Deck 22: Africa and the Atlantic World

Question 1

The chief obstacle to Portuguese control of Angola came from

A)Queen Nzinga.
B)King Afonso I.
C)King Sundiata.
D)Queen Doña Beatriz.
E)King Sunni Ali.

Answer 1

Queen Nzinga.

Question 2

The rise in maritime trade in the early modern era in Africa

A)ironically led to a decrease in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
B)led to the consolidation in the largest imperial states in African history.
C)led to political chaos and the destruction of the traditional African balance of power.
D)resulted in regional kingdoms replacing the imperial states of west Africa.
E)resulted in a new pattern in which the village became the principal political entity.

Answer 2

resulted in regional kingdoms replacing the imperial states of west Africa.

Question 3

A trading post was built at Cape Town in 1652 by the

A)Portuguese.
B)Dutch.
C)Russians.
D)English.
E)French.

Answer 3

Dutch.

Question 4

The first European colony in sub-Saharan Africa was

A)Mozambique.
B)Angola.
C)Zimbabwe.
D)Kanem-Bornu.
E)Kongo.

Question 5

The ruler of the kingdom of Kongo,Afonso I,converted to what religion and encouraged his subjects to convert as well?

A)Islam
B)Antonianism
C)Christianity
D)Judaism
E)Buddhism

Question 6

In an effort to drive the Portuguese out of Ndongo,Queen Nzinga formed an alliance with the

A)Kongolese.
B)kingdom of Axum.
C)kingdom of Zimbabwe.
D)Dutch.
E)kingdom of Mali.

Question 7

In 1505 all the Swahili city-states were subdued by the

A)Portuguese.
B)Spanish.
C)Ottoman Turks.
D)Dutch.
E)English.

Question 8

The Songhay empire fell in 1591 to a(n)

A)Moroccan army.
B)Portuguese army.
C)Dutch army.
D)English army.
E)French army.

Question 9

An alliance with Portugal brought wealth and foreign recognition to Kongo,as well as

A)the right to limit the slave trade.
B)an inroad into European politics.
C)a later alliance with the English.
D)a diplomatic connection to the Spanish.
E)the eventual destruction of the kingdom.

Question 10

King Nzinga Mbemba of Kongo is best known for his

A)rebellion against Portuguese rule.
B)alliance with the British.
C)fascination with Islam.
D)development of a powerful navy.
E)conversion to Catholicism.

Question 11

All Songhay emperors were

A)Zoroastrian.
B)Christian.
C)Muslim.
D)Antonian.
E)traditional animistic.

Question 12

Sunni Ali built a powerful imperial navy to patrol the

A)Niger River.
B)Atlantic Ocean.
C)Mediterranean Sea.
D)Congo River.
E)Indian Ocean.

Question 13

The Black Pioneers were

A)Africans who served as indentured servants in return for land in the Caribbean.
B)escaped slaves who fought to maintain British rule in the North American colonies.
C)former slaves who fought on the colonial side in the American revolution.
D)the most notorious of the slave raiding organizations.
E)members of the First Continental Congress who fought for the abolition of slavery.

Question 14

Thomas Peters was

A)a wealthy plantation owner who became the largest slave owner in the Carolinas.
B)the captain of the first ship to bring slaves to North America.
C)an American congressman who played a key role in drafting legislation to end the slave trade.
D)the author of The Crime of Slavery.
E)central in promoting the establishment of a colony for ex-slaves in Sierra Leone.

Question 15

The most important early city in the Songhay empire was

A)Gao.
B)Timbuktu.
C)Jenne.
D)Mali.
E)Kilwa.

Question 16

When the Dutch founded Cape Town they encountered which of these indigenous groups?

A)Kongolese
B)Khoikhoi
C)Ndongo
D)Zimbabwe
E)Fulani

Question 17

The Portuguese referred to Ndongo as Angola because of the word ngola,which meant

A)"gold."
B)"slave."
C)"impure."
D)"king."
E)"indigo."

Question 18

The center of Islamic learning in west Africa was

A)Kilwa.
B)Jenne.
C)Gao.
D)Timbuktu.
E)Mbanza.

Question 19

What was the massive fortified city in southern Africa that dominated the gold trade in the gold-bearing plain between the Zambesi and Limpopo rivers until the late fifteenth century?

A)Mbanza
B)Cape Town
C)Ndongo
D)Great Zimbabwe
E)Jenne

Question 20

The ruler most responsible for consolidating the Songhay empire was

A)Sundiata.
B)Nzinga.
C)Mansa Musa.
D)Sunni Ali.
E)Afonso I.

