Other People's Hands · Unit 1 · Topic 1.5

Practice questions: Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System

As Free Persons

1503–1518

1. Spanish officials carried out the policy in the excerpt mainly by

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As Free Persons

1503–1518

Question 1

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Royal instruction · Verbatim

English translation

…the Indians living on the island of Hispaniola be considered free and not subject to slavery … I order you, Our Governor, … to compel the Indians to have dealings with the Christian settlers on the said island, to work on their buildings, to mine and collect gold and other metals, and to work on their farms and crop fields

— Isabella I of Castile (in the name of the Crown), Royal instruction to Governor Nicolás de Ovando on Taíno labor (December 20, 1503)

Forasmuch as my Lord the King and Myself have ordered … that the Indians living on the island of Hispaniola be considered free and not subject to slavery … ; since I have now been informed that because of the excessive liberty allowed the said Indians, they run away from the Christians and withdraw from any intercourse and communication with them, … I order you, Our Governor, … to compel the Indians to have dealings with the Christian settlers on the said island, to work on their buildings, to mine and collect gold and other metals, and to work on their farms and crop fields …

— Queen Isabella of Castile, instruction to Nicolás de Ovando, governor of Hispaniola, December 20, 1503 (trans. J. H. Parry and Robert G. Keith, New Iberian World, 1984)

Spanish officials carried out the policy in the excerpt mainly by

licensing merchants to bring enslaved Africans to the island's mines
giving settlers legal title to the lands where Native villages stood
granting settlers the labor and tribute owed by Native communities
hiring Taíno workers on wage contracts that they were free to end

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (C) granting settlers the labor and tribute owed by Native communities

Licenses for enslaved Africans expanded as Taíno workers died, and this order concerns the labor of Hispaniola's own Native people.
Encomienda gave a settler a community's labor and tribute, not ownership of its land.
Governor Ovando carried out the order through encomienda, which assigned a Native community's labor and tribute to a settler who was to protect its people and teach them Christianity.
Royal orders promised a daily wage, but the work was compulsory, and settlers received Taíno workers through encomienda rather than hiring them.

Skill: Explain a historical development

Question 2

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Historical counts and scholarly reconstruction · Adapted

[Data summary.] About 60,000 (1508); 33,523 (1510); 26,334 (1514). These concern Taíno under Spanish control, not everyone alive on Hispaniola. Death, flight and changes in enumeration affect comparisons. Documented smallpox followed in late 1518.

— Frank Moya Pons, reconstructing colonial counts, Taíno counted under Spanish control (1508–1514)

Taíno people counted under Spanish control on Hispaniola: about 60,000 (1508); 33,523 (1510); 26,334 (1514). Documented smallpox reached the island in late 1518.

— Colonial counts as reconstructed by historian Frank Moya Pons (1979, 1992, 2010)

Which of the following most directly explains the change in the counts between 1508 and 1514?

A smallpox epidemic that swept through the island's Native towns
Encomienda labor demands, along with hunger, disease and flight
Spanish wars of conquest against the Mexica in central Mexico
Raids by French and English privateers on the island's coasts

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (B) Encomienda labor demands, along with hunger, disease and flight

Smallpox reached Hispaniola in late 1518, four years after the last count, so it cannot explain the earlier fall.
Settlers kept Taíno men at the mines for months while their villages went hungry; overwork, violence and other diseases killed people, and fewer births and flight cut the counts further.
Cortés's war against the Mexica began on the mainland in 1519, after these counts were taken.
French and English raids on Spanish Caribbean ports came later in the 1500s and did not touch the Taíno held in encomienda.

Skill: Explain a causal relationship

Question 3

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Royal law · Verbatim

English translation (1960 edition)

Also, we order and command that no person or persons shall dare to beat any Indians with sticks, or whip him, or call him dog, or address him by any name other than his proper name alone; and if an Indian should deserve to be punished for something he has done, the said person having him in charge shall bring him to the visitor for punishment

— Crown of Castile (King Ferdinand, for Queen Joanna), The Laws of Burgos, law XXIV (December 27, 1512)

The law in the excerpt is best used as evidence that

settlers had begun to follow royal rules on the treatment of workers
the Crown had decided to end forced Native labor on Hispaniola
Taíno leaders had agreed to the terms on which settlers received them
settlers holding Native workers had been treating them harshly

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (D) settlers holding Native workers had been treating them harshly

A law shows what the Crown wanted to stop, not whether settlers obeyed it, and reports of abuse on Hispaniola continued after 1512.
The Laws of Burgos regulated encomienda, setting rules for work, food and punishment, and kept compulsory Native labor in place.
Spanish officials assigned Native communities to settlers, and no Taíno consent was sought for the grants.
Rulers forbid what is already happening: a ban on beating, whipping and insulting Native workers shows that settlers holding them in encomienda did these things.

