CHAPTER 4 Slavery, Freedom, and the Struggle for Empire to 1763
TEST BANK
Learning Objectives
1. Explain how African slavery differed regionally in eighteenth-century North America.
2. Identify the factors that led to distinct African–American cultures in the eighteenth century.
3. Identify the various meanings of British liberty in the eighteenth century.
4. Identify the concepts and institutions that dominated colonial politics in the eighteenth century.
5. Explain how the Great Awakening challenged the religious and social structure of British North America.
6. Explain how the Spanish and French empires in America developed in the eighteenth century.
7. Describe the impact of the Seven Years’ War on imperial and Indian–white relations.
Multiple Choice
1. Olaudah Equiano
a. wrote the eighteenth century’s most widely read autobiographical account of a slave’s own experiences.
b. was popular with Europeans for telling them that their culture was far superior to that of Africans like
himself.
c. demonstrated in his writings that he perfectly fit the stereotype that blacks were savages incapable of
becoming civilized.
d. led several Central American slave insurrections before his death that prevented the plantation system from
entering the region.
e. was one of the few children of African-American and Native American descent ever to be the chief of his
Indian tribe.
2. What made Olaudah Equiano an atypical slave?
a. He was fortunate enough to escape.
b. He went directly from West Africa to Virginia.
c. He survived the Middle Passage voyage.
d. He led a rebellion.
e. He was able to purchase his freedom.
3. Olaudah Equiano’s life underscored what eighteenth-century theme?
a. Slavery was going to continue to grow without the possibility of ending.
b. It was ironic that some men in the British colonies were slaves while others had their rights expanded.
c. The British and French empires were on a collision course in North America.
d. Most Christian ministers opposed the enslavement of Africans.
e. Slaves accepted their condition of bondage with little to no resistance.
4. What did the British acquire from the Netherlands in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713?
a. sufficient gold to pay off the British national debt
b. the right to trade at Dutch outposts in what is now South Africa
c. the right to transport slaves from Africa to Spain’s New World colonies
d. New Netherland, which was then renamed New York
e. New Holland, which later became known as Australia
5. What area was the major producer of revenue for the British crown in the eighteenth century?
a. New England
b. the Middle Colonies
c. the Caribbean
d. Benin
e. North Africa
6. What was the significance of sugar, rice, coffee, and tobacco in the eighteenth century?
a. The ease of growing these crops meant that fewer slaves needed to be imported from Africa.
b. These products were the first mass consumer goods in international trade, and they were all produced by
slaves.
c. They were imported to the New World in massive quantities due to the region’s failure to produce such
goods.
d. They were staples whose importance paled in comparison to fish, rum, and indigo in the world market.
e. They could only be grown in the West Indies, allowing the traders in that area to become massively
wealthy.
7. As a result of the transatlantic slave trade, what European products became especially popular in Africa?
a. textiles and guns
b. wine and gold
c. sugar and tobacco
d. lumber and fish
e. cotton and books
8. Which of the following is a true statement about the Atlantic slave trade’s effect in West Africa?
a. It had little effect in West Africa, because more than 90 percent of enslaved people came from East Africa.
b. It helped lead to the rise of militarized states in West Africa, whose large armies preyed upon their
neighbors in order to capture slaves.
c. It encouraged the expansion of West Africa’s domestic textile industry, which supplied clothing for slaves.
d. It led to an increase in West Africa’s population during the 1700s, as slave traders encouraged women to
have more children who would then be sold into slavery.
e. It successfully united West African nations to resist European slave traders, who reluctantly ended the trade
by 1763.
9. What was the significance of Ashanti and Dahomey?
a. Portugal controlled these trade ports in Asia.
b. Europeans controlled these African cities.
c. These African states became powerful through the slave trade.
d. These port cities refused to participate in the slave trade.
e. Olaudah Equiano’s father was chief of these kingdoms.
