Divided newly claimed lands between Spain and Portugal
✓
Ended a long war between England and Spain
Recognized the independence of the Dutch Republic
Gave France the Saint Lawrence River valley
Correct Answer
Divided newly claimed lands between Spain and Portugal
After Columbus's voyage, Spain and Portugal negotiated the Treaty of Tordesillas, which drew a north-south line through the Atlantic: Spain could claim lands to the west and Portugal lands to the east. Ending a war between England and Spain was not its purpose; that undeclared war came later, from 1585 to 1604. Recognition of the Dutch Republic came from Spain only in 1648. Giving France the Saint Lawrence River valley was not part of a treaty between the two Iberian kingdoms.
Category: Spain and Portugal
Question 2
Because of the line drawn by the Treaty of Tordesillas, the eastern coast of which present-day country fell on Portugal's side?
Peru
Brazil
✓
Chile
Venezuela
Correct Answer
Brazil
The line passed through eastern South America, so the coast of what is now Brazil fell to Portugal, which is why Portuguese is Brazil's language today. Peru lay on Spain's side and became the heart of Spanish South America after the conquest of the Inca. Chile was colonized by Spain. Venezuela was also part of Spain's empire.
Category: Spain and Portugal
Question 3
Columbus called the Taíno people he met "Indios" because he believed he had reached which place?
West Africa
Greenland
The East Indies
✓
The Canary Islands
Correct Answer
The East Indies
Columbus thought he had sailed to the islands off Asia known to Europeans as the Indies, so he called the Native people Indios, the origin of the term Indian. West Africa was the region Portugal had been exploring by sailing south. Greenland had been settled by the Norse long before. The Canary Islands were a Spanish stopping point on the way west, not his goal.
Category: Spain and Portugal
Question 4
A German mapmaker's 1507 map gave the name "America" to the lands across the Atlantic in honor of which explorer?
Christopher Columbus
John Cabot
Jacques Cartier
Amerigo Vespucci
✓
Correct Answer
Amerigo Vespucci
Martin Waldseemüller labeled the new lands America after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian who explored the coast of South America around 1500, and accounts published under his name described the lands as a New World. Christopher Columbus, who sailed for Spain from 1492, was not the explorer the map honored. John Cabot sailed for England to North America in 1497. Jacques Cartier explored the Saint Lawrence region for France in the 1530s.
Category: Spain and Portugal
Question 5
Which Native people, who resented Mexica rule, allied with Hernán Cortés and supplied many thousands of warriors in the attack on Tenochtitlán?
Tlaxcalans
✓
Taíno
Tiwa
Huron
Correct Answer
Tlaxcalans
The Tlaxcalans were longtime enemies of the Mexica, and their warriors made up most of the force that besieged Tenochtitlán. Alliances like this, along with disease, explain how a small Spanish force could topple a great empire. The Taíno lived in the Caribbean islands. The Tiwa lived in present-day New Mexico and fought Coronado's expedition. The Huron lived near the Great Lakes and allied with the French.
Category: Spanish Conquest
Question 6
Which disease, carried by the Spanish, devastated the population of Tenochtitlán and contributed greatly to its fall?
Malaria
Smallpox
✓
Yellow fever
Syphilis
Correct Answer
Smallpox
Native peoples had no prior exposure to smallpox, and an epidemic swept Tenochtitlán during the conquest, killing huge numbers of people. Malaria and yellow fever were later brought to the Americas and struck hardest in tropical lowlands. Syphilis is often thought to have traveled in the opposite direction, from the Americas to Europe.
Category: Spanish Conquest
Question 7
What role did Malintzin, also known as La Malinche, play in the Spanish conquest of Mexico?
Mexica empress who surrendered
Commander of the Tlaxcalan army
Translator and adviser to Cortés
✓
Spanish nun who founded missions
Correct Answer
Translator and adviser to Cortés
Malintzin was a Nahua woman given to Cortés who spoke Native languages and learned Spanish, letting her translate and advise him. Historians judge her very differently, as a traitor or as a victim of her circumstances. She was not a Mexica empress who surrendered the city. She did not command the Tlaxcalan army. She was a Native woman, not a Spanish nun.
