A Passage Home
1561–1566 · later testimony, from 1568
Question 1
Read the source
Manuscript account · Verbatim
No longer could they walk; they only lay in their abodes, in their beds. No longer could they move, no longer could they bestir themselves, no longer could they raise themselves … Indeed many people died of them, and many just died of hunger. There was death from hunger; there was no one to take care of another; there was no one to attend to another.
— Nahua elders of Tlatelolco, recorded by Bernardino de Sahagún and his students, Florentine Codex, Book 12: The Conquest of Mexico, on the smallpox epidemic (c. 1555)
The conditions described in the excerpt resulted most directly from which of the following?
- Spanish tribute demands that pulled Native farmers away from their fields
- Forced labor in the silver mines that Spaniards opened north of the capital
- A new disease that Europeans carried to people who had no immunity to it
- Herds of Spanish cattle and sheep that trampled the maize fields of Native towns
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (C) A new disease that Europeans carried to people who had no immunity to it
- Encomienda tribute came after the conquest of 1521, and this epidemic struck in 1520, before Spaniards ruled the towns of the Valley of Mexico.
- Spaniards found the great northern silver deposits at Zacatecas in 1546, a generation after this epidemic.
- Smallpox reached Mexico in 1520 among people who had no immunity to it, so whole households fell sick at once and no one was left to nurse or feed them.
- Spanish livestock spread across central Mexico in the decades after the conquest, while these deaths came from a sudden epidemic.
Skill: Explain a causal relationship
Question 2
Read the source
Retrospective eyewitness narrative · Verbatim
…serued by Indians weekly, and by Negroes which be their slaues during their life.
— Miles Philips; collected by Richard Hakluyt, Philips: weekly service and lifetime slavery (Later witness · account printed 1589)
for in that countrey no Spaniard will serue one another, but they are all of them attended and serued by Indians weekly, and by Negroes which be their slaues during their life.
— Miles Philips, English sailor held in New Spain from 1568, account printed in Richard Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 1589
The use of enslaved Africans described in the excerpt developed most directly as a result of which of the following?
- Native population losses and Spanish limits on enslaving Native people
- Laws in English colonies that made slavery an inherited, lifelong status
- Dutch merchants' takeover of the Atlantic slave trade from the Portuguese
- The decline of Mexico's silver mines, which freed Africans for household work
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (A) Native population losses and Spanish limits on enslaving Native people
- Epidemics cut the Native population and the New Laws of 1542 barred enslaving Native people, so colonists bought enslaved Africans to hold for life while Native towns still owed labor in weekly shifts.
- Virginia made slavery inherited through the mother only in 1662, nearly a century after Philips saw this labor system in Mexico.
- The Dutch became leading slave traders in the 1600s; in the 1570s Portuguese merchants carried most captives to Spanish America.
- New Spain's silver output was rising in the 1570s, and the mines used both Native and African workers.
Skill: Explain a causal relationship
Question 3
Read the passage
The combination of Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans made the Spanish colonies ethnically diverse. In addition, since most Spanish colonists were single men rather than families, many had children with native or African women. The result was that the Spanish colonies included many people with mixed heritage. In response, the Spanish developed a caste system that defined the status of people in the colonies by their heritage
— John J. Newman and John M. Schmalbach, historians, United States History: AP Edition, 2020
The caste system described in the excerpt was most likely intended to do which of the following?
- Train the sons of Native nobles to govern colonial towns for Spain
- Sort colonial workers into guilds according to the trades they practiced
- Give equal legal standing to colonists who had accepted Catholic baptism
- Keep Spaniards in control of a large and increasingly mixed population
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (D) Keep Spaniards in control of a large and increasingly mixed population
- Friars did school some sons of Native nobles, but that served conversion and local rule, not the ranking of people by ancestry.
- The caste system ranked people by ancestry, not by the work they did.
- Baptized Native people and Africans still ranked below Spaniards, so conversion did not bring equal standing.
