Chapter 1: New World Beginnings: 33,000 B.C.-A.D. 1769
A. True-False: Where the statement is true, circle T; where it is false, circle F.
1. T F The geography of the North American continent was fundamentally shaped by the glaciers of the Great Ice Age. 6. 2. T F North America was first settled by people who came by boat across the waters of the Pacific Strait from Japan to Alaska. The early Indian civilizations of Mexico & Peru were built on the economic foundations of cattle & wheat growing. Most North American Indians lived in small, seminomadic agricultural & hunting communities. Many Indian cultures like the Iroquois traced descent through the female line. No Europeans had ever set foot on the American continents prior to Columbus’s arrival in 1492. A primary motive for the European voyages of discovery was the desire to find a less expensive route to Asian goods & markets. 8. 8. T F The beginnings of African slavery developed in response to the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Columbus immediately recognized in 1492 that he had come across new continents previously unknown to Europeans. The greatest effect of the European intrusion on the Indians of the Americas was to increase the Indian population through intermarriage with the whites. Spanish gold & silver from the Americas fueled inflation & economic growth in Europe. The Spanish conquistadores had little to do with the native peoples of Mexico & refused to intermarry with them. The Spanish were able to defeat the Aztecs because they came from a more sophisticated, urban civilization. Spain expanded its empire into Florida & New Mexico partly to block French & English intrusions. The Spanish empire in the new world was larger, richer, & longer-lasting than that of the English. 9.
Among the most important American Indian products to spread to the Old World were a. animals such as buffalo & horses. b. technologies such as the compass & the wheel. c. economic systems such as plantation agriculture & livestock raising. d. foodstuffs such as maize, beans, & tomatoes. The primary staples of Indian agriculture were a. potatoes, beets, & sugar cane. b. rice, manioc, & peanuts. c. maize, beans, & squash. d. wheat, oats, & barley. The number of Indians in North America at the time of Columbus arrived was approximately a. one million. b. four million. c. twenty million. d. two hundred & fifty million. Before Columbus arrived, the only Europeans to have visited North America, temporarily, were a. the Greeks. b. the Irish. c. the Norse. d. the Italians. The Portuguese were the first to enter the slave trade & establish large-scale plantations using slave labor in a. West Africa. b. the Atlantic sugar islands. c. the West Indies. d. Brazil.
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10. Much of the impetus for Spanish exploration & pursuit of glory in the early 1500s came from Spain’s recent a. successful wars with England. b. national unification & expulsion of the Muslim Moors. c. voyages of discovery along the coast of Africa. d. conversion to Roman Catholicism. 11. A crucial political development that paved the way for the European colonization of America was a. the rise of Italian city-states like Venice & Genoa. b. the feudal nobles’ political domination of the merchant class. c. the rise of the centralized national monarchies such as that of Spain. d. the political alliance between the Christian papacy & Muslim traders. 12. The primary reason for the drastic decline in the Indian population after the encounter with the Europeans was a. the rise of intertribal warfare. b. the Indians’ lack of resistance to European diseases such as smallpox & malaria. c. the sharp decline in the Indian birthrate due to the killing of many Indian males by the Europeans. d. the sudden introduction of the deadly disease syphilis to the New World. 13. Cortés & his men were