HIST109 African Enslavement British landowners History of USA Questions

African enslavement of other Africans:

Answers:	A. resulted from the arrival of Europeans.
	B. included no form of rights for the slaves.
	C. was the only kind of labor on that continent.
	D. involved the enslavement of criminals, debtors, and war captives.
	E. accelerated with the arrival of the French in the 1520s.

After exploring the Atlantic Coast in the late sixteenth century, an Englishman writes in his journal about untouched wilderness. What could this description mean to a European?

Answers:	A. The land was beautiful.
	B. It would take the expedition too much effort to build a settlement.
	C. The Native Americans had protected the land.
	D. The Native Americans never used this area, so the land now belonged to the English.
	E. The Native Americans were actually hiding in tree forts.

Both the Aztec and Inca empires were:

Answers:	A. rural and poor.
	B. small in population but sophisticated in infrastructure.
	C. large, wealthy, and sophisticated.
	D. large in geographic size but sparsely populated.
	E. rural, with few impressive buildings.

The Black Legend described:

Answers:	A. the Aztecs’ view of Cortés.
	B. English pirates along the African coast.
	C. Spain as a uniquely brutal colonizer.
	D. Portugal as a vast trading empire.
	E. Indians as savages.

According to Zinn, when Columbus landed on the island he named Hispañola (locally known as Haití), he ordered all of the Arawak indigenous people fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold for three months. What happened to them three months later?

Answers:	A. If they brought him enough gold, he gave them a copper token.
	B. If they didn’t bring him enough gold, he ordered one of their hands to be cut off.
	C. Most of those whose hands were cut off bled to death on the spot.
	D. All of the above.
	E. B & C, but not A.

According to Zinn, what happened when the Algonquin chief Powhatan refused to send back to the English settlers some of their number who had left the English settlement to live with the Indians?

Answers:	A. The English attacked, killed some fifteen Indians, and burned their village and crops.
	B. The English took the queen of the tribe and her children as hostages and put them into English boats.
	C. The English threw the children overboard and shot their brains out in the water.
	D. All of the above.
	E. A & B, but not C.

According to Zinn, what were some of the ways in which Iroquois women were honored and respected within their society?

Answers:	A. Iroquois society was matrilineal, that is, the family line descended through the mother.
	B. Sons who married went to live with the families of the women they married.
	C. The senior women in a village selected the men who represented the various clans at village and tribal councils, as well as selecting the chiefs who comprised the ruling council for the Five Nation confederacy of the Iroquois.
	D. When an Iroquois woman wanted to divorce her husband, she could do so by simply setting his things outside the door.
	E. All of the above.
	F. A & B only.

According to Zinn, during the Pequot War (1636-1638) in New England, the English developed a tactic of war used earlier by Cortés against the Mexica (Aztecs) and still used in warfare today. What was that tactic?

Answers:	A. Psychological manipulation and flattery of the enemy leader.
	B. Effective implementation of superior military technology.
	C. Deliberate attacks on non-combatants to terrorize the enemy.
	D. None of the above.
	E. A & B, but not C.

According to New England Puritans, witchcraft:

Answers:	A. was perfectly acceptable when it was used for proper purposes.
	B. was punishable by hanging unless it was used to reinforce men’s standing and God’s will.
	C. resulted from pacts that women made with the devil to obtain supernatural powers or interfere with natural processes.
	D. was restricted to Salem.
	E. was due entirely to exposure to Catholicism.

The Virginia slave code of 1705:

Answers:	A. simply brought together old aspects of the laws governing slaves and slavery.
	B. completely rewrote and changed the earlier slave laws.
	C. embedded the principle of white supremacy in law.
	D. made clear that slaves were subject to the will of their masters but not to anyone who could not claim ownership of them.
	E. was the work of Nathaniel Bacon.

What was one of Pennsylvania’s only restrictions on religious liberty?

Answers:	A. Settlers could belong to any denomination but had to sign an oath affirming that they would not oppress Quakers.
	B. Holding office required an oath affirming a belief in Jesus Christ, which eliminated Jews from serving.
	C. Atheists were welcome as long as they promised not to publicly attack religion.
	D. Church attendance was mandatory, but the state did not specify which type of church.
	E. There were no restrictions.

Which of the following was true of small farmers in 1670s Virginia?

Answers:	A. The economy was doing so well that even though they made less money than large-scale planters, their problems were too small to justify their rebellion.
	B. They had access to the best land, but a glut in the tobacco market left them in poverty.
	C. Their taxes were incredibly low—the one issue with which they were pleased.
	D. They could count on the government to help them take over Native American lands and thereby expand their meager holdings.
	E. The lack of good land, high taxes on tobacco, and falling prices reduced their prospects.