- Spaniards held the top rank and most high offices, and the caste labels helped them keep power over a growing population of mixed ancestry.
Skill: Explain a historical development
Question 4
Read the source
Retrospective eyewitness narrative · Verbatim
…they and the Negros also doe daily lie in waite to practise their deliuerance…
— Miles Philips; collected by Richard Hakluyt, Philips: workers seeking deliverance (Later witness · account printed 1589)
I was appointed to be an ouerseer of Indian workmen, who wrought there in building of a new church: amongst which Indians I learned their language of Mexican tongue very perfectly … and they hate and abhorre the Spaniards with all their hearts, they haue vsed such horrible cruelties against them, and do still keepe them in such subiection and seruitude, that they and the Negros also doe daily lie in waite to practise their deliuerance out of that thraldome and bondage, that the Spaniards doe keepe them in.
— Miles Philips, English sailor held in New Spain, describing Mexico City in the 1570s, account printed in Richard Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 1589
The excerpt provides the best evidence for which of the following?
- Native peoples in Mexico gave up their own languages under Spanish rule
- Native and African workers resisted Spanish demands for their labor
- English indentured servants replaced Native workers in Mexico City
- Spanish law gave Native and African workers the same legal status
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (B) Native and African workers resisted Spanish demands for their labor
- Nahuatl remained the everyday language of central Mexico, and Philips himself learned it from the workers he oversaw.
- Native and African workers in New Spain ran away, rebelled and bargained, and the colony's need for their labor gave that resistance force.
- English indentured servitude grew in the Chesapeake after 1607; in Mexico City, Spaniards relied on Native and African labor.
- Spanish law treated Native people as free subjects of the crown who owed tribute and labor, while it held enslaved Africans as property for life.
Skill: Identify the evidence a source provides
No Soldiers
1570
Question 5
Read the source
Letter · Verbatim
English translation by Henry Ware (1870 edition)
And if this arm of the sea, as is certainly believed, does go to the South Sea, it is near China…
— Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, to Philip II, A northern fort and the hoped-for passage toward Asia (October 15, 1565)
And if this arm of the sea, as is certainly believed, does go to the South Sea, it is near China, which is a very important thing as respects the enlightenment of that region and the trade with Molucca.
— Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Spanish governor of Florida, letter to King Philip II about the Chesapeake Bay, October 15, 1565 (trans. Henry Ware, 1894)
The hopes expressed in the excerpt were most similar to the goals behind which earlier development?
- The Spanish campaign that conquered the last Muslim kingdom in Spain
- Portuguese sugar plantations on islands off the coast of West Africa
- Columbus's voyage west across the Atlantic to reach Asia by sea
- Cortés's march inland to seize the gold of the Aztec capital city
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (C) Columbus's voyage west across the Atlantic to reach Asia by sea
- The fall of Granada in 1492 ended a Christian war on Spanish soil; it was not a search for a sea route to Asian trade.
- Portugal's Atlantic sugar islands grew sugar with enslaved African labor and did not aim at Asian markets.
- Columbus sailed west in 1492 hoping to reach the trade of Asia and to spread Christianity, the same pair of goals Menéndez named for a route through North America.
- Cortés went after the wealth of an empire he knew lay inland, not a passage across the continent to China.
Skill: Explain a comparison between developments
Question 6
Read the source
Company instructions · staged reading · Verbatim
That You be not Surprised as the french were in florida by Melindus and the Spaniard in the same place by the french
— Virginia Company council; staged reading by Christopher Newport, The English instructions name “Melindus” (1606)
The warning in the excerpt is best understood in the context of which of the following?
- Rivalry among European states that mixed fights over land with religious conflict
- Cooperation between Catholic and Protestant powers against Native nations in Florida
- Spanish reliance on French pilots to guide its fleets along the Atlantic coast
- England's alliance with Spain to keep French settlers out of North America
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (A) Rivalry among European states that mixed fights over land with religious conflict
- In 1565 Catholic Spain destroyed the French Protestant fort in Florida and killed many who surrendered, and in 1568 French raiders attacked the Spanish posts there in revenge.