Question 21

Throughout most of history,the majority of slaves came from

A)religious obligations to traditional,usually animistic,gods.
B)traditional outcast portions of society.
C)the poor,who were forced to sell themselves into servitude to repay huge debts.
D)renegade members of the royal family.
E)war captives.

Question 22

Islam was most popular in sub-Saharan Africa in

A)the thinly populated rural areas of west Africa.
B)the commercial centers of west Africa and the Swahili city-states of east Africa.
C)areas that had previously had contact with Christian missionaries.
D)poor areas,where payment for conversion had the greatest appeal.
E)areas that had forsaken the traditional religions because of famine or plague.

Question 23

By 1800,the population of sub-Saharan Africa stood at

A)twenty-one million.
B)thirty-four million.
C)forty-five million.
D)sixty million.
E)eighty-four million.

Question 24

The arrival of Europeans

A)halted the slave market,because of Christian rules against slavery.
B)created a slave market where none had existed before.
C)dramatically increased previously existing slave networks.
D)had almost no influence on the slave networks.
E)dramatically decreased the number of Africans sold into slavery.

Question 25

The Fulani

A)were the most feared of the slave raiders who haunted coastal Africa.
B)established the central African kingdom of Ndongo.
C)attempted,through military conquest,to instill a strict form of Islam in Africa.
D)fell victim to Swahili expansion.
E)eventually failed in their mission of spreading Christianity.

Question 26

The first European slave traders were the

A)English.
B)Spanish.
C)French.
D)Dutch.
E)Portuguese.

Question 27

How many Africans were forcefully brought to the Americas as part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade?

A)less than one million
B)one million
C)two million
D)four million
E)twelve million

Question 28

The founder of the religion that stressed that Jesus Christ had been a black man and that Kongo was the true holy land was

A)Doña Beatriz.
B)King Pedro IV.
C)Nzinga Mbemba.
D)Queen Nzinga.
E)Olaudah Equiano.

Question 29

The only place where a slave revolt actually brought about an end to slavery was

A)Peru.
B)Brazil.
C)Saint-Domingue.
D)Cuba.
E)Virginia.

Question 30

One of the factors that made African slavery different from the varieties practiced elsewhere was that

A)African slavery was much more brutal than any other form of slavery.
B)African slavery began much later than slavery in the rest of the world.
C)African slavery was practiced almost entirely for religious rather than financial reasons.
D)African law did not recognize private property,and thus slaves served as a measure of personal wealth.
E)African slavery didn't last very long.

Question 31

Over the course of the entire period of trans-Atlantic slavery,the mortality rate for the middle passage was

A)60 percent.
B)50 percent.
C)25 percent.
D)10 percent.
E)3 percent.

Question 32

The heaviest slave trading took place in the

A)fifteenth century.
B)sixteenth century.
C)seventeenth century.
D)eighteenth century.
E)nineteenth century.

Question 33

Which of the following was NOT an accomplishment of the Fulani?

A)They promoted the spread of Islam from the cities to the countryside.
B)They founded powerful states in Senegal,Mali,and northern Nigeria.
C)They established schools to study the Quran.
D)They strengthened Islam in sub-Saharan Africa.
E)They eliminated the traditional elements of syncretic Islam.

Question 34

During the early modern period in Africa,the basis of social organization continued to be

A)religious organizations of a syncretic nature.
B)kinship groups.
C)paramilitary organizations.
D)guilds.
E)the modern European-style nuclear family.

Question 35

Islam and Christianity usually spread into sub-Saharan Africa

A)because of the failure of Judaism to capture a larger audience.
B)solely because of military conquest.
C)as syncretic versions of the originals.
D)as an uneasy and cumbersome mixture of Islamic and Christian concepts.
E)as religions picked up by runaway slaves.

Question 36

The vast majority of slaves

A)died during the middle passage.
B)were employed in the mines of Central and South America.
C)became domestic servants.
D)were trained for simple,bureaucratic work.
E)provided agricultural labor on plantations.

Question 37

The most important American crop introduced into Africa in the sixteenth century was

A)manioc.
B)tomatoes.
C)maize.
D)peanuts.
E)tobacco.

Question 38

The first European nation to abolish the slave trade was

A)England.
B)Denmark.
C)France.
D)Portugal.
E)Spain.