According to Zinn:

Answers:	A. The Virginians of 1619 were desperate for labor to grow enough food to stay alive.
	B. While their superior firearms allowed the Virginians to massacre Indians, the English were outnumbered and would face massacre in return.
	C. In the history of the world, there has never been a country in which racism has been more important, for so long a time, as in the United States.
	D. All of the above.
	E. A & B, but not C.

Regarding slavery in the English North American colonies, Zinn notes:

Answers:	A. There were some 250 instances of during which a minimum of at least ten slaves joined in a revolt or conspiracy against their masters.
	B. Some slave revolts found support among whites, particularly indentured servants and “ill-disposed” whites who sheltered runaway slaves.
	C. Among white elites in the colonies, even greater than the fear of slave rebellion was the fear that discontented whites would join black slaves to overthrow the existing order.
	D. All of the above.
	E. A & B, but not C.

Concerning the trans-Atlantic trade in slaves, Zinn notes:

Answers:	A. Between 1500 and 1800, a total of some 10 to 15 million Africans were transported as slaves to the Americas.
	B. During the Middle Passage, slaves often jumped overboard to drown rather than continue suffering aboard slave ships whose decks were “so covered with blood and mucus that [they] resembled a slaughter-house.”
	C. During the Middle Passage, about one in every three transported slaves died; but since investors in the slave trade could often double their money, the profits were great enough to sustain such a loss of “cargo.”
	D. All of the above.
	E. A & B, but not C.

Regarding slavery in the English North American colonies, Zinn notes:

Answers:	A. Africans were easier to enslave than whites or Indians, but still not easy to enslave. From the very beginning, they resisted their enslavement.
	B. James Madison – the “Father of the Constitution” – once explained that he could make $257 per year on every slave he owned, while his cost of feeding, clothing, and housing a slave was only about $12 or $13 dollars a year.
	C. Slave owners developed an intricate and powerful system of control – at once physical and psychological – to maintain their supply of labor and their way of life.
	D. All of the above.
	E. A & C, but not B.

As a result of British landowners evicting peasants from their lands in the 16th and 17th centuries:

Answers:	A. there was an increase in the number of jobless peasants, whom the British government aided with an early form of welfare.
	B. efforts were made to persuade or even force those who had been evicted to settle in the New World, thereby easing the British population crisis.
	C. mass numbers of peasants converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, because the Catholic Church took better care of the poor.
	D. there was a sharp reduction in the number of sheep and other livestock.
	E. the spread of the Black Plague decreased because of the elimination of cramped living quarters.

In regard to conflicts, which European power was most thorough at removing Indians from the land?

	A. Portugal
	B. Spain
	C. England
	D. France
	E. Netherlands

Which of the following is true of the Puritans of the 17^th century?

Answers:	A. They were completely unified on all issues.
	B. They agreed that the Church of England retained too many elements of Catholicism in its rituals and doctrines.
	C. The differed completely with the views of the Church of England.
	D. They came to the colonies because they had no hope of holding any power in England.
	E. John Winthrop founded the church.

Why did many women in Virginia not start a family until their mid-twenties?

Answers:	A. Women mostly came to Virginia as indentured servants.
	B. Women were busy running the family business.
	C. Women outnumbered men, so they had a difficult time finding a husband.
	D. Women focused on doing work for the church.
	E. Women and men were not together often due to men fighting in wars against Indians

According to Zinn, by 1676 (the year of Bacon’s Rebellion), times were hard. Most people [were] living in severe economic straits. Moreover, Virginia was entangled in a complex chain of oppression. What were the links in that chain?

Answers:	A. Indians were plundered by white frontiersmen.
	B. Frontiersmen were exorbitantly taxed and otherwise controlled by wealthy Jamestown elites.
	C. The entire colony was routinely exploited by England.
	D. All of the above.
	E. A & B, but not C.

According to Zinn, in the England of the 17^th century, who was considered to be a “rogue” or “vagabond” under the law?

Answers:	A. All persons calling themselves Scholars going about begging.
	B. All Seafaring men pretending losses of their ships or goods on the sea going about…begging.
	C. All wandering persons and common Laborers being persons able in body using loitering and refusing to work for…reasonable wages.
	D. Common Players of Interludes and Minstrels wandering abroad.
	E. All of the above.
	F. A, B, and C; but not D.

According to Zinn, more than half the people who came to England’s North American colonies arrived as indentured servants, many of them after having been arrested under English laws of “vagrancy.” What could happen to a “rogue” or “vagabond” caught begging in 17th-century England?

