Deck 17: The Atlantic System and Its Consequences, 1700-1750

Question 1

Explain the relationship between the Atlantic system and the development of consumer society.

Answer 1

Answer would ideally include the following. The Atlantic system involved sending ships loaded with goods to Africa, where they would be traded for slaves. Slaves were then transported to the Americas where they worked on plantations that produced coffee, sugar, cotton, and tobacco. These products were then shipped back to Europe, where they revolutionized consumption patterns for ordinary people and fueled the development of a new consumer society. Plantation staples brought fabulous wealth that was also used to increase consumption of a range of luxury goods.

Question 2

How did the gender imbalance in the colonies increase the risks a European woman faced if she immigrated to the colonies as an indentured servant?

Answer 2

Answer would ideally include the following. The gender imbalance among immigrants was pronounced but declined from the end of the seventeenth century. Women who committed themselves to indentured servitude entered into an unbreakable contract to work for an individual in the Americas for several years. Women indentured servants ran great risks of disease, and about 20 percent of women who emigrated as indentured servants had illegitimate children.

Question 3

How did improvements in agriculture and the decline of the plague pave the way for a consumer revolution in the early eighteenth century?

Answer 3

Answer would ideally include the following. Better weather and improved agricultural techniques produced more and better-quality food. Coupled with the disappearance of the plague, these factors meant that fewer people died every year, which in turn led to about a 20 percent increase in population between 1700 and 1750. This growth increased the demand for both necessities and luxury products, which provided greater opportunities for merchants and shopkeepers, even allowing them to set up specialty shops that in turn promoted greater consumption of the available goods.

Question 4

Why did the agricultural revolution in England favor wealthy landowners over small-scale farmers?

Question 5

In what ways were social status and circumstances easy to recognize in urban settings?

Question 6

What were the consequences of the War of the Spanish Succession?

Question 7

How was Ireland affected by its support for James II of England?

Question 8

Who was Sir Robert Walpole, what position did he hold, and why was this important for the future of British constitutional government?

Question 9

Why was the 1722 Table of Ranks an important step toward Russian royal absolutism?

Question 10

In what sense was the Enlightenment an outgrowth of the new science? How was it different?

Question 11

Why did slavery based on racist ideology not develop until more than 150 years after the first African was transported to the Americas? How did economic changes affecting Europe and the colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries affect the development of this ideology?

Question 12

Discuss how the growing wealth and population of European countries in the eighteenth century affected existing social and cultural patterns. Be sure to consider the role that the Atlantic system, agricultural innovations, and the emergence of the middle class played in these developments.

Question 13

Why was religious skepticism a source of great concern to European political authorities during the early years of the Enlightenment? Why didn't political authorities embrace religious reform movements such as Jansenism? In your answer, consider the ways in which new genres such as travel writing could be used to raise questions about the assumed superiority of European Christian beliefs.

Question 14

What factors explain Britain's growth in power during the eighteenth century? Why did the influence and the power of the Dutch decline during this time?

Question 15

The "woman question" was hotly debated during the eighteenth century, as authors discussed the abilities and characteristics of women. Discuss the arguments put forth by those who defended women's capabilities and by those who opposed them.

Question 16

By the 1700s, most slaves were purchased from

A) Africa.
B) Brazil.
C) Portugal.
D) the Caribbean.

Question 17

During the eighteenth century, most slaves ended up working on plantations that produced which of the following?

A) Wheat
B) Sugar
C) Spices
D) Corn

Question 18

Which of the following best characterizes the process of the Atlantic system during the eighteenth century?

A) Slaves were traded from Africa to European nations to work primarily as domestic servants or in factories producing textiles and sewing garments to be sold by department stores.
B) Slaves were traded from Africa to colonies in the Americas and the Caribbean, where they worked on plantations producing commodities that were exported to Europe for processing.
C) Slaves were traded from Africa to colonies in the Americas and the Caribbean, where they would work for low wages for a set amount of time and then be freed.
D) Slaves were traded from Africa to Asia, where they would work as assistants to merchants, helping facilitate trade of porcelain, silk, tea, and spices.

Question 19

Plantations in the New World can best be described as

A) small plots of land, mostly in Central and South America, that were worked by native Americans and produced cash crops such as potatoes.
B) small family-run farms that were worked with assistance from European indentured servants and produced high-yield cash crops.
C) large tracts of land owned by colonial settlers from western Europe that were farmed by slave labor and produced staple crops.
D) large government-owned farms that were worked by both slaves and indentured servants and produced a wide variety of crops, which were then sent to Europe.