Skill: Explain how a source's purpose shapes its use

The Remedy

1502–1526

Question 4

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Letter · Verbatim

English translation

[CUNY translation, excerpt.] …because it is said that the Indians find it very hard to break the rocks where that gold is found…

— Ferdinand II of Aragon, A conditional royal order for mine labor (January 22, 1510)

it is very reasonable that much diligence is applied in extracting as much gold as may be extracted … and if the said Miguel de Pasamonte thinks that it is good to send to the said mine all the slaves that we have over there, because it is said that the Indians find it very hard to break the rocks where that gold is found, you must order how they go quickly.

— King Ferdinand of Aragon to Diego Colón, governor of Hispaniola, January 22, 1510 (trans. CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, First Blacks in the Americas)

The decision described in the excerpt was most directly a response to

the loss of Taíno workers to overwork and disease in the mines
a royal ban on Native mine labor issued in the New Laws of 1542
the discovery of rich silver deposits at Potosí in the Andes
Columbus's shipments of Taíno captives for sale in Spain

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (A) the loss of Taíno workers to overwork and disease in the mines

By 1510 the Taíno held in encomienda were dying from overwork, hunger and disease, so the king sent enslaved workers to keep the gold mines producing.
The New Laws came in 1542, thirty-two years after this letter, and they restricted encomienda rather than banning Native work in mines.
Spaniards found the Potosí silver in 1545; in 1510 Hispaniola's wealth came from gold.
Columbus sent Taíno captives to Spain in the 1490s, and the Crown stopped the practice; it does not explain a 1510 decision about mine labor.

Skill: Explain a causal relationship

Question 5

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Letter · Verbatim

English translation

[CUNY translation.] there are blacks that do in a day one hundred and forty montones, and the most manicato (which means strong or man of much strength) indian does not do more than twelve montones.

— Alonso de Zuazo, Zuazo advocates more enslaved African labor (January 26, 1518)

ordering that a general license is given so that black slaves may come, as many as may come, because they are persons of strength and of much work and with this they will be able to bear all the burden that is thrown upon them in making the montones and farms, which is a toil that the Indians cannot bear, because there are blacks that do in a day one hundred and forty montones, and the most manicato (which means strong or man of much strength) indian does not do more than twelve montones.

— Alonso de Zuazo, royal judge on Hispaniola, letter to the Crown, January 26, 1518 (trans. CUNY Dominican Studies Institute). Montones were mounds planted with cassava.

Zuazo most likely included the comparison in the excerpt in order to

report the results of a royal survey of the island's farms
argue that Native farm workers deserved higher daily wages
persuade the Crown to license far more enslaved Africans
warn the Crown that African revolts endangered the farms

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (C) persuade the Crown to license far more enslaved Africans

No royal survey produced these figures; they are a judge's claim in a letter asking for more imports.
Zuazo used Native workers' supposed weakness to argue for importing Africans, not to raise anyone's pay.
Zuazo asked for a general license for enslaved Africans, and his comparison was advocacy meant to win it, not a measured result.
The major rising of enslaved Africans on Hispaniola came at Christmas 1521, nearly four years later, and this passage praises African workers rather than warning about them.

Skill: Explain the purpose of a source

Question 6

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Letter · Verbatim

English translation by Basil Davidson (1964 edition)

the mentioned merchants are taking every day our natives, sons of the land and the sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives, because the thieves and men of bad conscience grab them … and so great, Sir, is the corruption and licentiousness that our country is being completely depopulated

— Afonso I (Mvemba a Nzinga), king of Kongo, Letter to King João III of Portugal (July 6, 1526)

…since the mentioned merchants are taking every day our natives, sons of the land and the sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives, because the thieves and men of bad conscience grab them wishing to have the things and wares of this Kingdom which they are ambitious of, they grab them and get them to be sold; and so great, Sir, is the corruption and licentiousness that our country is being completely depopulated

— Afonso I (Mvemba a Nzinga), king of Kongo, letter to King João III of Portugal, July 6, 1526 (trans. Basil Davidson, The African Past, 1964)

The excerpt best illustrates which feature of the Atlantic slave trade in the 1500s?

European armies often conquered West African kingdoms to seize captives
Demand for European goods drew some Africans into selling captives
Spanish ships carried most captives from Kongo to the Caribbean
African rulers ended the trade once Portugal's king met their terms

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (B) Demand for European goods drew some Africans into selling captives

For most of the 1500s European traders bought captives from African rulers and merchants rather than conquering the kingdoms that supplied them.
People in Kongo seized others to trade for the merchants' wares; European traders relied on African sellers, and some Africans profited while others were taken.
Spain had no trading posts in West or Central Africa, so Portuguese merchants carried most captives, often under Spanish licenses.
The trade kept growing after 1526, and millions of Africans were carried across the Atlantic over the next three centuries.

Skill: Identify a connection between developments

Question 7

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Royal license · Verbatim

English translation

…to Lorenzo de Gorrevod, governor of Bresa, member of my Council, whereby he … may proceed to take to the Indies, the islands and the mainland of the ocean sea already discovered or to be discovered, four thousand negro slaves both male and female, provided they be Christians, in whatever proportions he may choose.