10. Which of the following was a result of Europeans selling weapons to West African leaders?
a. Wars between West African societies depleted the availability of slaves.
b. West African societies fell under the total control of powerful European traders.
c. Militarized states arose that used European weapons to capture slaves.
d. West African militias began violently resisting attempts by Europeans to purchase slaves.
e. Most West African tribes became impoverished due to the high cost of weapons.
11. What was the Middle Passage?
a. the journey from East Africa to West Africa
b. the third leg of the triangular trade route; it primarily went to Europe
c. a voyage across the Pacific Ocean to America
d. the second leg of the trans-Atlantic trade
e. the voyage taken by indentured servants
12. Which one of the following statements describes conditions experienced by those aboard ship during the
Middle Passage?
a. Slave traders’ lives were more at risk than the lives of the enslaved due to the high frequency of slave
revolts during the journeys.
b. Slaves were immediately put to work performing the many duties required to take a sailing vessel across the
Atlantic.
c. Slaves were separated by gender and locked into pens above deck, with no refuge from the weather.
d. Slaves were inhumanely crowded into very small spaces and often chained to the deck.
e. Slaves regularly exercised and were well fed so that they would arrive at markets in the New World looking
strong and healthy.
13. In the Chesapeake region, slavery
a. was geographically restricted to the Tidewater area until transportation improved in the nineteenth
century.
b. rapidly became the dominant labor system after 1680.
c. was the labor system preferred by planters as early as the 1620s.
d. allowed planters to make vast profits from cotton and rice as well as from tobacco.
e. was so widely practiced that nearly three-fifths of white households in 1770 included a slaveowner.
14. What proportion of white Virginia families owned at least one slave in 1770?
a. nearly 10 percent
b. nearly 50 percent
c. nearly 75 percent
d. nearly 1 percent
e. nearly 90 percent
15. What differentiated slavery in New England and the Middle Colonies from slavery in the Southern colonies?
a. Whereas most Protestant churches in New England and the Middle Colonies promoted slavery,
Protestant churches in the South condemned the practice.
b. Whereas New England and the Middle Colonies only had indentured servants as laborers, the South
predominantly had slavery.
c. Whereas New England and the Middle Colonies had nonplantation-based slavery, slavery in the South
focused on the tobacco- and rice-based plantation systems.
d. Whereas New England and the Middle Colonies only had slaves who worked in homes, the South only had
slaves who worked on large plantations, not on small farms.
e. Whereas New England and the Middle Colonies had laws in place regarding slavery, the South had no laws
regulating the status of slaves.
16. Tobacco plantations in the Chesapeake region
a. were so profitable that by the mid-eighteenth century their owners became the wealthiest people in British
North America.
b. did not have any slaves on small farms.
c. helped make the Chesapeake colonies models of mercantilism.
d. were far less successful than tobacco plantations that developed in the lower southern colonies.
e. were known throughout the world as models of how slaves should be treated.
17. Where did most Chesapeake slaves work?
a. in the woods, as hunters
b. in mines
c. on boats, as boatmen
d. in white households, as cooks
e. in the fields
18. As the slave society consolidated in the Chesapeake region, what happened to free blacks?
a. They retained the same rights because they were free.
b. Their population grew rapidly through natural reproduction.
c. The British government ordered the colonies to treat them better.
d. They bought increasing numbers of plantations.
e. They lost the right to employ white servants and to bear arms.
19. Which statement is true about slavery in the Chesapeake region?
a. As slavery expanded, wealth among the white population became more equally distributed.
b. Race became an increasingly important social division.
c. Most enslaved men worked in skilled crafts.
d. Most enslaved women worked in households doing domestic work.
e. Enslaved people in the Chesapeake mainly did field work on rice plantations.
