its colonies.
C) Served both monarchies' economic and administrative goals in the short term, but left longstanding and new sources of discontent unresolved.
D) Had little effect on the colonies as the reforms were too shallow and were often reversed.

Question 15

Which of the following was NOT one of the signs of trouble in the colonies in the late eighteenth century?

A) Violent rebellions in the Andean region.
B) The new openness of the colonial bureaucracy to people of color.
C) Famines in Mexico.
D) The tendency of peninsular elites to marry only among themselves.