— Charles I of Spain (later Emperor Charles V), License to Lorenzo de Gorrevod to carry four thousand enslaved Africans to the Indies (August 18, 1518)

…to Lorenzo de Gorrevod, governor of Bresa, member of my Council, whereby he, or the person or persons who may have his authority therefor, may proceed to take to the Indies, the islands and the mainland of the ocean sea already discovered or to be discovered, four thousand negro slaves both male and female, provided they be Christians, in whatever proportions he may choose.

— Charles I of Spain (later Emperor Charles V), license of August 18, 1518 (Elizabeth Donnan, ed., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, 1930)

Licenses like the one in the excerpt were an early form of which Spanish practice?

Granting a settler the labor and tribute of a Native community
Requiring Native towns to send a share of their men to work in turns
Chartering private companies to found and govern colonies for profit
Selling merchants the right to import enslaved Africans for a tax

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (D) Selling merchants the right to import enslaved Africans for a tax

Encomienda assigned Native communities to settlers, while this license concerns shipping enslaved Africans to the colonies.
Rotating drafts such as the repartimiento were labor obligations inside the colonies, not permits to import people.
Chartered joint-stock companies such as the Virginia Company of 1606 were an English method, while Spain's Crown kept direct control of its colonies.
Licenses like this grew into the asiento system, in which the Crown sold the right to supply enslaved Africans and taxed each person imported; Gorrevod resold his license to merchants.

Skill: Explain a historical development

Enriquillo's Peace

1519–1533

Question 8

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Document · Adapted

[Summary/adaptation.] Oviedo reports that Enriquillo asked Barrionuevo to read the imperial letter because his eyes were bad, then kissed it and placed it on his head. The peace included returning African fugitives and gathering Indigenous rebels; a recovery payment was set.

— Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo; our adaptation, Enriquillo and Barrionuevo — reported peace (1533 events)

“I wanted nothing but peace … and if I have not come to it until now, it was because of the tricks the Christians have played on me, and the little truth they have kept with me, and for this reason I have not dared to trust any man of this island.” … And he said that he would gather in all the other Indians that he had, who were at war in some parts of this island; and that when the Christians let him know that some rebel blacks were about, he would have them taken … so that they would bring them back, tied, into the power of the Christians whose blacks they were.

— Enriquillo (don Enrique), Taíno leader, accepting peace with Spain in 1533, as reported by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Historia general y natural de las Indias, book 5, chapter 7 (written 1530s–1540s; 1851 edition; our translation)

The “tricks” Enriquillo refers to in the excerpt arose most directly from

abuses by the settler who held his people in encomienda
missionaries' efforts to stamp out Taíno religious practices
the Crown's licenses to bring enslaved Africans to the island
Spain's conquest of the Mexica Empire on the mainland

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (A) abuses by the settler who held his people in encomienda

His encomendero took his mare and assaulted his wife, and when officials and the high court gave no remedy, he took his people into the mountains around 1519.
Enriquillo had been raised by Franciscan friars and was a Christian; his quarrel was with a settler and the officials who protected him.
Royal licenses for enslaved Africans grew from 1518, but Enriquillo's grievance was the treatment of his own people under encomienda.
Cortés's war in Mexico (1519–1521) took place on the mainland; Enriquillo's grievances arose on Hispaniola.

Skill: Explain a causal relationship

Question 9

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Document · Adapted

[Summary/adaptation.] Oviedo reports that Enriquillo asked Barrionuevo to read the imperial letter because his eyes were bad, then kissed it and placed it on his head. The peace included returning African fugitives and gathering Indigenous rebels; a recovery payment was set.

— Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo; our adaptation, Enriquillo and Barrionuevo — reported peace (1533 events)

“I wanted nothing but peace … and if I have not come to it until now, it was because of the tricks the Christians have played on me, and the little truth they have kept with me, and for this reason I have not dared to trust any man of this island.” … And he said that he would gather in all the other Indians that he had, who were at war in some parts of this island; and that when the Christians let him know that some rebel blacks were about, he would have them taken … so that they would bring them back, tied, into the power of the Christians whose blacks they were.

The terms Enriquillo accepted in the excerpt best reflect which development on Hispaniola by the 1530s?

The Taíno population had largely recovered after the smallpox epidemic
The Crown had replaced encomienda with paid labor contracts
Native and African rebels had joined forces to expel Spain
Enslaved Africans had become a large workforce that often fled

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (D) Enslaved Africans had become a large workforce that often fled

The Taíno population kept falling after the 1518 smallpox epidemic, and by the 1530s few Taíno remained under Spanish control.
Encomienda continued on Hispaniola, and the peace dealt with rebels and runaways, not with wages.
Some runaway Africans fled to the same mountains, but the peace bound Enriquillo to capture them, and Spain kept control of the island.
By the 1530s sugar plantations on Hispaniola relied on enslaved Africans, who ran away and rose in revolt, as in 1521, so Spain used the peace to hunt runaways.