20. As slavery became more commonplace in the Chesapeake, how were free blacks affected?
a. Free blacks were not required to pay taxes.
b. All free blacks were forced back into slavery.
c. Free blacks could continue to employ white servants, but forfeited the right to bear arms.
d. Free blacks became an increasingly large population in Virginia.
e. In 1723, Virginia revoked property–owning free blacks’ right to vote.
21. Prior to the introduction of rice, the early colony of South Carolina was partially centered on
a. the cultivation of cotton.
b. small-scale manufacturing of firearms for use in raids against Spanish Florida.
c. the export of Indian slaves to the Caribbean.
d. shipbuilding.
e. copper mining.
22. The development of rice plantations in South Carolina
a. occurred only after the colony’s planters unsuccessfully attempted to cultivate tobacco, sugarcane, and
indigo.
b. required such large capital investments that Carolina’s planters never became as wealthy as those in the
Chesapeake region.
c. would have proven impossible without the importation of thousands of European indentured servants to
serve as a labor force.
d. led the colony to become the first mainland colony with a black majority and caused a growing divide to
exist between white and black.
e. is considered by most historians to be the most important cause of the Yamasee War.
23. In which of the following settings did slaves experience the greatest degree of freedom?
a. frontier conditions
b. small inland cities
c. coastal cities
d. rice plantations
e. tobacco plantations
24. Which of the following statements accurately describes the “task” system?
a. It developed in New England among factory workers, especially child laborers.
b. It allowed slaves time for leisure or to cultivate crops on their own if they completed daily jobs.
c. It was not suited for rice plantations, only small farms.
d. It was an organizational tool primarily used by merchants to keep track of their many responsibilities.
e. It required no supervision because of the isolated aspect of the work involved.
25. In South Carolina,
a. the slave population was the smallest of all the southern colonies.
b. sugar and tobacco were the main crops.
c. most enslaved people did field work under the task system, whereby individual slaves were assigned daily
tasks.
d. rice plantations were generally much smaller than Virginia tobacco plantations.
e. slaveowners were generally much less wealthy than slaveowners in other southern colonies.
26. Why did the English government support the establishment of the Georgia colony?
a. It wanted to ban slavery.
b. The English feared a French invasion of the South.
c. The English wanted a buffer between South Carolina and Spain’s Florida.
d. It wanted a colony to grow rice.
e. It wanted another colony that would focus on tobacco as a cash crop.
27. Which of the following statements was true of Georgia?
a. Colonists sought self-government to gain the right to introduce slavery.
b. It was the only colony to maintain a ban on liquor until independence.
c. The philanthropists who founded it wanted to exclude lower-class Englishmen.
d. Its residents invaded Florida and took it from Spain in the War of Jenkins’ Ear.
e. It was named for the most important British queen of the eighteenth century.
28. Why was slavery less prevalent in the northern colonies?
a. Northern whites were not as racist as southern whites.
b. It was too expensive to transport slaves to the North.
c. The small farms of the northern colonies did not need slaves.
d. More reformers lived in the North.
e. The northern colonies used Indian labor instead.
29. Which of the following statements accurately describes slavery in the North in the eighteenth century?
a. Slaves in the New England colonies were afforded significant rights, including the ability to testify against
whites in court.
b. Most upper-class families in New England owned five to ten slaves because they were vital to the economy.
c. Slaves were forbidden from taking jobs in artisan shops, which were reserved for white apprentices.
d. The slave population in New York City was never more than one percent of the white population.
e. In urban areas, owning slaves was viewed as more economical than hiring wage labor and indentured
servants.
30. What was a result of the northern colonies’ lack of a cash crop?
a. Slavery did not exist in Massachusetts and New York.
b. More slaves existed in the northern colonies compared to southern ones.
c. Slavery was banned in all of New England.
d. Slavery was not as integrated into the northern colonial economy as compared to the South.
e. The northern colonial economies struggled with trade and attracting settlers.
