AP US History · Topic 1.5
Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System Practice
Part of Period 1: 1491–1607.
Practice questions
5
Sample questions
5 of 5 — sign in to practice the rest with adaptive difficulty and mastery tracking.
Sample 1difficulty 3/5
Bartolomé de Las Casas is best known for
- A
Conquering the Aztec Empire alongside Cortés and writing 'True History of the Conquest of New Spain'
- Bcheck_circle
Defending Native Americans against Spanish abuses and writing 'A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies'
- C
Discovering the silver mountain at Potosí in 1545 and organizing Indigenous mita labor drafts
- D
Founding St. Augustine in 1565 and establishing the first permanent Spanish presidio in Florida
Why
A Spanish friar who became an outspoken critic of the encomienda system, though he initially supported African slavery as an alternative.
- A
Sample 2difficulty 3/5
Which conclusion about the Atlantic slave trade is best supported by the chart?
- A
The volume of trade was roughly equal across all four periods
- B
The trade declined steadily after Columbus's arrival
- Ccheck_circle
The eighteenth century saw the peak volume of forced African migration
- D
Most Africans were transported during the sixteenth century
Why
The chart shows the 1701-1800 bar as the tallest at roughly 5.6 million Africans disembarked, confirming the eighteenth century as the peak of the trade.
- A
Sample 3difficulty 4/5
The Spanish encomienda system
- Acheck_circle
Granted Spanish colonists the right to extract labor and tribute from Native populations
- B
Was a free-trade agreement that opened colonial markets to all European merchants
- C
Established religious freedom for Indigenous peoples within Spanish colonial territories
- D
Provided land grants to Native Americans who converted to Catholicism and allied with Spain
Why
The encomienda effectively enslaved Native peoples under the guise of converting them to Christianity.
- A
Sample 4difficulty 4/5
The Spanish "casta" system in the Americas was
- A
A military rank structure used to organize Spanish colonial garrisons (capitanes, sargentos, etc.)
- B
A system of fortifications protecting silver shipments (presidios, ciudadelas, fuertes, etc.)
- Ccheck_circle
A social hierarchy based on race and origin (peninsulares, criollos, mestizos, etc.)
- D
A form of taxation imposed only on Indigenous laborers (tributo, quinto, diezmo, etc.)
Why
Peninsulares (Spanish-born) ranked highest; criollos (American-born Spanish) below; mixed-race mestizos and mulattoes lower; enslaved Africans and Natives at the bottom.
- A
Sample 5difficulty 4/5
Why did the Spanish increasingly turn to enslaved Africans in their American colonies?
- Acheck_circle
Native populations were decimated by disease, and Africans had partial immunity to European diseases
- B
African workers came voluntarily under contracts negotiated by West African coastal kingdoms
- C
African workers were paid better wages than European indentured servants on Caribbean plantations
- D
European indentured servants refused to migrate to the tropical climates of the Spanish Indies
Why
Combined with the inability of Native populations to sustain large-scale forced labor due to disease, the transatlantic slave trade expanded.
- A