- Catholic Spain killed French Protestants in Florida, so the two sides fought each other instead of joining against Native nations.
- The French in Florida were rivals whom Spain drove out, not pilots in Spanish service.
- England and Spain were at war from 1585 to 1604, so England had no alliance with Spain against France.
Skill: Explain how a source fits a broader context
Question 7
Read the source
Expedition orders · Verbatim
English translation by L. A. Vigneras (1969 edition)
…all the people of that territory are his friends and the vassals of his three brothers.
— Pedro Menéndez de Avilés; recorded by Diego de Camargo, Don Luis's promises, as Menéndez's orders report them (August 1, 1566 · Fort San Mateo)
The plan described in the excerpt reflects which common pattern in European expansion in the Americas?
- Investors pooling their money to share the risk of overseas missions
- Reliance on Native guides and interpreters to enter unfamiliar lands
- Written treaties in which Native leaders sold their land to the crown
- Settling families on the land first and sending soldiers only later
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (B) Reliance on Native guides and interpreters to enter unfamiliar lands
- Spain paid for its Florida ventures through the crown and its governor; joint-stock investors financed English ventures such as Jamestown.
- Spanish leaders often depended on Native go-betweens to open new lands, as Cortés had relied on the interpreter Malintzin in 1519.
- Spanish claims rested on royal grants and conquest, and written land purchases from Native nations came later in English colonies.
- Spanish ventures north of Mexico usually led with soldiers and missionaries, and settler families followed only where a post held.
Skill: Identify a pattern among developments
Question 8
Read the source
Source testimony · Verbatim
… But I pointed out the difficulty in the execution of the plan, saying that the Indian did not satisfy me, and judging from what he had told me, I saw that he was a liar. (p. 132)
— Juan de la Carrera, Carrera’s remembered distrust (March 1, 1600, recalling 1570)
Which of the following most limits the usefulness of the excerpt as evidence of what Spaniards thought of the plan in 1570?
- Carrera relied on English reports of events in the Chesapeake region
- Carrera was a Protestant critic of Spain's Catholic mission orders
- Carrera knew of the guide only through reports from other missionaries
- Carrera wrote thirty years later, knowing how the mission had ended
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (D) Carrera wrote thirty years later, knowing how the mission had ended
- The English did not reach the Chesapeake until 1607, and Carrera wrote from his own memories and Jesuit reports.
- Carrera was a Jesuit brother who supplied the mission himself, not a Protestant critic of it.
- Carrera had spoken with the guide at Santa Elena before the mission sailed, so his judgment rests on his own contact.
- Writing in 1600, long after the mission had been destroyed, Carrera could recast his early doubts in light of how the venture ended.
Skill: Explain how a source's situation limits its use
Risen from the Dead
September 1570–February 1571
Question 9
Read the source
Letter · Verbatim
English translation, 1953
now they are reluctant when they see they receive no trinkets for their ears of corn.
— Luis de Quirós, Generosity and the absence of exchange goods (September 12, 1570)
while up till now the Indians whom we met on the way would give to us from their poverty, now they are reluctant when they see they receive no trinkets for their ears of corn.
— Luis de Quirós, Jesuit priest, letter from the Chesapeake Bay region, September 12, 1570 (trans. Clifford M. Lewis and Albert J. Loomie, 1953)
The situation described in the excerpt best illustrates which of the following?
- Native peoples dealt with the newcomers through their own customs of exchange
- Native peoples came to depend on European food after their harvests failed
- European crops replaced maize in Native fields during the sixteenth century
- Spanish officials collected regular tribute from the towns around the bay
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (A) Native peoples dealt with the newcomers through their own customs of exchange
- Eastern Woodlands peoples had long traded food and goods through gifts and exchange, and they expected the newcomers to take part in that system.