31. Which statement is true about slavery in eighteenth-century New York?
a. Hudson Valley farmers, landlords, and craftsmen never used enslaved people’s labor in the eighteenth
century.
b. Slavery was abolished after the English took the colony from the Dutch.
c. New York City passed a law banning merchants from participating in the slave trade after 1730.
d. In 1746, enslaved people made up one-fifth of the population of New York City.
e. Slaves worked exclusively as domestic workers.
32. What led to slavery decreasing in Philadelphia after 1750?
a. Quakers pushed to outlaw slavery.
b. There were no cash crops in Philadelphia.
c. Many slaves escaped to New England.
d. A smallpox epidemic killed thousands of slaves.
e. Artisans and merchants turned more to wage laborers.
33. What was the most significant bonding factor for the diverse groups of Africans brought to the mainland
colonies?
a. religion
b. race
c. language
d. slavery
e. culture
34. Which of the following statements about slaves in the New World and religion is accurate?
a. West African–born slaves, like their families back home, rejected the concept of a single “Creator of all
things.”
b. Because West African societies had no native religions, slaves were very open to the message of
Christianity.
c. As time went on, many slaves adopted elements of Christianity while maintaining aspects of traditional
African beliefs.
d. The majority of North American slaves came to the colonies already practicing Christianity.
e. Early slaves in the Americas tended to do away with traditional African religions due to the traumas of
slavery.
35. Who were yeoman farmers in the mid–eighteenth century?
a. freed African-American slaves who owned their own farms
b. white farmers in the North who owned slaves to help work the fields
c. young farmhands who worked with older farmhands, much like apprentices
d. small landowners who usually farmed their own land and did not own slaves
e. slaves who worked on large cotton plantations in the South
36. The development of African-American cultures that synthesized diverse African cultures with European
elements and the conditions of enslaved peoples’ lives in America
a. happened uniformly throughout the North American colonies.
b. only happened in the northern colonies.
c. only happened in the southern colonies.
d. developed differently in each of the three North American slave systems.
e. never happened in North America.
37. What religion did the majority of enslaved African people in North America practice in the eighteenth
century?
a. Catholicism
b. Islam
c. Judaism
d. traditional African religions
e. Protestantism
38. Which of the following statements is true of eighteenth-century slavery in South Carolina and Georgia?
a. The laws in those colonies created a very static institution with few differences among plantations, small
farms, and cities.
b. Plantation slaves enjoyed far more autonomy than they did in other colonies, allowing them to maintain
more of their African culture.
c. Because of the high death rates of Africans due to malaria, slave populations declined by 5 to 10 percent per
decade during the 1700s.
d. Because the governments of South Carolina and Georgia strictly enforced laws preventing sexual contact
between whites and blacks, a significant population of racially mixed individuals never developed.
e. Colonial law gave freedom to any slave who successfully escaped to Charleston or Savannah.
39. Which of the following factors was significant in creating three distinct African–American cultures in
British North America by the mid–eighteenth century?
a. identification with one of three distinct African nations depending on the colony
b. the outlawing of slavery throughout the northern colonies
c. a lack of any religious beliefs and practices among American slaves
d. the fact that, for most of the eighteenth century, most American slaves were born in the Americas
e. a range in American slaves’ proximity to white culture depending on the region
40. How did the enslaved tend to pursue freedom in the American colonies in the 1700s?
a. running away to places where they could pass as free
b. presenting petitions to colonial governments
c. telling their stories to the congregations of Protestant churches
d. suing for freedom in courts of law
e. forming alliances with Native American tribes
41. Which of the following statements accurately describes South Carolina’s Stono Rebellion?
a. The Native Americans who participated in the rebellion were granted large tracts of land along the frontier
as a result.
b. Historians agree that the rebellion never actually occurred and is one of the most successful known hoaxes
in American history.
c. The rebellion sparked fears among whites and led to a severe tightening of the South Carolina slave
code.
d. The rebellion resulted in legislation that made the importation of slaves easier than ever and vastly
increased the number of slaves in the South.
e. Casualties were greater among whites than slaves, leading half of the slaves in South Carolina to be
banished to South America.
