APUSH Period 1: AMSCO MCQs (GT Copy)
Group 1
“During the thousands of years preceding European contact, the Native American people developed inventive and creative cultures. They cultivated plants for food, dyes, medicines, and textiles; domesticated animals; established extensive patterns of trade; built cities; produced monumental architecture; developed intricate systems of religious beliefs; and constructed a wide variety of systems of social and political organization. . . . Native Americans not only adapted to diverse and demanding environments, they also reshaped the natural environments to meet their needs. . . . No society had shaped metal into guns, swords, or tools; none had gunpowder, sailing ships, or mounted warriors.”
“Overview of First Americans,” Digital History, 2016
Question 1a
According to the excerpt, one contrast between Native Americans and Europeans before contact between the two groups of people was that
all Native Americans shared a common political system
most Native Americans had little trade with other groups
some Native Americans had metal tools they used in farming
no Native Americans had certain military technologies that were common in Europe
Question 1b
What does the source imply was the cause of the “wide variety of systems of social and political organization”?
Variations in the moral code
Variations in the natural environment
Variations in religious beliefs
Variations in styles of architecture
Group 2
“I marvel not a little, right worshipful, that since the first discovery of America (which is now full four score and ten years), after so great conquests and plannings of the Spaniards and Portuguese there, that we of England could never have the grace to set fast footing in such fertile and temperate places as are left as yet unpossessed of them. But . . . I conceive great hope that the time approacheth and now is that we of England may share and part stakes . . . in part of America and other regions as yet undiscovered. . .
Yea, if we would behold with the eye of pity how all our prisons are pestered and filled with able men to serve their country, which for small robberies are daily hanged up in great numbers, . . . we would hasten . . . the deducting [conveying] of some colonies of our superfluous people into these temperate and fertile parts of America, which being within six weeks’ sailing of England, are yet unpossessed by any Christians, and seem to offer themselves unto us, stretching nearer unto Her Majesty’s dominions than to other parts of Europe.”
Richard Hakluyt, Divers Voyages Touching the Discovery of America and the Islands Adjacent, 1582
Question 2a
Which of the following would best explain the British failure to follow the Spanish and Portuguese in exploring the New World?
Lack of British explorers
Development of British colonies in Asia
Domestic challenges to the crown within England
Establishment of the Church of England
Question 2b
Which of the following would eventually become a more important motivation for colonists than the ones suggested in the excerpt?
The desire for religious freedom
The hope of finding gold and silver
The loyalty of members of the nobility
The success of merchants and traders
Question 2c
According to the excerpt, which of the following areas is the most likely region that the British would colonize?
North Atlantic coast
West Indies
Southern Florida
Central America
Group 3
“Apart from his navigational skills, what most set Columbus apart from other Europeans of his day were not the things that he believed, but the intensity with which he believed in them and the determination with which he acted upon those beliefs. . . .
Columbus was, in most respects, merely an especially active and dramatic embodiment of the European—and especially the Mediterranean—mind and soul of his time: a religious fanatic obsessed with the conversion, conquest, or liquidation of all non-Christians; a latter-day Crusader in search of personal wealth and fame, who expected the enormous and mysterious world he had found to be filled with monstrous races inhabiting wild forests, and with golden people living in Eden.”
David E. Stannard, historian, American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World, 1992
Question 3a
According to Stannard, which of the following most accurately describes the context in which Columbus lived?
Europeans believed they should spread Christianity to people in other parts of the world.
Europeans viewed their culture and the cultures of other people as very similar.
Europeans were the wealthiest people in the world and considered themselves “golden.”
Europeans assumed that a continent existed that they had no contact with.
Question 3b
Evidence that would modify or refute the view of Columbus expressed by Stannard in this excerpt would include
statements by Spaniards in the late 16th century who believed that they should not try to convert people to Christianity
excerpts from letters by Columbus indicating that he hoped his ventures would make him wealthy
descriptions of Native Americans by other European explorers that were negative
examples of long-term benefits for people in Europe and Asia that resulted from the voyages by Columbus
Group 4
“The province of Quivira is 950 leagues from Mexico. Where I reached it, it is in the fortieth degree [of latitude]. The country itself is the best I have ever seen for producing all the products of Spain. . . . I have treated the natives of this province, and all the others whom I found wherever I went, as well as was possible, agreeably to what Your Majesty had commanded, and they have received no harm in any way from me or from those who went in my company. I remained twenty-five days in this province of Quivira, so as to see and explore the country and also to find out whether there was anything beyond which could be of service to Your Majesty, because the guides who had brought me had given me an account of other provinces beyond this. And what I am sure of is that there is not any gold nor any other metal in all that country.”
Francisco Coronado, Spanish conquistador, Travels in Quivira, c. 1542
Question 4a
Which of the following best summarizes Coronado’s goal in exploring Mexico as expressed in this excerpt?
To inform the natives about Spain and its culture
To learn from the native inhabitants in the region
To spread Roman Catholic Christianity in the region
To find natural resources that might enrich the king
Question 4b
The activities described in this excerpt were similar to those of other Spanish and Portuguese explorers in the Americas in the 16th century because they depended primarily on the support of
merchants and fur traders
the Catholic Church
monarchs
impoverished Europeans
Question 4c
Based on the excerpt, one difference between Coronado and many European explorers was that he expressed little interest in
enriching the king
finding gold and silver
converting the native people to Christianity
increasing the power of his country
Group 5
“Concerning the treatment of Native American workers: When they were allowed to go home, they often found it deserted and had no other recourse than to go out into the woods to find food and to die. When they fell ill, which was very frequently because they are a delicate people unaccustomed to such work, the Spaniards did not believe them and pitilessly called them lazy dogs, and kicked and beat them; and when illness was apparent they sent them home as useless, giving them some cassava for the twenty- to eighty-league [about 60 to 240 miles] journey. They would go then, falling into the first stream and dying there in desperation; others would hold on longer, but very few ever made it home. I sometimes came upon dead bodies on my way, and upon others who were gasping and moaning in their death agony.”
Bartolomé de Las Casas, In Defense of the Indian, c. 1550
Question 5a
How did Las Casas’s attitudes compare to those of most Europeans?
He was more sympathetic toward the suffering of Indians.
He was more critical of Indians for causing their own problems.
He was more focused on how Indians treated Europeans.
He was very typical in his attitudes toward Indians.
Question 5b
Las Casas was primarily trying to influence
the monarchs of Spain who shaped colonial policies
the religious leaders in Europe who were not Roman Catholics
the conquistadores in the colonies who were moving into new areas
the Native Americans who were reacting to the Spanish colonists
Group 6
These questions are from 1.1
Question 6a
How long passed between the arrival of Columbus in “the New World” and the establishment of the first British colony at Jamestown?
about 50 years
about 85 years
about 115 years
about 245 years
Question 6b
Unlike the Spanish, the English settled in areas
along the Pacific Coast
with no native American tribes at all
with no large native empires that could provide forced labor
already owned by other European colonies like Spain & Portugal
Question 6c
The English occupied the land and forced the small, scattered tribes they encountered to
work as slaves on their northern plantations
move away from the coast to inland territories
adopt the English language and Christianity
work under the Encomienda System
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