Question 20

In the 1740s, which of the following regions would most likely export coffee to Europe?
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A) Angola
B) Peru
C) Brazil
D) Indonesia

Question 21

This map of European trading patterns c. 1740 demonstrates that, by the middle of the eighteenth century,
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A) Asia was almost entirely imperialized by European powers.
B) seventeenth-century mercantilism was widely adopted in Europe.
C) European powers had settled the entirety of the Americas.
D) Christianity had expanded to all the world's settled colonies.

Question 22

Why did plantation slavery replace indentured servitude as the major economic anchor of the Atlantic system?

A) African slaves were more docile, while indentured servants were always trying to rebel and disrupt the Atlantic economy.
B) African slaves were better able to withstand the heat of the Caribbean climate and died off in fewer numbers than European indentured servants.
C) Nearly all indentured servants were women, making them unsuitable for the type of agricultural labor that fed the Atlantic economy.
D) African slave labor was cheaper than indentured servants, allowing plantations to produce mass quantities of commodities at low prices.

Question 23

Which of the following goods played an essential role in the Atlantic economy and the expansion of European consumer society?

A) Potatoes
B) Wool
C) Sugar
D) Corn

Question 24

What determined the balance of white and Black populations in each of the New World colonies?

A) The staple products that a particular colony produced
B) The climate and tropical diseases that Europeans could not withstand
C) The laws governing slave labor in a particular colony
D) The colony's proximity to Africa

Question 25

What lasting impact did the slave trade and the plantation system have on Europe?

A) They encouraged many more Europeans to go to the colonies to find work.
B) They put many European farmers out of business by undercutting their prices.
C) They permanently altered consumption patterns for ordinary people.
D) They introduced African products and goods into Europe for the first time.

Question 26

By the eighteenth century, many Europeans began to try to provide a rationale for the institution of slavery based predominantly on what grounds?

A) Religious beliefs, as many asserted that African "heathens" deserved to be enslaved
B) The purported mental and spiritual inferiority of African people
C) Historical precedent, pointing to slavery as a "natural" practice that dated back to ancient Rome
D) The claim that contact with European religion and culture had a civilizing effect on so-called primitive peoples

Question 27

Children of Spanish men and Indian women were called

A) mestizos.
B) caballeros.
C) quilombos.
D) oroonokos.

Question 28

After some two hundred years of tolerating and even supporting piracy, why did the English and Dutch governments suddenly try to stamp it out around 1700?

A) It became increasingly hard to retain maritime personnel for the unpleasant work on slave ships when sailors had the option of a more lucrative life as pirates.
B) Protestant governments in particular began to look upon their association with such "criminal elements" as antithetical to cherished Christian values.
C) The presence of an increasing number of women travelers gave rise to growing clamor for their protection from possible mistreatment by pirates.
D) English, Dutch, and French bands of sailors began to form associations of pirates, especially in the Caribbean, that preyed indiscriminately on shipping lines of every national origin.

Question 29

The population explosion that took place in Europe around the turn of the eighteenth century can be attributed to

A) a massive rise in the birthrate throughout Europe and fewer deaths in infancy and childhood due to better prenatal health care.
B) a marked growth in the prosecution of infanticide, which had been prevalent across the European continent before the eighteenth century.
C) a decline in the death rate thanks to better weather, improved agricultural techniques, and the disappearance of the plague.
D) mestizo children and the offspring of Europeans and African slaves being counted as "European" in census tallies for the first time.

Question 30

Which of the following was a consequence of the early-eighteenth-century consumer revolution in Europe?

A) Millions of Europeans lost their jobs as the influx of colonial products reduced the need for European-made goods.
B) The demand for consumer goods such as housewares rose dramatically as ordinary people gained more disposable income, leading to job creation.
C) The gap between rich and poor widened dramatically as the wealthy became conspicuous consumers, while the poor could not afford to buy goods.
D) Productivity and wealth decreased as a result of the influx of goods like coffee and opium that promoted leisure and often led to intoxication.

Question 31

What factors contributed to Britain's agricultural revolution in the 1700s?

A) The selective breeding of animals, the planting of fodder crops, and an increase in the amount of land under cultivation
B) The discovery of new chemical agents that were more effective at reducing the impact of pests on crops
C) The invention of new machinery, particularly plows and reapers, which improved agricultural efficiency
D) The introduction of new crops imported from the New World, particularly potatoes and corn

Question 32

What controversial agricultural practice in England that eliminated community grazing rights normally required an act of Parliament?

A) The open-field system
B) Selective livestock breeding
C) Enclosure
D) The use of mechanized machinery

Question 33

What was the most populous city in Europe in 1750?

A) Vienna
B) Paris
C) St. Petersburg
D) London

Question 34

What sorts of professions made up the developing urban middle classes of the eighteenth century?