42. The 1741 panic in New York City that led to thirty-four executions was sparked by
a. a declaration of war by the Spanish empire.
b. the seizing of the New York armory by the British.
c. a rally of boisterous Irish.
d. the imprisonment of twenty free blacks.
e. a series of fires breaking out throughout the city.
43. What is one result of the expanding British patriotic sentiment in the eighteenth century?
a. Common citizens became increasingly outspoken regarding their hatred of slavery.
b. As many as twenty different languages flourished in London thanks to Britain’s commitment to linguistic
diversity.
c. The economy slid rapidly into decline.
d. Britain saw itself as the ultimate Catholic power.
e. Modern rules for cricket, the national sport, were created.
44. In the eighteenth century, British freedom
a. centered on the belief that all people of the world have equal rights.
b. was closely identified with Protestantism and identified nearly every other nation as a slave to Catholicism,
tyranny, or barbarism.
c. was a secular view of liberty that required that religion and politics be completely separate.
d. was based on the idea that all men should vote regardless of class status.
e. fueled a successful abolitionist movement in England.
45. As the eighteenth century progressed, how did Britain view itself in contrast to France?
a. as a humble nation that shied away from patriotism in all ways
b. as a staunch defender of Catholicism
c. as a land with a lower standard of living than the colonies
d. as a state that lacked foreign foes
e. as a realm of widespread prosperity and individual liberty
46. Which of the following statements accurately describes the British concept of liberty in the eighteenth century?
a. It allowed for unrestrained government authority, since restraints would contradict the very idea of liberty.
b. It argued that liberty and power would always be compatible.
c. It celebrated the idea of absolutism and prized the role of the monarch above all else.
d. It had the fewest freedoms compared to other European countries.
e. It included both formal restraints on authority and a collection of specific rights.
47. “Republicanism” in the eighteenth–century Anglo-American political world emphasized the importance of
________ as the essence of liberty.
a. protecting the natural rights of all humans
b. active participation in public life by property-owning citizens
c. a strong central state
d. supporting royal authority as opposed to parliamentary authority
e. voting rights for all adult men
48. The set of political ideas that scholars refer to as “republicanism”
a. celebrated active participation in public life by all people regardless of economic status.
b. held that only property-owning, economically independent citizens should participate in public life.
c. had little influence on the political culture of the American colonies.
d. called for the abolition of slavery.
e. called for the abolition of colonialism.
49. What was the significance of the “Country Party”?
a. Their support for absolute monarchies inspired those who would remain Loyalists during the American
Revolution.
b. Their criticism of Puritans resulted in Britain rescinding the original Massachusetts charter.
c. Their writings warned against the tendency of political power to threaten liberty and were popular in the
American colonies.
d. Their promotion of British mercantilism influenced British economic policy throughout the eighteenth
century.
e. Their attempts to seize the property of the landed gentry in England resulted in stricter rules of free
assembly in the American colonies.
50. Which of the following individuals embodies the colonial understanding of republican virtue?
a. a silversmith who is successful enough to open his own shop
b. a lower-class farmer struggling to survive
c. a planter who serves on his town council
d. a slave who resists working because he or she wants to be free
e. a housewife who raises a large family of respectful children
51. Which of the following is an example of the eighteenth–century understanding of liberalism?
a. a slave legally challenging his or her bondage
b. a government founded on a system of checks and balances
c. a person choosing what church he or she will attend
d. a government creating a fund to help feed the poor
e. a woman being given the right to vote in an American colony
52. The idea of liberalism in eighteenth-century British politics
a. had the same meaning as liberalism in twenty-first-century American politics.
b. had mainly a public and social quality.
c. brought great wealth and power to its main voice, John Locke.
d. was compatible with inequalities in wealth and well-being.
e. dismissed the existence of natural rights.