Skill: Explain how a development fits a broader context

Question 10

Read the source

Document · Adapted

[Summary/adaptation.] Oviedo reports that Enriquillo asked Barrionuevo to read the imperial letter because his eyes were bad, then kissed it and placed it on his head. The peace included returning African fugitives and gathering Indigenous rebels; a recovery payment was set.

— Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo; our adaptation, Enriquillo and Barrionuevo — reported peace (1533 events)

“I wanted nothing but peace … and if I have not come to it until now, it was because of the tricks the Christians have played on me, and the little truth they have kept with me, and for this reason I have not dared to trust any man of this island.” … And he said that he would gather in all the other Indians that he had, who were at war in some parts of this island; and that when the Christians let him know that some rebel blacks were about, he would have them taken … so that they would bring them back, tied, into the power of the Christians whose blacks they were.

Enriquillo's actions from his flight in 1519 to the peace of 1533 best illustrate which pattern?

Native leaders accepted encomienda in return for Spanish protection
Native leaders fought and then negotiated to protect their own people
Native leaders turned to England and France for help against Spain
Native leaders gave up their lands in exchange for wages from settlers

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (B) Native leaders fought and then negotiated to protect their own people

Enriquillo fled encomienda in 1519 and won his people's freedom from it in 1533; he did not trade labor for protection.
Enriquillo held off Spanish soldiers for about fourteen years and then accepted royal terms that let his people live free, one of many Native uses of both war and diplomacy.
Some Native nations later allied with France or England, but neither power had colonies in the Americas before 1533, and Enriquillo dealt only with Spain.
The peace gave Enriquillo's people a settlement of their own; they did not trade land for wages.

Skill: Identify a pattern among developments

Silver

1521–c. 1615

Question 11

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Letter in a scholarly translation draft · Verbatim

English translation by Kris Lane (2018 edition)

…there was discovered a mouth of hell, into which have entered…a great quantity of people…

— Domingo de Santo Tomás, A mouth of hell (July 1, 1550)

there was discovered a mouth of hell, into which have entered … a great quantity of people, which by the greed of the Spaniards they sacrifice to their god, and these are some silver mines that they call Potosi.

— Domingo de Santo Tomás, Dominican friar, letter to the Council of the Indies, July 1, 1550 (trans. Kris Lane, draft, 2018)

Silver from mines like the one in the excerpt contributed most directly to which development in the 1500s?

The end of Spain's need for enslaved African workers in its colonies
A decline in Europe's trade with Asia as silver stayed in the Americas
Spain's rise to wealth and power, which drove rivals to seek colonies
The growth of English tobacco farming along the Chesapeake Bay

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (C) Spain's rise to wealth and power, which drove rivals to seek colonies

Spain kept importing enslaved Africans, who worked in mines such as Zacatecas and on plantations alongside Native workers.
From 1571 Spanish galleons carried American silver from Acapulco to Manila to buy Chinese goods, so silver tied Europe and Asia more closely.
Treasure fleets carried American silver to Spain and made it Europe's richest and most powerful kingdom, and rivals such as England and France sought American riches of their own.
English tobacco farming in Virginia began in the 1610s, long after Potosí opened, and did not rest on Spanish silver.

Skill: Explain a causal relationship

Question 12

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Collective petition · our translated excerpt · Verbatim

English translation

… for the working of the mines and mills in the town of Potosí … we have received notorious grievance and harm.

— Twenty-four kurakas signing the collective Memorial de Charcas, The Charcas lords challenge unequal recruitment (1582)

Don Francisco de Toledo, who was viceroy of these kingdoms, assigned and designated Indians for the working and labor of the mines and mills in the town of Potosí only to the nation of the Charcas, Caracaras, Soras, Quillacas and Carangas, sparing, as he did spare, the nation of the Chichas and the nation of the Chuis and Amparaes … in which we have received notorious grievance and harm.

— Memorial of twenty-four kurakas (Native lords) of Charcas to King Philip II, 1582, chapter 38 (our translation)

The labor system the kurakas complain about in the excerpt adapted which earlier practice?

A rotating labor draft the Inca had required of Andean towns
The encomienda grants first made to settlers on Hispaniola
The slave labor used on Portugal's sugar islands off Africa
The indentured service that brought contract workers from Spain

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (A) A rotating labor draft the Inca had required of Andean towns

The Inca had drawn labor from their towns in turns, and in the 1570s Viceroy Toledo turned that draft toward the Potosí silver mines.
Encomienda gave one settler a community's labor and tribute, while the mita was a draft run by royal officials that sent men from whole provinces to the mines.
Portugal's sugar islands used enslaved Africans, while the mita drafted Andean men who were legally free subjects.
Indentured servants signed contracts to work for a term in return for passage, a system the English colonies used; mita workers were drafted through their towns.

