Learning Curves (Chapter 20)

In the eighteenth century, a slave was most likely to be transported across the Atlantic by a ship from what country?

England

According to a Dutch visitor from about 1600, Benin City featured

a wide, straight central avenue.

Why did the Portuguese become involved in Ethiopia in the 1540s?

The Portuguese came to Ethiopia because they were asked by the emperor to protect the kingdom.

What was the overall impact of the Portuguese effort to control trade in East Africa?

The Portuguese had a negative economic effect on the region and no other impact.

Who was Prester John?

A mythical Christian king living in North Africa

The Swahili acted as early capitalists in the Indian Ocean trade networks by doing which of the following?

Acting as middlemen in the Indian Ocean-East Africa economy

What role did interracial marriage with African women known as the nhara play in the West African slave trade?

These women acted as go-betweens connecting European and African cultures.

Why are more details known about the end of slaves' journeys from Africa and less is known about the initial raids?

Africans themselves were involved in much of the slave trade.

What brought about the end of the Songhai Empire in 1591?

An attack by the Moroccan army

Why did the Portuguese settle on Angola as the major source for their slave trade in West Africa?

Angola had a large population and geographic proximity to Brazil.

Refer to the image Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size. In this engraving, Queen Ana Nzinga (seated, at center), ruler of the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms of the Mbundu people, meets with the Portuguese governor (seated, at left) at his offices in Luanda in 1622. What is the significance of the seating arrangements featured here?

As a superior, the Portuguese governor expected the queen to sit on the floor.

What were the Portuguese attempting to do when they disrupted the Swahili city-states in the fifteenth century?

Build a maritime empire in the Indian Ocean

How did the people of the southern Swahili city-states undermine Portuguese dominance in the sixteenth century?

By deserting their towns and relocating to northern cities

How did Islam change the Swahili people after the eleventh century?

By providing a unifying identity and a common language

What does the word chattel indicate about the kind of slavery that existed in a slave-owning society?

Chattel slaves were seen as not human but as being equal to beasts of burden.

How did the Portuguese secure alliances and conduct trade in the eastern African cities in the early sixteenth century?

They built fortified markets and trading posts.

Why did Portuguese merchants in Angola and Brazil try to limit the flow of slaves from Africa to Brazil?

They did not want to depress the American market.

Which of the following statements best describes the role that the Americas played in the triangle trade?

Colonies received African slaves in exchange for raw materials.

What were the age-grade systems of traditional stateless societies in Senegambia intended to provide?

Community-wide loyalty that transcended class or family

Which of the following statements reflects the position of Ethiopia in the sixteenth century?

Ethiopians were threatened by the Portuguese, the Ottomans, and the Galla people.

Which statement describes the process of shore trading in the African slave trade?

European ships obtained slaves from African dealers.

How was Benin affected by the slave trade that began in the late fifteenth century?

Grew rich from it

What was the significance of the oba (king) Ewuare of Benin in the late fifteenth century?

He expanded Benin to the Niger River.

How did free blacks living in London in the eighteenth century create their own subculture?

They formed black-owned businesses and social groups.

Refer to this passage from ibn-Fartura, who wrote about the governance of Idris Alooma (r. 1571-1603), ruler of Kanem-Bornu: "Among the most surprising of his acts was the stand he took against obscenity and adultery, so that no such thing took place openly in his time. Formerly the people had been indifferent to such offences. . . . In fact he was a power among his people and from him came their strength. The Sultan was intent on the clear path laid down by the Qur'an . . . in all his affairs and actions." For what reason does ibn-Fartura praise Idris Alooma?

His adherence to Islam

How did Swahili rulers deal with the Portuguese threat to their independence in the fifteenth century?

In a variety of ways

Which of the following statements describes slavery in West African society before the transatlantic slave trade was established?

In some places slaves were considered chattel property, but in others slaves could not be bought and sold and their descendants could be born free.

Which of these was an important feature of West African society?

Intense competition for women

Which statement is true of Islam in the kingdom of Songhai during the rule of Muhammad Toure?

Islam never took root in the countryside.

Which of the following was characteristic of the expansion of Islam in Songhai, Kanem-Bornu, and the Hausa city-states?