- The dependence ran the other way: the Jesuits had little food and needed Native corn.
- Maize remained the staple crop of the Chesapeake peoples, and the English found them growing it in 1607.
- Spain held no towns on the Chesapeake, so it could not demand tribute there as it did in Mexico.
Skill: Identify a pattern among developments
Question 10
Read the source
Letter · Verbatim
English translation, 1953
We find the land of Don Luis in quite another condition than expected… …not because he was at fault in his description of it, but because Our Lord has chastised it with six years of famine and death
— Luis de Quirós, A changed country: famine, not a faulty description (September 12, 1570)
We find the land of Don Luis in quite another condition than expected, not because he was at fault in his description of it, but because Our Lord has chastised it with six years of famine and death, which has brought it about that there is much less population than usual.
— Luis de Quirós, Jesuit priest, letter from the Chesapeake Bay region, September 12, 1570 (trans. Clifford M. Lewis and Albert J. Loomie, 1953). Don Luis was the baptismal name of the mission's Native guide.
Quirós's explanation for the conditions he describes most clearly reflects which of the following?
- Native leaders' claim that the newcomers had brought a curse on the land
- Spanish reports that blamed English raiders for the region's hunger
- A plan to persuade the crown to give up its mission to the Chesapeake
- A Christian view that read disasters as signs of God's judgment
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (D) A Christian view that read disasters as signs of God's judgment
- Quirós reported Native leaders asking the Jesuits to stay, and the explanation of the famine is his own.
- No English ships reached the Chesapeake until 1607, decades after this letter.
- Quirós and Segura asked for supplies so the mission could continue, not for the crown to abandon it.
- As a Jesuit priest, Quirós explained hunger and death as divine punishment, as many Europeans of his time interpreted disasters.
Skill: Explain a source's point of view
Question 11
Read the source
Letter · Verbatim
The chief told the boy to stay and he would treat him well and hold him as a son.
— Juan Rogel, reporting Alonso, The chief’s care, as Rogel records it (Care after February 1571)
The chief's offer in the excerpt is best understood in the context of which of the following?
- Spanish laws that required Native leaders to protect Christian children
- Native leaders' acceptance of Spanish rule after the mission was founded
- Native customs of bringing outsiders into their communities as kin
- English efforts to win Native allies against Spain in the Chesapeake
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (C) Native customs of bringing outsiders into their communities as kin
- Spanish law had no force on the Chesapeake, where Native nations governed themselves.
- Men from the bay had just killed the missionaries, which shows rejection of Spanish authority, not acceptance.
- Many Eastern Woodlands peoples adopted captives and strangers as kin, and Powhatan leaders later took in English boys to learn their language.
- The English did not arrive until 1607, more than thirty years after this offer.
Skill: Explain how a development fits a broader context
The Account
August 1572
Question 12
Read the source
Letter · Verbatim
I believe many of them were killed, and this was done without any knowledge of mine until it happened.
— Juan Rogel, Intervention, denial of knowledge, and a pending punishment (August 28, 1572)
By way of farewell, the pilot steered the ship towards land with the excuse that he wanted to speak to them, and then he ordered a blast from the arquebuses into the group of Indians who were standing crowded together on the shore. I believe many of them were killed, and this was done without any knowledge of mine until it happened.
— Juan Rogel, Jesuit priest, letter to Francis Borgia, head of the Jesuit order, August 28, 1572 (trans. Clifford M. Lewis and Albert J. Loomie, 1953)
Rogel most likely wrote the final sentence of the excerpt in order to do which of the following?
- Ask the Spanish crown to punish the pilot for disobeying his orders
- Show his superior in the order that he had no part in the killing
- Urge the Jesuits to send armed guards with their future missions
- Assure readers that the people on the shore had already surrendered
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (B) Show his superior in the order that he had no part in the killing
- Rogel wrote to the head of the Jesuit order, not to the crown, and he had no command over the ship's crew.