Skill: Identify a pattern of continuity and change

Question 13

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Authored manuscript dialogue · Adapted

English translation (2009 edition)

[Our translation and abridgment.] Tell me, author… They make them work day and night, and they are not paid… Castile is Castile because of the Indians.

— Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Guaman Poma writes the king’s questions (c. 1615)

[The king:] Tell me, author … [The author:] They make them work day and night, and they are not paid … Castile is Castile because of the Indians.

— Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Andean nobleman, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno, c. 1615, written in part as a dialogue with King Philip III (our translation)

Which of the following provides the most direct context for the complaints in the excerpt?

Portugal's use of enslaved Africans on its sugar islands off Africa
The New Laws' ban on making the Native peoples of the Americas slaves
English seizure of Native farmland in the first Virginia settlements
Spanish demands for Native labor and tribute throughout the Andes

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (D) Spanish demands for Native labor and tribute throughout the Andes

Portugal's sugar islands used enslaved Africans; Guaman Poma wrote about Andean people working for Spaniards in Peru.
The New Laws of 1542 tried to restrict abuses, and his complaint concerns the labor demands that continued after them.
English settlement in Virginia began in 1607 and had no part in the Andean labor he described to the Spanish king.
Guaman Poma wrote against encomienda, labor drafts such as the mita, and officials and priests who made Andean people work without pay while silver enriched Spain.

Skill: Explain how a source fits a broader context

Question 14

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Royal law · Adapted

[Summary, not a quotation.] The New Laws restricted Native enslavement and encomienda succession. The Crown revoked the succession provision in 1545. Encomienda tribute, rotating drafts, slavery and wage labor continued in different combinations; no empire-wide end of coerced Native labor followed in 1542.

— Charles V, The New Laws (Leyes Nuevas) (November 20, 1542)

… nor in other manner can an Indian be made a slave, and we will that they be treated as our vassals of the Crown of Castile since such they are.

— Charles V, the New Laws for the government of the Indies, November 20, 1542 (trans. Henry Stevens and Fred W. Lucas, 1893)

Which of the following best describes Native labor in Spain's colonies in the decades after the law in the excerpt?

Settlers replaced Native workers with indentured servants from Spain
Labor drafts and tribute continued, but Native slavery was restricted
Native communities gained ownership of the mines where they had worked
Most Native workers moved into wage jobs that they were free to leave

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (B) Labor drafts and tribute continued, but Native slavery was restricted

Spain did not bring indentured servants on a large scale, and colonists relied on Native drafts and enslaved Africans.
The New Laws banned Native enslavement and limited encomienda, but the Crown revoked their inheritance ban in 1545, and labor drafts such as the repartimiento and mita continued.
Mines such as Potosí and Zacatecas belonged to Spaniards, and Native men came to them through drafts or for wages.
Some Native men worked for wages at Zacatecas, but most Native labor in central Mexico and the Andes came through compulsory drafts.

Skill: Explain continuity and change

Her Own Hands

c. 1536–1594

Question 15

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Court record through scholarship · Verbatim

English translation by Chloe L. Ireton

Margarita de Sossa, black, native of the city of Oporto… of approximately fifty-eight years of age.

— Prosecutor of the Mexican Inquisition, translated by Chloe L. Ireton, The prosecutor’s description of Margarita (1588 / 1594)

“Margarita de Sossa, black, native of the city of Oporto… of approximately fifty-eight years of age.”
“Portuguese and mulata, who is not entirely black… and with some letters on her face…”

— Two descriptions of the same free woman: the prosecutor of the Inquisition in Mexico City, 1594, and Francisco Gallardo, a witness from Puebla (trans. Chloe L. Ireton, 2020)

Taken together, the two descriptions best illustrate which feature of colonial society in New Spain?

Colonial records labeled people by ancestry, though labels could vary
Freed people were no longer described by ancestry in court records
Ancestry labels described enslaved people rather than free residents
Witnesses usually described people by birthplace rather than ancestry

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (A) Colonial records labeled people by ancestry, though labels could vary

The caste system ranked people by ancestry, but labels shifted with money, witnesses and who was writing, so one record called this free woman black and another mulata.
Both records describe a woman who had bought her freedom, and both still use ancestry labels.
She was free by 1594, yet the prosecutor and the witness both classified her by ancestry.
The witness named her birthplace and her ancestry together, so birthplace did not replace the caste label.

Skill: Compare the claims of two sources

Question 16

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Court testimony · Ireton’s English translation · Verbatim

English translation

The money with which I liberated myself was from my work and sweat and not that of my husband.

— Margarita de Sossa and witnesses, through legal records and Chloe L. Ireton, Margarita’s work-and-sweat claim (1588 / 1594)

The testimony best illustrates which feature of slavery in Spain's American colonies?