Answers:	A. He or she could be stripped to the waist and whipped bloody, banished from the city, sent to a workhouse, or transported out of the country.
	B. If they were to be transported, they could be imprisoned until their ship sailed.
	C. If they arrived alive in America, indentured servants could be beaten, whipped, or raped by their masters, with little or no redress under the law.
	D. All of the above.
	E. A & B, but not C.

“It seems quite clear,” Zinn notes, “that class lines hardened through the colonial period; the distinctions between rich and poor became sharper.” Among the factors he cites to support his argument:

Answers:	A. In 1687, the top 5 percent of Boston property owners owned 25 percent of the wealth. By 1770, the top 1 percent of property owners owned 44 percent of the wealth.
	B. In the same time period (1687 to 1770), the percentage of adult males who were so poor they owned no property more than doubled, rising from 14 percent to 29 percent.
	C. Everywhere, the poor were struggling to stay alive, just to keep from freezing in the winter. In fact, there were so many poor people, old people, widows, cripples, orphans, unemployed, war veterans, and immigrants “fresh off the boat,” that all the major cities were forced to build poorhouses, and these were often filled to more than four times their intended capacity.
	D. All of the above.
	E. A & B, but not C.

During the 18^th century, more than half of the Africans shipped to the New World as slaves were:

Answers:	A. purchased by the Portuguese.
	B. carried on British vessels.
	C. later freed, as they earned enough to purchase their freedom.
	D. mulatos.

Following the Proclamation of 1763:

Answers:	A. lands were opened for new colonial settlement.
	B. Indian lands could be purchased only by individuals.
	C. its ordinances were ignored, and officials covered their involvement in land grabs.
	D. Indians were protected under the British government’s rules and both parties sought to end border disputes.

The movement that sought to apply the scientific method of careful investigation based on research and experiment to politics and social life was called:

	A. Romanticism.
	B. Emersonianism.
	C. The Enlightenment.
	D. The Great Awakening.

Under the concept of Liberalism, the Social Contract maintained that:

Answers:	A. men retain their natural rights, since such rights predate the establishment of any political authority.
	B. men were not to govern themselves, as this was the role of the British government.
	C. men would not surrender a part of their right to govern themselves in order to enjoy the benefits of the rule of law.
	D. the government formed a mutual agreement among all people, including women and non-property-owning men.

Zinn notes that American Nationalist elites were intent on directing class- based hatreds onto pro-British elites and deflecting it away from themselves, men who were equally elite and equally rich. Among the events Zinn cites to show that Nationalist elites had reason to fear:

Answers:	A. The accumulated sense of grievance against the rich that led to explosive mob action during anti-Stamp Act demonstrations.
	B. The destruction and looting of the homes of Boston elites, such as the rich merchant Andrew Oliver and the pro-British politician Thomas Hutchinson.
	C. The extra-legal actions taken by laborers, artisans, and small craftsmen in Philadelphia, who launched attacks not only on wealthy Loyalists but also on rich Nationalists, and opposed the right to acquire unlimited private property.
	D. All of the above.
	E. A & B, but not C.

Zinn notes that, in the ten years leading up to the War of Independence, in colonial cities, mechanics (lower-middle-class craftsmen) began demanding political democracy. What were some of the mechanics’ demands?

Answers:	A. They demanded open meetings of representative assemblies.
	B. They demanded the publishing of assembly votes so that constituents could check up on what their representatives were actually doing.
	C. They demanded that assemblies pass laws reserving a certain percentage of seats in the assemblies to be held by ordinary citizens.
	D. All of the above.
	E. A & B, but not C.

The fear among American Nationalist elites that the lower-class anger they hoped to turn against the British might instead be turned against themselves is reflected by elite response to which of the following events:

Answers:	A. The Stamp Act Riots (1765).
	B. The Boston Tea Party (1773).
	C. The actions of the “Regulators” in North Carolina (1766-1771), the Hudson River Valley tenant farmers (1771), and the “Green Mountain Boys” in upper New York (1766).
	D. John Adams’s legal defense of the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre (1770).
	E. All of the above.
	F. A, B, and C; but not D.

What did American Nationalist elites do in the wake of the Stamp Act Riots?

Answers:	A. They organized armed patrols to protect their homes and properties.
	B. The same elite leaders who had planned anti-Stamp Act demonstrations denounced the violence and disavowed the actions of the rioters.
	C. Elite leaders gave a dinner for some of the leaders of the rioters to try to co-opt them and keep them in check.
	D. When the Stamp Act was repealed, elite leaders cut off connections with the rioters.
	E. All of the above.
	F. A, B, and C; but not D.