A) Landed nobles, political leaders, and high court judges
B) Government officials, merchants, professionals, and small landowners
C) Artisans, shopkeepers, and those organized in professional guilds
D) Journeymen, apprentices, servants, and laborers

Question 35

Why did clothing develop special importance in eighteenth-century cities?

A) As the economy faltered and people had less income to spend on clothing, they relied on mass-produced materials and styles.
B) As urbanization progressed and cities became dirtier, the upper classes adopted simpler, more utilitarian clothing, which led to a blending of social classes.
C) Clothing became a reliable indicator of people's social status and occupation, further distinguishing the social classes.
D) In response to the church's complaints about consumerism, a large segment of the upper classes adopted a monastic style of dress.

Question 36

Who were the main consumers of the new upsurge in books, pamphlets, and periodicals in the eighteenth century?

A) The urban middle classes
B) The newly literate lower classes
C) The upper-class elite
D) Government officials and clergy

Question 37

Which of the following was characteristic of the rococo style of painting that developed in the eighteenth century?

A) The importance of monumental, emotional grandeur and large-scale works
B) A focus on symmetrical shape and simplicity of form
C) The depiction of scenes of intimate sensuality and a decorative quality
D) The importance of piety and religious themes and an extreme emphasis on detail

Question 38

Why did George Frideric Handel infuse operatic drama with a religious theme in his 1741 oratorio Messiah?

A) To win over the bishop of London, who was attempting to eliminate music from church services
B) To introduce opera into Britain for the first time
C) To enliven what he saw as dry and stodgy church liturgy
D) To combine musical materials into a dramatic form that would touch the emotions of the new concert-going public

Question 39

In England, Eliza Haywood was one of a number of eighteenth-century women who showed that they could succeed as

A) proprietors of coffeehouses.
B) merchants selling tea and coffee.
C) newspaper reporters.
D) novelists.

Question 40

Which of the following is true of the seventeenth-century Protestant revival known as Pietism, which became popular in the German Lutheran states, the Dutch Republic, and Scandinavia?

A) It promoted a fatalist belief in the imminent end of the "corrupt and evil" world by fire.
B) It rejected all congregational or group functions, churches, or clerics, advocating a deeply private, individualistic form of prayer and devotion.
C) It encouraged a deeply emotional, even ecstatic religious experience as well as participation in daily catechism instruction and frequent prayer meetings.
D) It advocated intensive Bible study and the use of reason to suppress unruly emotions and impulses.

Question 41

The revival of Jansenism, which centered on miracles that allegedly happened at the grave of a Jansenist priest, is evidence of what development within French Catholicism?

A) The desire of ordinary people to connect themselves to what they saw as the direct work of God
B) The pope's ongoing attempts to wrest control of the Catholic church in France from the monarchy
C) Parisians' general ignorance of most of the basic doctrines of Catholicism
D) The Catholic church's reluctance to investigate alleged miracles for fear that doing so would reignite religious hostilities between Protestants and Catholics

Question 42

According to this map, which of the following was a result of the Peace of Utrecht in 1714?
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A) Spain regained control of Gibraltar.
B) The Jacobites engaged in revolt and uprising.
C) The Austrian Empire gained the Kingdom of Naples and Sardinia.
D) Great Britain lost all territorial claims in North America.

Question 43

The peace treaties that ended the War of the Spanish Succession set forth what condition for Philip, grandson of Louis XIV, to be confirmed as king of Spain?

A) Philip had to first repress revolts in Andalusia and Aragon.
B) Philip was required to cancel his plans to marry the Habsburg archduchess Maria Theresa.
C) Philip had to provide massive reparations payments to the French and Habsburg monarchies.
D) Philip had to renounce any future claim to the French throne.

Question 44

What steps did the duke of Orléans (1674-1723), regent to Louis XV, take to shore up France's crumbling finances?

A) He doubled the land tax, leading to widespread protests in rural areas throughout the kingdom.
B) He canceled plans for further colonial expeditions in the New World.
C) He founded a state bank to help the government service its debt, only to see the bank crash within a few months in the wake of a speculative bubble.
D) He imposed high tariffs on British agricultural imports, particularly wool and cotton textiles.

Question 45

In the Act of Union of 1707, Scottish Protestant leaders abolished the Scottish Parliament and agreed to obey the Parliament of Great Britain

A) because they feared the threat of Jacobitism in Scotland.
B) in support of Queen Anne's suppression of a Scottish-Catholic revolt.
C) to make official the shift in power that had occurred long before.
D) because Queen Anne had promised them sinecures and seats as peers in the House of Lords.

Question 46

What steps did England take to reduce Catholic Ireland to the status of a British colony in the wake of the Jacobite uprising of 1689?