Category: Spanish Conquest
Question 8
Which conquistador captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa in 1532?
Hernán Cortés
Hernando de Soto
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado
Francisco Pizarro
✓
Correct Answer
Francisco Pizarro
Francisco Pizarro seized Atahualpa, executed him the next year, and went on to take control of the Inca empire in Peru. Hernán Cortés conquered the Mexica in Mexico a decade earlier. Hernando de Soto served under Pizarro in Peru and later explored southeastern North America. Francisco Vásquez de Coronado explored the American Southwest in the 1540s.
Category: Spanish Conquest
Question 9
Why did Spain regard the expeditions of Hernando de Soto and Francisco Vásquez de Coronado into North America in the 1540s as failures?
They found no gold or silver
✓
They were defeated by an English fleet
They were turned back by the Portuguese
They lost all their ships to the French
Correct Answer
They found no gold or silver
Both expeditions crossed huge areas of North America searching for riches like those of Mexico and Peru but came back with no treasure, and Coronado ended up bankrupt. Disease and violence also took a heavy toll on the Native peoples they met. They were not defeated by an English fleet; both were overland marches. The Portuguese did not turn them back. They did not lose their ships to the French.
Category: Spanish Conquest
Question 10
Which Church practice did Martin Luther famously attack in his Ninety-Five Theses of 1517?
The use of Bibles in German
The sale of indulgences
✓
The rule of kings over churches
The teaching of predestination
Correct Answer
The sale of indulgences
Luther objected to the Church selling indulgences, which were said to reduce punishment for sin, and his protest grew into a split within Western Christianity. He favored, rather than opposed, putting the Bible in everyday languages such as German. Royal control of churches was not his target; Henry VIII later made himself head of the English church. Predestination is most closely tied to John Calvin.
Category: Protestant Reformation
Question 11
John Calvin's doctrine of predestination taught that
Good works could earn a person salvation
The pope alone could grant salvation
God had already chosen who would be saved
✓
Every person would ultimately be saved
Correct Answer
God had already chosen who would be saved
Calvin stressed human powerlessness before an all-knowing God, who had decided in advance which few would be saved and which would be damned. That good works could earn a person salvation was not Calvin's teaching; Protestants stressed faith alone and rejected the role Catholic teaching gave to good works. Salvation granted by the pope alone runs against Protestant rejection of papal authority. The belief that everyone will be saved is the opposite of Calvin's view.
Category: Protestant Reformation
Question 12
Why did Henry VIII break with the pope and establish the Church of England in the 1530s?
He had converted to Calvinism in Geneva
The pope had excommunicated him for piracy
Parliament demanded a Puritan church
The pope refused to annul his marriage
✓
Correct Answer
The pope refused to annul his marriage
Henry wanted to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, who had not given him a male heir, and when the pope refused an annulment, Henry made himself head of a new English church. He did not convert to Calvinism; earlier he had even opposed the Reformation. Piracy had nothing to do with the break. Parliament did not demand a Puritan church; Puritans emerged later as critics of the Church of England.
Category: Protestant Reformation
Question 13
What did the Puritans want to do to the Church of England?
Remove its remaining Catholic elements
✓
Restore its loyalty to the pope
Make the monarch its spiritual head
Bring back the Mass in Latin
Correct Answer
Remove its remaining Catholic elements
Puritans believed the Church of England kept too many Catholic rituals and too much of the Catholic hierarchy, and they wanted to purify it. Restoring loyalty to the pope was the opposite of their goal. The monarch was already head of the church, a result of Henry VIII's break with Rome. A Latin Mass was a Catholic practice they rejected.
Category: Protestant Reformation
Question 14
What happened when Philip II sent the Spanish Armada against England in 1588?
