4.5 Practice MCQs

Group 1

Source 1.1

• It provided employment opportunities for European peasants to create wealth and social standing.
• It provided Amerindians with an ability to develop successful business tactics and enter the global trade.
• European agricultural practices in the Americas often required deforestation and other environment changes to facilitate sugar production.
• Production was so high at such low costs that the global market in sugar plummeted, causing economic despair.

• only African slaves knew how to successfully grow the sugar.
• disease wiped out large portions of the Amerindian population.
• African slaves were cheaper to obtain than Amerindians who lived deep in the forest.
• the Catholic Church forbade the use of Amerindians as slave labor.

• Sugar was soon used as a major monetary instrument, similar to salt or silver.
• The Catholic Church saw sugar plantations as a key way to spread religion.
• American foods became staple exports with heavy demand in Europe.
• Sugar spoiled so quickly it had to be constantly resupplied.

Group 2

Source 2.1

• The number of slaves transported to the Caribbean remained constant for 3 centuries.
• A greater number of slaves died in transit to Brazil than to North America.
• Most slaves shipped to North America were men.
• The use of slaves in Brazil increased over time.

• Greater use of Amerindians in mining led to a decreasing need for African slaves.
• Disease killed large numbers of Amerindians, leading to increased demand for African slaves.
• Expansion of plantations in the Caribbean led to increased birth rates and slaves being transported back to Africa.
• Increased urbanization led to a need for more household servants and domestic helpers.

Group 3

• the motivations for European colonization of the Americas.
• the relative importance of Europe in the global economy.
• the significance of economic developments in Europe prior to 1500.
• the justification for European claims of economic superiority.

• importance of European-manufactured exports to Asia.
• different economic relationships that specific European states had with Asia.
• exceptional qualities of European states that enabled them to dominate the global economy.
• significance of European access to precious metals from the Americas.

Group 4

Source 4.1

• Women were rarely the subject of paintings in European art of the period.
• Caribbean society was built on racial hierarchies that generally reserved elite status for people of European ancestry.
• In most cultures of the period, children were not considered worthy of being portrayed in art until they reached adulthood.
• Caribbean society was predominantly matriarchal, with men expected to play strictly domestic roles in the household.

• The collapse of the Inca and Aztec Empires as a result of Spanish invasion.
• The growth of industrial production in the US.
• The expansion of the plantation system for growing sugarcane and other crops.
• The development of large-scale silver mining operations in South America.

Group 5

• Political, religious, and economic rivalries shaped European colonial policies in Africa.
• State centralization in Europe led to a change from joint-stock company control to direct imperial control in many colonial territories.
• The arrival of Europeans led to the conquest and destruction of many native African states.
• Religious conflicts stemming from the spread of Islam from North Africa made sub-Saharan African states vulnerable to European conquest.

• evenhanded in describing the benefits and detriments of various proposed options to the States General
• shaped by views of European cultural and religious superiority over African peoples, which the States General representatives would have been likely to share
• dismissive in its evaluation of the military and strategic importance of the kingdom of Kongo to the Netherlands
• seeking to steer the States General representatives into taking action that would benefit the company financially

• secure profits from the rapidly expanding trans-Atlantic slave trade
• highlight the gender and family imbalances created by the slave trade
• recommend that the company expand its operations to the Indian Ocean and the spice islands of Southeast Asia
• offer a comparison between the profitability of East African versus West African slave trade routes

Group 6

• The demographic makeup of Barbadian society and the structure of its economy make existing punishments for slaves justified.
• Barbadian slaves are punished more leniently than slaves working on the larger plantations of French Caribbean islands.
• Plantation owners who punish their slaves too harshly are not fulfilling their duties as Christians to treat the less fortunate kindly.
• The punishments of slaves in Barbados are the result of a long experience of deadly slave uprisings and anti-planter violence on the island.

• The extensive mining of precious metals on Caribbean islands has destroyed the islands' natural environment.
• Despite the small size of Barbadian plantations, the landowners on Barbados are very wealthy.
• Slave political grievances are threatening the political order in American colonial societies.
• Barbadian plantation owners are the wealthiest social group in the Caribbean.

• The current political and economic makeup of European colonies in the Caribbean is not sustainable over the long term.
• Christianity will provide a solution to the social ills of colonial societies in the Caribbean.
• Coerced labor systems have allowed a minority of the population of Caribbean colonial societies to reap enormous economic benefits.
• It is incumbent upon France to try to wrest control of Barbados from Great Britain.