In his History of the Indies, Dominican Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas writes that Indians suffered abuse at the hands of Spanish Conquistadors in what ways?

Answers:	A. Indians were totally deprived of their freedom.
	B. The Spaniards considered the Indians to be their perpetual slaves.
	C. The Spaniards treated Indians worse than they treated beasts.
	D. All of the above.
	E. A & B, but not C.

in the excerpt from Eduardo Galeano’s Memory of Fire, what is the first American word to appear in a Spanish dictionary?

Answers:	A. café = coffee
	B. maíz = corn
	C. canoa = canoe
	D. patata = potato
	E. tomate = tomato
	F. chocolate = chocolate
	G. pavo = turkey

In the primary source reading entitled The Trial of Anne Hutchinson, what charges does Governor Winthrop level against Mrs. Hutchinson?

Answers:	A. Troubling the peace of the commonwealth and the churches.
	B. Speaking things very prejudicial to the honor of church ministers.
	C. Maintaining in her house an assembly neither comely in the sight of God nor fitting for her sex.
	D. Fornicating promiscuously while engaged in the practice of witchcraft.
	E. All of the above.
	F. A, B, and C; but not D.

In the primary source document entitled “Secret Keeper Richmond (Unknown) to Secret Keeper Norfolk (Unknown),” where do they live and what secret are they keeping?

Answers:	A. Maryland. The secret is that they are both about to be set free by their masters, so they will soon be able to marry.
	B. Massachusetts. The secret is that the sanctimonious and puritanical Governor John Winthrop is actually an adulterer.
	C. Virginia. The secret is that they are about to launch a well-armed and closely coordinated slave rebellion.
	D. Pennsylvania. The secret is that one of the sons of the Penn family has renounced pacifism and agreed to serve in the colonial militia.

In the primary source reading entitled “Memorial Against Non-English Immigration,” what do the petitioners find most objectionable about non- English immigrants in Pennsylvania?

Answers:	A. They hate the fact that French and Belgian immigrants don’t even try to speak English.
	B. They disapprove of Italians and Spaniards who often take up residence without proper documentation.
	C. They fear that the Germans and Swedes are primarily loyal to their own nations and cultures, not those of England.
	D. They don’t like the way Austrians and Hungarians refuse to eat foods cooked in the English style.

In the letter written by Richard Frethorne on indentured servitude, to whom is the letter addressed?

Answers:	A. his younger brother
	B. his older sister
	C. his mother and father
	D. the governor of Virginia

In the primary source reading Pontiac: Two Speeches, who leads the Delaware Indian Neolin on his quest to learn wisdom from the Master of Life (Great Spirit)?

Answers:	A. A radiant angel with flaming wings.
	B. An old man who walks with a wooden staff.
	C. A young girl unashamed of her nudity.
	D. A beautiful woman arrayed all in white.

In his recollection of the Boston Tea Party, George Hewes tells of his confronting the captain of one of the ships carrying tea and demanding that the captain turn over to him the keys to the ship’s cargo hatches. What happened next?

Answers:	A. The captain called Hewes an “insolent jackanapes” and told him to leave the ship immediately or be placed under arrest.
	B. The captain refused his demand, but invited Hewes to share a bottle of rum together.
	C. The captain agreed to his demand, but asked that Hewes do no damage to the ship or its rigging.
	D. The captain first tried to negotiate with Hewes, then suddenly abandoned ship by leaping overboard.

Who was the famous economist who mentioned Christopher Columbus in his most celebrated book?

Answers:	A. David Ricardo
	B. Adam Smith
	C. John Maynard Keynes
	D. Karl Marx
	E. Milton Friedman

Pocahontas was:

Answers:	A. a wife of John Smith.
	B. an aunt of Pontiac.
	C. a distant cousin of Sacagawea.
	D. a daughter of Powhatan.
	E. a native of Oklahoma, professor at Harvard Law School, and United States Senator from Massachusetts.

Nathaniel Bacon was:

Answers:	A. a hog farmer in western Massachusetts.
	B. a dairy farmer in eastern Pennsylvania.
	C. a tanner in central Maryland.
	D. the leader of a rebellion of small farmers in Virginia.
	E. the inventor of pork link-sausages.

Benjamin Franklin first became successful in Philadelphia, but he was born in:

An	A. Boston
	B. New York
	C. Yorktown
	D. Charleston
	E. Savannah

Who was a celebrated preacher during the Great Awakening?

Answers:	A. Billy Graham
	B. Joel Osteen
	C. L. Ron Hubbard
	D. George Whitefield
	E. Fulton J. Sheen

HIST109 African Enslavement British landowners History of USA Questions

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