53. Which of the following was a key difference between republicanism and liberalism?
a. Republicanism viewed social inequality as innate to society, while liberalism considered inequality as solely
evidence of poor governance.
b. Republicanism stressed active participation in public life, while liberalism focused on individual rights that
were essentially private.
c. Republicanism emphasized the equality of property owners and non–property owners, while liberalism
rejected the idea of the “social contract” and the existence of “natural rights.”
d. Republicanism embraced a limited role for government, while liberalism saw the government as having a
role in enforcing public morality.
e. Republicanism was the first political school of thought to oppose slavery, while liberalism considered
slavery essential to the liberty of white men.
54. Both republican and liberal systems of thought felt the foundation of freedom was
a. public debate.
b. monarchical rule.
c. education.
d. slavery.
e. security of property.
55. It is estimated that between ________ percent of adult white men could vote in eighteenth-century colonial
British America.
a. 5 and 10
b. 25 and 40
c. 33 and 50
d. 50 and 80
e. 75 and 90
56. How did American colonial politics compare with British politics?
a. British politics were more democratic in all ways, as a higher percentage of the population had voting
rights.
b. Colonists tended to agree with the British that voting rights were tied to property ownership.
c. Most American colonies, unlike Britain, at least allowed propertied women to vote.
d. Elections in American colonies involved a broader range of issues because most Native Americans could
vote.
e. Colonial politics proved far more corrupt until the Licentiousness Act of 1694.
57. What statement is true of suffrage in the eighteenth-century American colonies?
a. Property ownership was the most important qualification in colonial voting laws.
b. All thirteen colonies held the same voting requirements, indicating their sense of nationalism.
c. A far smaller portion of the population was eligible to vote when compared with the Old World.
d. Women were forbidden from voting in all colonies.
e. American birth was a voting requirement in most colonies.
58. In the eighteenth century, how did the number of men eligible to vote in Britain compare to the number of men
eligible to vote in the American colonies?
a. It was approximately equal because Britain controlled the American colonies.
b. It was more than ten times greater in America due to the wide distribution of property.
c. It was vastly different because the practice of voting did not yet exist in Britain.
d. It was only slightly higher in Britain because British governmental systems had been in existence longer.
e. It was more than ten times greater in Britain because more men there had an economic stake in society.
59. Property qualifications for holding office
a. were the same in every colony as they were for voting.
b. meant that women served regularly in colonial legislatures.
c. meant that the landed gentry wielded considerable power in colonial legislatures.
d. existed for legislators but not for judges, who were esteemed for their legal ability.
e. disappeared from Parliament before they were eliminated by colonial legislatures.
60. Who would be most likely to hold the position of legislator in South Carolina in 1750?
a. a tailor
b. a planter
c. a carpenter
d. a minister
e. a yeoman farmer
61. Eighteenth-century colonial government officeholders
a. were usually members of elite families with large landholdings.
b. kept in close touch with their constituents between elections.
c. were mostly skilled artisans.
d. did not have to own property to hold office.
e. generally encouraged freedom of the press.
62. What was “salutary neglect”?
a. the aspect of the task system that involved little oversight of slaves
b. the requirement that colonial legislatures only meet when absolutely necessary
c. the failure to salute British officers as a punishable offense for colonists
d. the same thing that “child neglect” means today
e. the British government’s policy of leaving the colonies largely to govern themselves
63. During the eighteenth century, colonial assemblies
a. lost political power to colonial governors.
b. remained purely advisory bodies to the royal governor.
c. became more assertive.
d. concentrated on the patronage system.
e. rejected the theories of the English Country Party.
64. Which of the following made knowledge and ideas increasingly available in eighteenth–century colonial
cities?
a. the advent of the telegraph
b. circulating libraries
c. taxpayer-funded public schools
d. visiting lecturers from Europe
e. the radio