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Question 1 of 50
During the last Ice Age, lower sea levels exposed a stretch of land connecting Siberia to Alaska, and the ancestors of the Native peoples of the Americas crossed it, probably following game, before spreading south across two continents. This land connection is known as the
Question 2 of 50
A crop first domesticated in central Mexico spread northward over centuries, and wherever it took hold it allowed societies to produce food surpluses, settle in permanent villages, grow in population, and develop more complex political structures. This crop was
Question 3 of 50
Many Native farming societies planted corn, beans, and squash together in the same mounds: the cornstalks supported the climbing beans, the beans restored nitrogen to the soil, and the broad squash leaves shaded out weeds and held moisture. This planting system is called the
Question 4 of 50
Near present-day St. Louis, a Mississippian society built a city of as many as 20,000 people around 1100 CE, with enormous earthen mounds, a central plaza, and trade connections stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. This city was
Question 5 of 50
In the arid Southwest, a farming people built multistory stone and adobe dwellings, including cliff houses and great houses with hundreds of rooms, and dug irrigation canals to grow maize in a region with little rainfall. These people were the
Question 6 of 50
When the Spanish reached the upper Rio Grande valley in the 1500s, they found Native peoples living in compact towns of multistory adobe buildings, farming maize with irrigation, and practicing an elaborate religious life centered on underground ceremonial chambers called kivas. The Spanish called these peoples the
Question 7 of 50
On the Great Plains, Native peoples lived in small, mobile bands that followed the bison herds, lived in portable tipis, and traveled on foot with dogs pulling their goods, since horses did not yet exist in the Americas. The environment these peoples adapted to was the
Question 8 of 50
Between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, in a dry region of deserts and scattered mountain ranges, Native peoples such as the Shoshone and Ute lived in small family groups, foraging for pine nuts, seeds, roots, and small game, and moving frequently as food became available. This region is the
Question 9 of 50
Along the coast of present-day Oregon and Washington, Native peoples lived in permanent villages of large cedar-plank houses, relied on abundant salmon runs and ocean resources, and developed a hierarchical society with wealthy elites, elaborate wood carving, and gift-giving ceremonies. These peoples included the
Question 10 of 50
Along the coast of southern California, a Native people lived in large permanent villages, built plank canoes to fish and trade among the Channel Islands, and used shell beads as currency in a regional trade network, all without practicing agriculture. This people was the
Question 11 of 50
In the Northeast, five nations (the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca) formed a political alliance governed by a council of chiefs, which ended warfare among them and made them the dominant power in the region. This alliance was the
Question 12 of 50
The Native peoples who lived along the Atlantic coast from present-day Virginia to Canada, including the Powhatan, Wampanoag, and Pequot, spoke related languages, combined farming with hunting and fishing, and moved seasonally between village sites. These peoples are grouped together as
Question 13 of 50
Among the Iroquois and many other Native societies, descent and property passed through the mother’s line, women owned the longhouses and fields, and clan mothers chose and could remove the male chiefs. Europeans found this arrangement baffling. Societies organized this way are described as
Question 14 of 50
Beginning in the 1300s, a revival of classical learning, art, and scientific inquiry spread through Europe, encouraging curiosity about the wider world, advances in mapmaking and astronomy, and confidence that human reason could master nature. This cultural movement was the
Question 15 of 50
Portuguese shipbuilders in the 1400s developed a small, fast, highly maneuverable ship with triangular sails that could sail against the wind, making it possible to explore the African coast and return home against prevailing winds. This ship was the
Question 16 of 50
A Portuguese prince sponsored decades of voyages down the west coast of Africa, founding a center for navigation and mapmaking, establishing trading posts for gold and enslaved people, and laying the groundwork for Portugal’s sea route to Asia. This prince was
Question 17 of 50
In 1492, Spain’s Catholic monarchs completed a centuries-long campaign to drive Muslim rulers from the Iberian Peninsula, capturing Granada and then expelling Jews who would not convert. The same year they financed Columbus’s first voyage. This campaign was the
Question 18 of 50