Question 39

Which of the following is NOT associated with the syncretic religions of Africans in the Americas?

A)Saramaka
B)Voudou
C)belief in spirits and supernatural powers
D)Candomblé
E)African rituals like drumming and dancing

Question 40

As part of the triangular slave trade,Europeans usually picked up slaves in Africa in return for

A)horses and firearms.
B)sugar or molasses.
C)silver from the Americas.
D)European grains.
E)indentured servants.

Question 41

Examine the increasing role of Islam and Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa.In what ways did these religions transform sub-Saharan Africa? What happened to the indigenous religions?

Question 42

Examine the creation of an African-American cultural tradition.How is this culture reflected in religion and other factors?

Question 43

Examine the slave trade.Discuss its African and trans-Saharan roots.What were the economic foundations of the slave trade? Examine the middle passage of the slave trade.Discuss the nature of the journey.What percentage survived the journey?

Question 44

The kings of Kongo converted to Christianity as a way to establish closer commercial relations with Portuguese merchants and diplomatic relations with the Portuguese monarchy.

Question 45

Slaves resisted in numerous ways: slow work,sabotage of equipment,running away,and slave revolts.

Question 46

Queen Nzinga dressed as a male warrior when leading troops in battle and insisted that her subjects refer to her as king rather than queen.

Question 47

Relate the American concept of "life,liberty,and the pursuit of happiness" to slavery.How did these two concepts coexist?

Question 48

The last country in the Americas to emancipate slaves was the United States,in 1865.

Question 49

The most important American food crop brought to sub-Saharan Africa was maize.

Question 50

Like Islam,Christianity would not make compromises with the traditional beliefs and customs of sub-Saharan peoples.

Question 51

The part of the slave trade that was the trans-Atlantic journey was called the "middle passage."

Question 52

Examine the changing nature of African political development in Songhay,the Swahili city-states,and the kingdom of Kongo.Who were the main leaders? What were the most important turning points?

Question 53

As the profitability of slavery declined,Europeans began to shift their investments from sugarcane and slaves to newly emerging manufacturing industries.

Question 54

The slave trade created a sexual imbalance in some parts of Africa.In Angola,this imbalance encouraged the practice of polygamy and forced women to take on duties that had been the responsibility of men.

Question 55

How was Africa influenced by European contact during this period? What were the social implications of this interaction?

Question 56

When talking about the conditions on a slave ship,Olaudah Equiano wrote,"I now wished for the last friend,death,to relieve me." Why was the middle passage so devastating? Discuss the middle passage in detail.

Question 57

Consider the creation of an African-American culture and society.Compare this to other examples of cultural melding.

Question 58

Consider the events leading to the end of the slave trade.What economic factors led to the rise and eventual abolition of the slave trade? Would it have been possible for the slave trade to end earlier than it did? What did the end of the slave trade mean to the slave traders and the slaves?

Question 59

In 1505 a massive Portuguese naval expedition subdued all the Swahili cities from Sofala to Mombasa.

Question 60

Examine the nature and conditions of slavery in the western hemisphere.In what ways did it vary? What were the social and gender implications of slavery?

Question 61

What was the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on the societies of west Africa? Consider social,political,and demographic effects.

Question 62

Examine the picture of Queen Nzinga on page 415.How does her struggle with the Portuguese represent the African response to the Europeans? Was she a typical woman of the age? What role did Doña Beatriz play in the religious world of Africa?

Question 63

Examine the social and political influence of the slave trade on African societies.Were there African societies that benefited from the slave trade?

Question 64

Besides religion,what other changes came to sub-Saharan Africa as a result of increased contact with the outside world?

Question 65

Compare the experience of slaves in the Caribbean,in Brazil,and in North America.

Question 66

What were the objectives of Dutch colonists in south Africa? What kind of colony did they establish? Compare these objectives to the Portuguese objectives in colonizing Angola.

Question 67

Describe both native African resistance to the slave trade and the forms of resistance among African slaves in the Americas.How much success did these efforts have?

Question 68

Compare the institution of slavery within traditional African society with slavery as practiced in Europe and the New World.

Question 69

How was the kingdom of Kongo transformed by its contacts with the Portuguese?

Question 70

Compare the decline of Songhay with the decline of the Swahili city-states of east Africa.

Question 71

In what ways did Islam adapt to the customs and traditions of sub-Saharan Africa? Consider Songhay as an example.Where had strict Islam taken root by the end of the seventeenth century?