- Writing to the head of the Jesuits, Rogel separated himself from an attack on the people the order hoped to convert.
- The Jesuits left Florida in 1572 and moved their work to Mexico instead of sending armed missions north.
- The crew fired without warning on a crowd that had gathered on the shore, so no surrender had taken place.
Skill: Explain the purpose of a source
Question 13
Read the source
Letter · Verbatim
English translation, 1953
He is very fluent in the language and had almost forgotten his Spanish.
— Juan Rogel, An interpreter made in the opposite direction (August 28, 1572)
The change described in the excerpt best illustrates which development of the period?
- Some Europeans' adoption of Native languages and ways through close contact
- Missionaries' demands that converts give up their own Native languages
- The decline of Native languages as Spanish rule spread up the coast
- Spanish schools that taught the sons of Native nobles to speak Castilian
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (A) Some Europeans' adoption of Native languages and ways through close contact
- Over time Europeans and Native Americans adopted useful parts of each other's cultures, and Europeans who lived among Native peoples often became interpreters.
- Spanish missionaries in Mexico learned Nahuatl and other languages to preach, instead of making converts abandon theirs.
- Spain held no lasting posts north of Florida, and Native languages stayed in daily use along the coast.
- Friars did teach some sons of Native nobles in Mexico, but here a Spaniard learned a Native language, the opposite direction.
Skill: Explain a historical development
Question 14
Read the source
Source testimony · Verbatim
When the chief stood in the presence of the Admiral and saw Father Rogel and Brother Villareal and me dressed like those whom they had slain, he was thunderstruck and thought we had risen from the dead. The Admiral told him to bring him Don Luis in three days; if not, they would all be killed. … Since he did not come back at the appointed time, he hanged them all from the yardarms of the ship. Previously Father Rogel had baptized the chief and his men. (p. 139)
— Juan de la Carrera, Carrera’s echo: risen from the dead (March 1, 1600, recalling 1572)
The events described in the excerpt are best understood as evidence of which of the following?
- Spain's success in using missions to win lasting Native allies
- Native leaders' acceptance of Christianity as the basis for alliance
- English competition that forced Spain to abandon its Florida posts
- Spain's limited power over Native peoples beyond its core colonies
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (D) Spain's limited power over Native peoples beyond its core colonies
- The mission had been destroyed and Spain was punishing the bay's people, the opposite of a lasting alliance.
- The captives were baptized as prisoners facing execution, which shows Spanish coercion, not a Native choice of alliance.
- Spain kept its colony at St. Augustine, and England founded no lasting colony in North America until Jamestown in 1607.
- Spain could raid the bay and kill captives but could not seize the men it wanted or keep a mission there, and it made no further attempt to settle the Chesapeake.
Skill: Support an argument using specific evidence
Another Arrival
1606–1607
Question 15
Read the source
Textbook · Verbatim
To finance trade voyages more safely, Europeans developed a new type of enterprise, the joint-stock company, a business owned by a large number of investors. If a voyage failed, investors lost only what they had invested. By reducing individual risk, joint-stock companies encouraged investment, thereby promoting economic growth.
— John J. Newman and John M. Schmalbach, United States History: AP Edition, Period 1 (Topics 1.1, 1.4, 1.5 and 1.7) (2020)
The development described in the excerpt contributed most directly to which of the following?
- England's first permanent colony in North America, founded in 1607
- Portugal's voyages down the coast of West Africa in the 1400s
- The encomienda grants that rewarded the Spanish conquerors of Mexico
- The Spanish crown's founding of Catholic missions in Florida
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (A) England's first permanent colony in North America, founded in 1607
- The Virginia Company of London, a joint-stock company chartered in 1606, raised money from investors to found Jamestown in 1607.
- Prince Henry and the Portuguese crown sponsored those voyages long before the first English joint-stock companies of the mid-1500s.