In 1492, an Italian navigator sailing for Spain crossed the Atlantic in search of a western route to Asia and landed in the Caribbean, which he believed to be the outskirts of the Indies. His voyages opened sustained contact between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. This navigator was
Question 19 of 50
In 1494, the pope brokered an agreement that drew a line down the Atlantic Ocean, giving Spain the right to claim all newly discovered lands west of the line and Portugal all lands east of it, which is why Brazil became Portuguese. This agreement was the
Question 20 of 50
Beginning in 1517, a religious movement split Western Christianity, as reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin rejected the authority of the pope and founded new churches. The resulting rivalry between Catholic and Protestant nations drove competition for colonies in the Americas. This movement was the
Question 21 of 50
To finance costly and risky colonial ventures, English and Dutch merchants pooled their money by selling shares to many investors, spreading the risk so that no single person lost everything if a voyage failed. The Virginia Company that founded Jamestown was organized this way. This type of business is a
Question 22 of 50
European governments of the period believed that national power depended on accumulating gold and silver, that the world’s wealth was fixed, and that colonies existed to supply raw materials to the mother country and buy its manufactured goods. This economic theory is
Question 23 of 50
Historians summarize the motives of Spanish explorers and conquistadors in a three-word phrase capturing their desire to spread Christianity, win fame and honor for themselves and their king, and acquire wealth. This phrase is
Question 24 of 50
The flood of silver and gold from the Americas into Europe during the 1500s caused prices to rise sharply, enriched merchants and bankers, undermined the old land-based economy of lords and peasants, and helped shift Europe toward an economy based on money, markets, and investment. This shift was the rise of
Question 25 of 50
In 1587, an English expedition sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh established a settlement on an island off the coast of present-day North Carolina. When a supply ship returned three years later, the settlers had vanished, leaving only the word “Croatoan” carved on a post. This settlement was
Question 26 of 50
After 1492, maize, potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco traveled from the Americas to Europe, Africa, and Asia, while wheat, sugar, horses, cattle, pigs, and smallpox moved from the Old World to the New, permanently transforming diets, economies, and populations on every continent. This two-way transfer is called the
Question 27 of 50
Within a century of contact, Native populations in the Americas fell by as much as 90 percent, far more from one cause than from warfare or enslavement. Native peoples had never been exposed to it and had no immunity, so it swept through communities before Europeans even arrived in person. This cause was
Question 28 of 50
The Spanish brought an animal to the Americas that had been extinct there for thousands of years. Once it spread to the Great Plains, Native peoples such as the Comanche and Lakota used it to hunt bison, travel long distances, and wage war, transforming their societies within a few generations. This animal was the
Question 29 of 50
In the Caribbean and Brazil, Europeans established large estates growing a single tropical crop for export, worked first by enslaved Natives and then by enslaved Africans, in a system so profitable and so deadly that it became the model for plantation agriculture throughout the Americas. The crop was
Question 30 of 50
Spanish soldiers and adventurers, often minor nobles seeking wealth and fame, led small expeditions that toppled Native empires in the early 1500s, using steel weapons, horses, Native allies, and the chaos caused by disease. These men were the
Question 31 of 50
In 1519, a Spanish expedition landed in Mexico, allied with peoples who resented Aztec rule, and within two years had captured the capital city of Tenochtitlan and destroyed the Aztec Empire. The expedition’s leader was
Question 32 of 50
In 1532, a Spanish expedition of fewer than 200 men captured the emperor of a vast Andean empire, extracted an enormous ransom in gold and silver, executed him, and seized his capital at Cuzco. The empire was the Inca, and the expedition’s leader was
Question 33 of 50
In 1545, the Spanish discovered a mountain in the Andes so rich in silver that it became the largest source of the metal in the world, worked by Native laborers under a forced-labor draft. Its output flooded Europe with silver and financed Spain’s wars. This mountain was
Question 34 of 50
Between 1539 and 1542, a Spanish expedition marched through the American Southeast from Florida to the Mississippi River, searching for gold, enslaving and killing Native peoples along the way, and spreading diseases that devastated the Mississippian chiefdoms of the region. This expedition was led by