Spain conquered England and restored Catholicism
English ships and storms defeated and scattered the fleet
✓
England and Spain divided the Caribbean
The Dutch joined Spain in invading England
Correct Answer
English ships and storms defeated and scattered the fleet
English naval attacks and violent storms defeated the Armada, wrecking many of its ships, a blow to Spain's prestige that helped open the Atlantic to its rivals. Spain did not conquer England or restore Catholicism there. The two powers did not divide the Caribbean by agreement. The Dutch Republic was Spain's enemy, not its ally.
Category: Rivals of Spain
Question 15
Why is Roanoke, the English settlement sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh, called the "lost colony"?
It was destroyed by the Spanish Armada
Its location was never found on any map
Its settlers had vanished when a supply ship returned
✓
It was moved inland and renamed Jamestown
Correct Answer
Its settlers had vanished when a supply ship returned
Governor John White sailed to England for supplies in 1587, and when he finally returned in 1590 the settlers were gone, leaving only the word Croatoan carved on a post. The Spanish Armada never reached the North American coast. The island's location was known; it lies off present-day North Carolina. Jamestown was a separate colony founded in Virginia in 1607.
Category: Rivals of Spain
Question 16
How was the English settlement at Jamestown, founded in 1607, financed?
By the Spanish treasure fleet
By a grant from the pope
By taxes on Native villages
By a joint-stock company of investors
✓
Correct Answer
By a joint-stock company of investors
The Virginia Company pooled money from many investors who hoped for profits, a form of business that spread the risk of costly colonies and foreshadowed the modern corporation. The Spanish treasure fleet carried silver to Spain, not to English colonists. The pope did not fund Protestant England's colonies. Taxes on Native villages did not pay for the settlement.
Category: Rivals of Spain
Question 17
What was the economic basis of the relationship between New France and Native peoples such as the Huron?
Trade in beaver pelts
✓
Sugar grown on plantations
Gold and silver mining
Tobacco raised for export
Correct Answer
Trade in beaver pelts
French traders exchanged European goods such as glass beads and metal tools for furs, especially beaver pelts used to make hats in Europe, and they built alliances with their Native trading partners. Sugar plantations were the basis of French colonies in the Caribbean, not of relations with the Huron. New France had no gold or silver mines like those of Spanish America. Tobacco was the export of English Virginia.
Category: Rivals of Spain
Question 18
The Dutch colony of New Netherland had its headquarters at New Amsterdam on which island?
Long Island
Manhattan
✓
Roanoke
Bermuda
Correct Answer
Manhattan
New Amsterdam, at the tip of Manhattan, was the center of a fur-trading colony run by the Dutch West India Company, and it later became New York City. Long Island lies next to Manhattan but was not the site of the headquarters. Roanoke was the site of England's lost colony. Bermuda is an Atlantic island claimed by the English in 1609.
Category: Rivals of Spain
Question 19
Under the Spanish encomienda system, what did the crown grant to conquistadors?
Ownership of enslaved Africans
Sole rights to trade with Asia
The right to Native people's labor
✓
Estates in Spain itself
Correct Answer
The right to Native people's labor
An encomienda gave a Spaniard the right to demand labor from Native people in return for supposedly protecting them and teaching them Catholicism; in practice it led to brutal exploitation. Ownership of enslaved Africans came through the slave trade, not an encomienda. Sole rights to trade with Asia were not part of the system. Estates in Spain itself were not what it granted; it applied to the Americas.
Category: Labor and Mercantilism
Question 20
According to mercantilism, what was the purpose of colonies?
To trade freely with all nations
To govern themselves independently
To grow food only for settlers
To enrich the mother country
✓
Correct Answer
To enrich the mother country
Mercantilists believed the world's wealth was limited, so colonies existed to supply raw materials and buy manufactured goods from the mother country, increasing its wealth and power. Free trade with all nations was exactly what mercantilists rejected. Self-government was not the purpose of colonies under this theory. Growing food only for settlers would not have enriched the home country.
Category: Labor and Mercantilism