- Encomiendas were royal grants of Native tribute and labor, not shares sold to investors.
- Spain's Florida missions relied on the crown and the Church, not on shares sold to private investors.
Skill: Explain a causal relationship
Question 16
Read the source
Royal charter · Verbatim
or which are not now actually possessed by any Christian Prince or People
— James I, First Charter of Virginia, The First Charter’s Christian-possession clause (10 April 1606)
The language of the charter in the excerpt reflects which European assumption?
- The pope had divided North America between Spain and Portugal
- Settlers needed the consent of Native leaders before they could settle
- Native peoples who converted could keep their lands under English law
- Christian rulers could claim lands that non-Christian peoples held
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (D) Christian rulers could claim lands that non-Christian peoples held
- England rejected the papal division behind the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) and claimed North American land for itself.
- The charter made no mention of Native consent and granted land on the king's authority alone.
- The charter offered no protection for the lands of Native converts; it granted territory to the company.
- The charter counted only Christian rulers as owners, so it treated land held by Native nations as open to an English claim.
Skill: Explain a source's point of view
Question 17
Read the source
Written account · Verbatim
of their bread which they make of their Maiz or Gennea wheat, they would not suffer us to eat unlesse we sate down
— George Percy; staged reading, The hosts insist that the guests sit (30 April 1607 / printed 1625)
[April 26, at Cape Henry] At night, when wee were going aboard… …charged vs very desperately in the faces, hurt Captaine Gabrill Archer in both his hands, and a sayler in two places of the body very dangerous. [April 30, at Kecoughtan] …of their bread which they make of their Maiz or Gennea wheat, they would not suffer us to eat unlesse we sate down
— George Percy, English colonist, describing two encounters on Chesapeake Bay in April 1607; account printed by Samuel Purchas, 1625
Taken together, the two passages best support which conclusion?
- Native peoples near the bay had no earlier contact with Europeans
- Native communities on the bay chose different responses to newcomers
- English settlers had already won control of the towns around the bay
- Hospitality showed Native acceptance of the English king's 1606 claim
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (B) Native communities on the bay chose different responses to newcomers
- Spanish ships had visited the bay in the 1560s and a Spanish mission stood there in 1570 and 1571, so its peoples knew Europeans before 1607.
- Native towns on the bay attacked, fed or bargained with the English as their leaders judged best, using both force and diplomacy to protect their interests.
- The English had arrived only days earlier, and Native nations still controlled the land around the bay.
- Sharing food was a Native custom of welcome and diplomacy, and the bay's peoples had not accepted any English claim to their land.
Skill: Compare two pieces of evidence
Final Review
1491–1607
Question 18
Read the source
Textbook · Verbatim
To finance trade voyages more safely, Europeans developed a new type of enterprise, the joint-stock company, a business owned by a large number of investors. If a voyage failed, investors lost only what they had invested. By reducing individual risk, joint-stock companies encouraged investment, thereby promoting economic growth.
— John J. Newman and John M. Schmalbach, United States History: AP Edition, Period 1 (Topics 1.1, 1.4, 1.5 and 1.7) (2020)
Europeans learned about many new plants and foods, including beans, corn, sweet and white potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco. These food items transformed the diet of people throughout Eurasia and touched off rapid population growth in regions from Ireland to West Africa to eastern China. … But while the Columbian Exchange led to population growth in Europe, Africa, and Asia, it had the opposite effect in the Americas. Native Americans had no immunity to the germs and the diseases brought by Europeans, such as smallpox and measles.
— John J. Newman and John M. Schmalbach, historians, United States History: AP Edition, 2020
Which of the following would best support the excerpt's argument about the effects of the Columbian Exchange in the Americas?
- English accounts praising the healthy climate of the North American coast
- Records of silver shipped from Veracruz to Seville during the 1500s
- Spanish tribute counts from central Mexico that fell sharply after 1520
- Letters from Spanish missionaries describing Native religious ceremonies
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (C) Spanish tribute counts from central Mexico that fell sharply after 1520
- English promoters praised the climate to attract settlers, which says nothing about Native deaths from disease.