Question 35 of 50
Between 1540 and 1542, a Spanish expedition traveled north from Mexico through present-day Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Kansas, searching for the legendary Seven Cities of Gold. It found only Pueblo towns and the Great Plains, but it gave Spain its first knowledge of the Southwest. This expedition was led by
Question 36 of 50
In 1598, a Spanish expedition established the colony of New Mexico along the upper Rio Grande, demanding food and labor from the Pueblo peoples and, after a revolt at the pueblo of Acoma, brutally punishing its inhabitants. This colony’s founder was
Question 37 of 50
In 1565, the Spanish founded a fortified settlement on the Atlantic coast of Florida to protect their treasure fleets from French and English raiders. It is the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the present-day United States. This settlement was
Question 38 of 50
The Spanish Crown granted conquistadors and settlers the right to demand labor and tribute from the Native people of a specified area, in exchange for a promise to protect them and instruct them in Christianity. In practice it became a system of brutal forced labor. This system was the
Question 39 of 50
After the Crown moved to limit the encomienda, Spanish colonial officials replaced it with a system in which Native communities were required to supply a set number of workers for a fixed period each year to work in mines, on farms, and on public projects, with the labor allocated by the government rather than by individual settlers. This system was the
Question 40 of 50
In 1542, the Spanish Crown issued a set of regulations, prompted by reports of atrocities against Native peoples, that prohibited the enslavement of Natives, limited the encomienda, and ordered that existing grants expire when their holders died. Colonists resisted so fiercely that the rules were only partly enforced. These regulations were the
Question 41 of 50
A Dominican friar who had himself held an encomienda became the most outspoken critic of Spanish treatment of Native peoples, arguing in writings and before the Spanish court that they were rational human beings with souls who should be converted peacefully rather than enslaved. This friar was
Question 42 of 50
In 1550 and 1551, Spanish scholars debated before the Crown whether Native peoples were naturally inferior and could justly be conquered and enslaved. One side argued that they were “natural slaves” under Aristotle’s philosophy; the other, led by Las Casas, argued that they were fully human. The scholar who defended conquest was
Question 43 of 50
Protestant rivals of Spain, especially the English and Dutch, seized on accounts like those of Las Casas to portray Spanish colonization as uniquely cruel, bloodthirsty, and fanatical, in order to justify their own colonial ambitions as more humane. This portrayal is known as the
Question 44 of 50
Spanish colonial society ranked people in a hierarchy based on their ancestry, with those born in Spain at the top, followed by those of Spanish descent born in the colonies, then people of mixed Spanish and Native or African descent, with Natives and Africans at the bottom. This hierarchy was the
Question 45 of 50
Because few Spanish women came to the colonies, Spanish men frequently married or had children with Native women, producing a large population of mixed Spanish and Native descent that occupied a middle position in colonial society. People of this heritage were called
Question 46 of 50
At the top of Spanish colonial society stood officials and clergy born in Spain, who held the highest offices; just below them were people of pure Spanish descent who had been born in the Americas and who resented being excluded from the top positions. These two groups were, respectively, the
Question 47 of 50
In the borderlands of New Mexico, Texas, Florida, and later California, Spain relied on Franciscan and Jesuit priests who established religious settlements where they converted Native peoples to Catholicism, taught them European farming and crafts, and often compelled their labor. This approach to colonization was the
Question 48 of 50
As Native populations collapsed, Spanish and Portuguese colonists turned to another source of labor, purchasing captives from African traders and shipping them across the Atlantic to work on sugar plantations and in mines. Over the next three centuries, some 12 million people would be transported this way. This commerce was the
Question 49 of 50
The Spanish Crown did not engage directly in the slave trade; instead it sold a license granting a merchant or foreign nation the exclusive right to import a specified number of enslaved Africans into Spanish America. This license was the
Question 50 of 50
Enslaved Africans endured a weeks-long voyage across the Atlantic chained below decks in overcrowded, disease-ridden ships, with death rates often exceeding 15 percent, before being sold in the Americas. This voyage was the