Enslaved people became free by law when they married free spouses
Slaveholders had to free their workers after a fixed term of service
Some enslaved people earned money and bought their freedom from owners
Freed people of African descent often rose to the top of colonial society

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (C) Some enslaved people earned money and bought their freedom from owners

Spanish law let enslaved people marry but declared that marriage did not free them, and she stressed that she paid for her freedom herself.
A fixed term describes indentured servitude in the English colonies; slavery in Spain's empire had no set end, and buying freedom needed the owner's agreement.
Some owners let enslaved people hire themselves out and keep part of their earnings, and some sold them their freedom, a release called manumission.
The caste system kept Spaniards at the top, and free people of African descent still carried ancestry labels that limited their standing.

Skill: Explain a historical development

Question 17

Read the passage

The sons of a Spaniard by an Indian woman, or of an Indian by a Spanish woman are called Mestizos, which means that we are a mixture of both nations. It was adopted by the first Spaniards who had children by Indian women; and, being a name given by our parents, I call myself by it with open mouth, and pride myself upon it.

— El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, son of a Spanish captain and an Inca noblewoman, Royal Commentaries of the Incas, 1609 (trans. Clements R. Markham, 1871)

The development Garcilaso describes resulted most directly from which feature of Spanish colonization?

Spanish law required settlers to marry into Native noble families
Spanish colonists usually arrived as families and settled in farm towns
Missionaries required Native converts to marry Spanish colonists
Most Spanish migrants were men, and many had children with Native women

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (D) Most Spanish migrants were men, and many had children with Native women

Some Spaniards married Native noblewomen, but no law required settlers to do so.
Settling as families was more typical of the English colonies, while Spanish migrants of the 1500s were mostly men.
Missionaries worked to convert Native people, not to arrange their marriages to colonists.
Most Spanish migrants were single men, and many had children with Native and African women, sometimes by force, so mixed populations grew quickly.

Skill: Explain a causal relationship

Whose Hands

1600

Question 18

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Notarial declaration · translated excerpt · Verbatim

English translation

…I may be annoyed by some individuals, since I am a mulatto… I demand justice.

— Isabel de Olvera, through a notarial record and published translation, Isabel de Olvera demands protection of her rights (Querétaro, 1600)

as I am going on the expedition to New Mexico and have reason to fear that I may be annoyed by some individuals, since I am a mulatto, and as it is proper to protect my rights in such an eventuality by an affidavit showing that I am a free woman, unmarried, the legitimate daughter of Hernando, a negro, and an Indian named Madalena, I therefore request your grace to accept this affidavit … I demand justice.

— Isabel de Olvera, affidavit made at Querétaro, New Spain, 1600 (as printed in Mary Jean Cook, “Daughters of the Camino Real,” 1993)

Olvera's request in the excerpt is best understood in the context of

royal rules that barred women from joining the northern expeditions
a caste order that cast doubt on free people of African ancestry
a Spanish ban on slavery in its new colonies north of Mexico
church rules requiring unmarried women to live in convents

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (B) a caste order that cast doubt on free people of African ancestry

Women and families traveled with the New Mexico expeditions; the danger she named came from being labeled mulatto.
The caste system ranked people of African ancestry near the bottom, and a free woman labeled mulatto could be challenged as enslaved, so she carried legal proof of her status.
Slavery was legal in New Mexico, as across Spain's empire, and early settlers held some Africans and Native captives in servitude.
Unmarried women in New Spain were not required to enter convents, and she had her unmarried status recorded along with her freedom.

Skill: Explain how a source fits a broader context

Question 19

Read the source

Notarial declaration · translated excerpt · Verbatim

English translation

…I may be annoyed by some individuals, since I am a mulatto… I demand justice.

— Isabel de Olvera, through a notarial record and published translation, Isabel de Olvera demands protection of her rights (Querétaro, 1600)

as I am going on the expedition to New Mexico and have reason to fear that I may be annoyed by some individuals, since I am a mulatto, and as it is proper to protect my rights in such an eventuality by an affidavit showing that I am a free woman, unmarried, the legitimate daughter of Hernando, a negro, and an Indian named Madalena, I therefore request your grace to accept this affidavit … I demand justice.

— Isabel de Olvera, affidavit made at Querétaro, New Spain, 1600 (as printed in Mary Jean Cook, “Daughters of the Camino Real,” 1993)

The colony to which Olvera was traveling shows that by 1600

Pueblo communities had driven Spanish settlers from the Rio Grande
Spain had given up its claims to the lands north of central Mexico
Spanish tribute demands had reached what is now the United States
French traders had formed alliances with the Pueblos of the Rio Grande

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (C) Spanish tribute demands had reached what is now the United States

The Pueblo Revolt that drove the Spanish out of New Mexico came in 1680, eighty years later.
Spain was expanding north, and New Mexico was a new colony founded in 1598.
Spain founded New Mexico in 1598 among the Pueblo peoples of the upper Rio Grande, and settlers claimed Pueblo tribute in corn and cotton blankets through encomienda.
French traders were only beginning to work the St. Lawrence in 1600, far from the Rio Grande.