- Silver shipments measure Spanish revenue, not the size of the Native population.
- Tribute counts tracked the number of Native households, so their steep fall after the epidemics that began in 1520 measures population loss directly.
- Descriptions of ceremonies show religious life, not the scale of epidemic losses.
Skill: Support an argument using specific evidence
Question 19
Read the passage
To control them, the Spanish used the encomienda system in which Spain’s king granted natives who lived on a tract of land to individual Spaniards. These Indians were forced to farm or work in the mines. The fruits of their labors went to the Spanish, who in turn had to “care” for the Indians.
— John J. Newman and John M. Schmalbach, historians, United States History: AP Edition, 2020
Which of the following developments in the 1500s most directly challenged the system described in the excerpt?
- The Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided new lands between Spain and Portugal
- Crown reform laws issued after friars protested abuse of Native workers
- The arrival of English Protestant settlers in the Chesapeake Bay region
- Native revolts that drove the Spanish out of central Mexico for a generation
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (B) Crown reform laws issued after friars protested abuse of Native workers
- The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) settled Spanish and Portuguese claims and said nothing about Native labor.
- After friars such as Bartolomé de las Casas condemned the abuses, the New Laws of 1542 barred Native slavery and limited new encomienda grants, though colonists' protests weakened them.
- English settlers reached the Chesapeake in 1607 and had no say over labor in Spain's colonies.
- Spain crushed Native uprisings such as the Mixtón War of 1540 to 1542 and kept control of central Mexico.
Skill: Explain a causal relationship
Question 20
Read the source
Letter · Verbatim
Don Luis abandoned them, since he did not sleep in their hut more than two nights…
— Juan Rogel, relaying Alonso’s testimony, Departure and the destruction of the mission (August 28, 1572)
After they arrived there, Don Luis abandoned them, since he did not sleep in their hut more than two nights nor stay in the village where the Fathers made their settlement for more than five days.
— Juan Rogel, Jesuit priest, retelling what the mission's one Spanish survivor told him, letter of August 28, 1572 (trans. Clifford M. Lewis and Albert J. Loomie, 1953). Don Luis was the baptismal name of the mission's Native guide.
Which of the following most limits the use of the excerpt as evidence of why the guide left the mission?
- It reports a Spanish boy's account, with no explanation from the guide
- It was written by an English rival who wanted to discredit Spanish missions
- It was written before the mission reached the Chesapeake Bay in 1570
- It relies on Native testimony that a translator might have changed
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (A) It reports a Spanish boy's account, with no explanation from the guide
- Rogel recorded what a Spanish boy told him, so the departure appears only from the missionaries' side and the guide's own reasons do not survive.
- Rogel was a Spanish Jesuit writing to the head of his own order, and England had no presence on the bay until 1607.
- Rogel wrote in August 1572, after the mission had been destroyed and the boy rescued.
- Rogel's information came from a Spanish survivor, not from Native witnesses speaking through a translator.
Skill: Explain how a source's situation limits its use
Question 21
Read the source
AP course guide · Verbatim
Responses that do not earn this point: … Only restate or rephrase the prompt. … Examples that do not earn this point: Provide a historically defensible claim, but do not establish a line of reasoning • “The United States gained a lot of territory during this period.”
— College Board, AP U.S. History Scoring Guidelines: Row A (Thesis/Claim), Decision Rules and Scoring Notes (2026)
Responses that do not earn this point: • Are not historically defensible. • Only restate or rephrase the prompt. • Do not respond to the prompt. • Do not establish a line of reasoning. • Are overgeneralized.
— College Board, AP U.S. History Course and Exam Description, 2026, scoring guidelines for the thesis/claim point
A student is asked to explain the effects of transatlantic voyages from 1491 to 1607. Under the guidelines in the excerpt, which claim would earn the point?