Islam thrived at the top levels of society but had no impact on the masses.

What changed about the Benin office of oba by the seventeenth century?

It became more spiritual than military in purpose.

What happened to the population of the western coast of Africa as a result of the slave trade?

It became predominantly female.

How did the tsetse fly affect West African agriculture?

It caused diseases in draft animals, which hindered plowing.

Why did European slave traders prefer shore trading to maintaining factory-forts?

It was more flexible and profitable.

Which of the following helped to end the Muslim occupation of Christian Ethiopia in 1543?

Joint military force of Ethiopian and Portuguese soldiers

Which statement best describes the relationship between the Ethiopians and the Galla (now known as Oromo) people?

They lived side by side in an uneasy truce, and conflict erupted continually.

What significance did low agricultural productivity in Africa have for the development of the transatlantic slave trade?

Low productivity meant that Africans' labor had lower value in Africa than in the Americas.

Which statement characterizes slavery in the Cape Colony from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries?

Marriage and family life were almost nonexistent for slaves.

What finally ended the Portuguese presence on the east coast of Africa, except for Mozambique?

Pressure from the Dutch, French, and English

Why did an association develop between blackness and menial slavery in the Muslim and Arab worlds?

Racial perceptions came to color views of slavery.

What cultural tradition exacerbated the generational conflict for wives in West Africa?

Respect for elders clashed with the value placed on young men's labor.

Which of the following is an argument against the validity of the pan-European insider-outsider ideology?

Russian boyars treated their serfs with harsh brutality.

Refer to the map West African Societies, ca. 1500-1800 to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size. What does the map of West Africa indicate about the significance of Songhai and Kanem-Bornu in African trade networks?

They served as a middle trading region between the Sahara and the West African coast.

Which statement characterizes slavery in the Cape Colony from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries?

Slaves had few opportunities to earn manumission, or freedom.

How did Muhammad Toure of Songhai use slaves to bolster royal finances?

Slaves were allowed to own property but could not pass it on.

Refer to the figure Estimated Slave Imports by Destination, 1501-1866 to answer the following question. Click the figure to view full-size. Based on what you know about the major products exported from the regions shown in this pie chart, about 80 percent of Africans transported to the Americas between 1501 and 1866 were going to work directly or indirectly in what industry?

Sugar production

The trans-Saharan slave trade connected West Africa to what distant region in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries?

The Balkans

Why did the Ibo societies thrive even though tens of thousands of their people were exported by the British?

The Ibo had a high birthrate.

Why were Jesuit missionaries a problem for Ethiopia in the seventeenth century?

The Jesuits tried to convert the Ethiopian people to Catholicism.

How did the transatlantic slave trade impact the Kongo kingdom?

The Kongo monarchy was undermined by Portugal's constant need for slaves.

Refer to the following passage from Olaudah Equiano, an eighteenth-century former slave living in the new United States: "The closeness of the place and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died. . . . This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable, and the filth of the necessary tubs [of human waste], into which the children often fell and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women and the groans of the dying rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable." What is Equiano describing in this excerpt?

The Middle Passage

What was one of the social consequences of the loss of two-thirds of African males who were exported to the Americas?

The institution of marriage was weakened.

What problem led to the eventual disintegration of the Songhai kingdom?

The murder of Muhammad Toure

Which of the following statements reflects the impact of the slave trade on African states?

The rise of the slave trade weakened some states but strengthened others.

Which of the following statements characterizes the use of most royal slaves in Songhai?

They worked on royal farms producing rice for the royal granaries.

The following excerpt about the Middle Passage is from Olaudah Equiano's memoir of his life in slavery: "This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable, and the filth of the necessary tubs [of human waste], into which the children often fell and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women and the groans of the dying rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable." Which of the following statements reflects the likely purpose of this passage?

To evoke outrage in the reader at the inhuman treatment

How did most white slavers acquire slaves from Africa?

Trade with African dealers

How did slavery in Senegambia differ from the slave system that developed in the Americas?

Unlike the case in the Americas, slavery was not inherited in some societies in Senegambia.

Refer to the image Below Stairs to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size. This cartoon depicts a household cook, maid, and footman relaxing together before a kitchen fire. It suggests that in eighteenth-century London, most blacks were

free.