Skill: Identify a historical context

Question 20

Read the passage

I found myself almost forced to place the chiefs and natives of these parts amongst the Spaniards, to recompense them for the services they have rendered to Your Majesty. Until something else is ordered or this confirmed, the said chiefs and natives serve and give each Spaniard to whom they are allotted the needful for his subsistence.

— Hernán Cortés, third letter to Emperor Charles V, May 15, 1522 (trans. Francis A. MacNutt, 1908)

Cortés most likely wrote the explanation in the excerpt in order to

defend grants of Native labor made without royal approval
persuade the emperor to send enslaved Africans to New Spain
ask the emperor to free the Native lords of central Mexico
report that Native towns had revolted against their masters

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (A) defend grants of Native labor made without royal approval

Cortés had already divided Native towns among his men as encomiendas without the Crown's permission, and he presented the step as unavoidable to win the emperor's approval.
Enslaved Africans did come to Mexico with the conquerors, but this passage defends the encomienda that Cortés set up there.
Later critics such as Las Casas pressed the Crown to limit these grants; Cortés was the one who made them.
Cortés presented the grants as a reward for the conquerors, not as a response to a Native revolt.

Skill: Explain a source's purpose

Final Review

1503–1600

Question 21

Read the source

Proclamation · Verbatim

English translation by Arthur Helps (1855 edition)

…we shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them … and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as to vassals who do not obey … and we protest that the deaths and losses which shall accrue from this are your fault

— Juan López de Palacios Rubios, El Requerimiento (The Requirement) (1513)

But, if you do not do this, and maliciously make delay in it, I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter into your country, and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of their Highnesses; we shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them … and we protest that the deaths and losses which shall accrue from this are your fault, and not that of their Highnesses, or ours, nor of these cavaliers who come with us.

— El Requerimiento, written by Juan López de Palacios Rubios for the Crown of Castile, 1513, and read aloud by Spanish captains to Native peoples (trans. Arthur Helps, 1855)

The document in the excerpt was intended mainly to

explain Spanish law to Native peoples in their own languages
invite Native nations to sign trade agreements with the Crown
warn Spanish soldiers against harming Native people who surrendered
give conquest and enslavement a legal and religious justification

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (D) give conquest and enslavement a legal and religious justification

It was read in Spanish, often to people who could not understand it, so it met Spanish legal needs rather than informing its listeners.
It demanded submission to the Church and the monarchs and offered no trade agreement.
It threatened war, enslavement and seizure of goods, and it placed no limits on Spanish soldiers.
Captains read it before attacking, demanding submission to the Church and the monarchs and blaming the victims for any war or enslavement that followed.

Skill: Explain the purpose of a source

Question 22

Read the source

Letter · Verbatim

English translation by Malyn Newitt (2010 edition)

…it does not seem to me to be to the honour of you or your kingdom because it would be more praiseworthy to draw each year from the Kongo 10,000 slaves and 10,000 manilhas [brass bracelets] and as many tusks of ivory.

— João III of Portugal, Letter to the king of Kongo (c. 1529)

Afonso: “It is our will that in these Kingdoms there should not be any trade of slaves nor outlet for them.”
João III: “…If this seems good to you, it shall be so. However, it does not seem to me to be to the honour of you or your kingdom because it would be more praiseworthy to draw each year from the Kongo 10,000 slaves and 10,000 manilhas [brass bracelets] and as many tusks of ivory.”

— Afonso I, king of Kongo, to João III of Portugal, July 6, 1526 (trans. Basil Davidson); João III to Afonso I, c. 1529 (trans. Malyn Newitt, 2010)

Taken together, the excerpts best illustrate which feature of the early Atlantic slave trade?

African rulers had united to end the export of captives from the coast
European traders relied on African rulers with interests of their own
Portugal had conquered Kongo and ran its trade through royal officials
European demand for captives had begun to decline by the 1520s

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (B) European traders relied on African rulers with interests of their own

African states did not act together; Afonso himself soon regulated sales rather than ending them, and other rulers kept selling captives.
Portugal's king needed Kongo's ruler to supply captives and pressed him to allow the trade, because Europeans partnered with African rulers and merchants who practiced slavery.
Kongo was an independent Christian kingdom whose king corresponded with Portugal's king as a fellow ruler.
Demand rose with sugar plantations and mines in the Americas, and Spain licensed thousands of African imports from 1518 on.