- Transatlantic voyages from 1491 to 1607 had a number of important effects that historians continue to study.
- Voyages gave Spain full control of North America by 1607, because epidemics had ended Native resistance there.
- Epidemics and forced labor cut Native numbers after 1492, yet Native nations still limited European control.
- Transatlantic voyages changed life in the Americas a great deal, affecting a great many people in many places.
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (C) Epidemics and forced labor cut Native numbers after 1492, yet Native nations still limited European control.
- This claim only restates the prompt; it names no effect and offers no line of reasoning.
- This claim is not defensible: in 1607 Native nations still held most of North America, and Spain had failed on the Chesapeake.
- This claim names specific effects and qualifies them with a limit, which makes it defensible and sets up a line of reasoning.
- This claim is overgeneralized; it names no specific effect and explains no cause.
Skill: Make a historically defensible claim
Question 22
Read the source
Abridged eyewitness narrative · Verbatim
…faire meddowes and goodly tall Trees, with such Fresh-waters running through the woods, as I was almost rauished at the first sight thereof.
— George Percy; abridged by Samuel Purchas, Percy: delight ashore (April 26, 1607 · printed 1625)
there wee landed and discouered a little way, but wee could find nothing worth the speaking of, but faire meddowes and goodly tall Trees, with such Fresh-waters running through the woods, as I was almost rauished at the first sight thereof.
— George Percy, English colonist, on landing at Cape Henry on Chesapeake Bay, April 26, 1607; account printed by Samuel Purchas, 1625
Before Europeans arrived, Native societies in the region the excerpt describes most commonly supported themselves in which of the following ways?
- Following bison herds across open grasslands as mobile bands
- Farming maize and hunting and fishing from permanent villages
- Watering maize fields with canals dug through a dry landscape
- Living mainly on salmon and other ocean resources in coastal towns
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (B) Farming maize and hunting and fishing from permanent villages
- Mobile, bison-centered ways of life developed on the Great Plains, not in the forests and rivers of the Chesapeake.
- Chesapeake peoples, like many Eastern Woodlands societies, grew maize, beans and squash near permanent villages and also hunted, fished and gathered.
- Canal irrigation was an adaptation to the arid Southwest, where peoples such as the Hohokam watered their crops.
- Societies that relied mainly on salmon and the sea lived in the Pacific Northwest, not along the Chesapeake.
Skill: Explain a historical development
Question 23
Read the source
Retrospective eyewitness narrative · Verbatim
In which mines many of vs did profite and gaine greatly…
— Miles Philips; collected by Richard Hakluyt, Philips: English overseers and profit (Later witness · account printed 1589)
Afterwards many of vs were by our masters appointed to go to sundry of their Mines where they had to doe, and to be as ouerseers of the Negroes and Indians that laboured there. In which mines many of vs did profite and gaine greatly: for first we were allowed three hundred Pezos a man for a yeere, which is threescore pound sterling
— Miles Philips, English sailor held in New Spain, on English prisoners sent to the Spanish silver mines in the 1570s; account printed in Richard Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 1589
The silver produced in mines like those in the excerpt contributed most directly to which development in Europe?
- Rapid population growth fed by maize and potatoes from the Americas
- A decline in Spanish spending on wars against rival European powers
- Growth in trade and banking that aided Europe's shift toward capitalism
- A return of feudal lords' power over the peasants of western Europe
Answer and reasoning
Answer: (C) Growth in trade and banking that aided Europe's shift toward capitalism
- American crops did feed later population growth, but that came from new food, not from silver.
- Spain spent its American silver on long wars against France, the Dutch rebels and England.
- American silver enlarged the supply of money for trade and lending across Europe, which helped speed the shift from feudalism toward capitalism.
- Silver-fueled commerce weakened the old feudal economy based on land instead of restoring it.
Skill: Explain a causal relationship
Advanced Placement