Skill: Compare the claims of two sources

Question 23

Read the source

Manuscript book · Verbatim

English translation by Charles Upson Clark (1942 edition)

They and the mita Indians go up every Monday morning to the locality of Guayna Potosí which is at the foot of the range… staying there from that hour until Saturday evening without coming out of the mine; their wives bring them food, but they stay constantly underground, excavating and carrying out the ore from which they get the silver. They all have tallow candles, lighted day and night

— Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendium and Description of the West Indies: Potosí (c. 1628)

They [hired workers] and the mita Indians go up every Monday morning to the locality of Guayna Potosí which is at the foot of the range … staying there from that hour until Saturday evening without coming out of the mine; their wives bring them food, but they stay constantly underground … They all have tallow candles, lighted day and night

— Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa, Carmelite friar, Compendium and Description of the West Indies, written c. 1628 after travels in Peru c. 1616–1619 (trans. Charles Upson Clark, 1942)

A historian using the excerpt as evidence of conditions at Potosí in the 1570s should consider that its author

owned shares in the mines and wanted to attract new investors
was an Andean noble who petitioned the king to end the draft
saw the mines four decades after the labor draft there began
was the royal official who wrote the rules for the labor draft

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (C) saw the mines four decades after the labor draft there began

Vázquez was a traveling friar; Luis Capoche, who wrote about Potosí in 1585, was the mine and mill owner.
Guaman Poma, not Vázquez, was the Andean noble who sent a long appeal to Philip III around 1615.
Viceroy Toledo organized the Potosí mita in the 1570s, and Vázquez traveled in Peru about forty years later, so he describes the draft as it worked in the 1610s.
Viceroy Francisco de Toledo set up the mita in the 1570s, and Vázquez was a visiting friar.

Skill: Explain how a source's situation limits its use

Question 24

Read the source

Manuscript history · Verbatim

English translation by John-Charles Duffy (1875 edition)

That he had counseled this, the cleric later repented, judging himself guilty by inadvertence, because he afterward saw and discovered, as will be seen, that the captivity of the blacks is as unjust as that of the Indians, and therefore his counsel that blacks be brought so that the Indians could be freed was not a wise remedy

— Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, Book III: the cleric’s regret (1527–1561)

The judgment Las Casas reached in the excerpt is significant mainly because it

extended arguments against Native enslavement to enslaved Africans
persuaded the Crown to stop licensing the import of enslaved Africans
began the trade in enslaved Africans to Spain's American colonies
won Native workers the right to leave the settlers' encomiendas

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (A) extended arguments against Native enslavement to enslaved Africans

Las Casas had spent decades arguing that Native people should not be enslaved, and late in life he judged African captivity just as unjust, a rare view among Spaniards then.
Spain kept licensing slave imports, and the trade to its colonies grew through the 1500s.
Enslaved Africans had reached Hispaniola by 1502, years before his 1516 proposal, so his advice did not start the trade.
His campaign helped bring the New Laws of 1542, which limited encomienda, but compulsory Native labor continued.

Skill: Explain the significance of a development

Question 25

Read the passage

I am distressed by the blacks that you say that have died and I do not know what they may have died from … Work so that they are well treated … so that they do not die for lack of good care and so they remain healthy and good to serve and work in the mines

— King Ferdinand of Aragon to Bartolomé de Sans Pier, inspector of mines on Hispaniola, July 21, 1511 (trans. CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, First Blacks in the Americas)

The king's concern in the excerpt is best explained by

a royal plan to end the shipment of enslaved Africans to the island
church rules that limited the trade to Africans baptized as Christians
complaints by Taíno leaders about the treatment of African workers
the Crown's need for a steady labor force in Hispaniola's gold mines

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (D) the Crown's need for a steady labor force in Hispaniola's gold mines

The Crown expanded the trade, and in 1518 it licensed four thousand enslaved Africans for the colonies.
Early licenses did ask for Christian slaves, but that rule governed who could be shipped and does not explain worry about deaths in the mines.
The report of deaths came from the Crown's own inspector of mines, and the reply concerns keeping workers fit for mining.
As the Taíno died, the Crown sent enslaved Africans to the gold mines, and the king's worry was losing the workers whose labor produced royal revenue.

Skill: Explain a source's point of view

Question 26

Read the passage

1. “I found myself almost forced to place the chiefs and natives of these parts amongst the Spaniards, to recompense them for the services they have rendered to Your Majesty.”
2. “four thousand negro slaves both male and female, provided they be Christians”
3. “All these names … have been invented in my country to designate the generations that have risen up since the arrival of the Spaniards”

— 1. Hernán Cortés to Charles V, 1522 (trans. MacNutt, 1908). 2. License of Charles I of Spain, 1518 (Donnan, 1930). 3. El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Incas, 1609 (trans. Markham, 1871)

Taken together, the excerpts best support which argument about Spain's American empire in the 1500s?

Spain relied mainly on free migrants from Castile to work its colonies
Spain kept Native, African and Spanish people in separate colonies
Spain built wealth on forced labor and ranked its peoples by ancestry
Spain ranked its colonial subjects by religion rather than by ancestry

Answer and reasoning

Answer: (C) Spain built wealth on forced labor and ranked its peoples by ancestry

Spanish migrants were relatively few and mostly men, and colonial production depended on Native workers and enslaved Africans.
Spain drew Native and African people into colonial towns, mines and households, and their mixing produced the new caste labels.
Encomienda put Native labor at settlers' service, licenses brought enslaved Africans, and the caste system named and ranked the mixed population that resulted.
Christianity was expected of colonial subjects, but the caste system ranked baptized people by ancestry, with Spaniards at the top.

Skill: Explain how pieces of evidence relate