A) England began systematically importing Irish Catholics to work as indentured servants for British families.
B) England used Catholic forced labor to exploit Ireland's natural resources without any compensation for the use of land and materials.
C) England began sending prisoners to Ireland, using it as a prison colony much like Australia.
D) England confiscated Catholic lands and imposed laws limiting the rights of Catholics, including their right to educate their children and participate in politics.

Question 47

Although in Britain's constitutional system the monarch ruled with Parliament, power was still contained within a very small elite in the eighteenth century. What was the reason for this?

A) The middle and lower classes had little interest in politics, as they were more concerned with the new consumer revolution.
B) Only a few hundred thousand propertied men could vote, and most members of Parliament came from the landed gentry.
C) Both Protestant and Catholic churches encouraged believers to stay out of politics to avoid rekindling the conflicts that had fed the English civil war.
D) Since so small a percentage of the population was literate at that time, even those who wanted to engage in politics had little means to do so.

Question 48

The legacy of Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745) can be described as the establishment of which of the following?

A) A professional British diplomatic service through the creation of the office of foreign secretary and an extensive network of embassies around the world
B) The first public elementary school system in Europe
C) An enduring pattern of parliamentary government in which a prime minister from the majority party guided legislation through the House of Commons
D) The first, albeit rudimentary, social security system in the Western world

Question 49

How did the Dutch respond to their decline in international affairs and manufacturing during the eighteenth century?

A) They withdrew completely from international politics and trade and focused exclusively on domestic affairs.
B) They began to expand their efforts at settler colonialism, particularly in Africa and North America.
C) They shifted their interest away from international power politics and began to focus on areas of trade and finance where they could establish an enduring presence.
D) They refocused their energy and monetary resources into the arts, leading to the second golden age of Dutch art.

Question 50

What was one of the most significant steps in Peter the Great's project to Westernize Russia?

A) Appointing a chief minister of French origin who managed court affairs, made political appointments, and oversaw mercantile policy
B) Making up for the lack of a Russian middle class by encouraging noblewomen to learn foreign languages and become involved in science, education, and trade
C) Undertaking extensive colonization efforts in Africa to obtain the raw materials that provided so much of western Europe's wealth
D) Founding new technical and scientific schools for elites that were run by Western officials

Question 51

How did the Russian tsar Peter the Great's imposition of the Table of Ranks in 1722 affect Russian society?

A) It divided the Russian nobility into compulsory military, administrative, and judicial service categories.
B) It assigned a complex hierarchy to the Russian courtiers in his court as a means of regulating their frequently bloody competition for high office.
C) It upset the fledgling entrepreneurial class in Russia, encouraging a damaging drain of talent to the West.
D) It upset the leaders of the Russian Orthodox church, as it placed the tsar above the church patriarch in both secular and religious matters.

Question 52

Peter the Great expanded Russia to include
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A) Estonia.
B) Poland-Lithuania.
C) Prussia.
D) Finland.

Question 53

What state had the best-trained and most up-to-date military force in Europe, despite being smaller than those of its rivals?

A) Great Britain
B) Russia
C) France
D) Prussia

Question 54

The 1748 Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which recognized the right of Charles VI's daughter Maria Theresa to inherit Habsburg lands, ended which European war?

A) The War of the Austrian Succession
B) The War of the Polish Succession
C) The Franco-Prussian War
D) The Thirty Years' War

Question 55

How were ambassadors chosen for the new diplomatic services that France and other European states created in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries?

A) They were discovered through a national exam that promoted government bureaucrats with exceptional language skills.
B) They were trained from a young age in schools that were designed specifically to prepare diplomats.
C) They were chosen from among nobles of ancient families and royal officials who could pay for their own staff.
D) They were selected by the host country from among a list of expatriates of the home country.

Question 56

Although the publication of William Petty's Political Arithmetick in 1690 raised governments' interest in public health as an element of state power, it had little effect on the health of most people because

A) the new state-run hospitals were more like prisons than places to get well.
B) medicine was not a unified practice, the causes of disease were not known, and many people were not treated.
C) municipal officials refused to implement state health policies, protesting that such policies would raise local taxes too much.
D) most people were too poor to buy the new medicines that had been developed from products discovered in the Far East or the Americas.

Question 57

In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, doctors viewed insanity not as an emotional ailment but as a physical one caused by

A) an imbalance of bodily humors.
B) quinine toxicity.
C) metabolic nervosity.
D) consumption.

Question 58

Enlightenment writers saw the solution for all social problems in which of the following systems of thought?

A) Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy
B) Absolute monarchy
C) The scientific method
D) The reform of Christian religious institutions

Question 59

In his campaign for greater toleration, French Huguenot refugee Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) published his Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697), which

A) strove to highlight Protestantism's superiority to Catholicism and the injustice of its suppression in France.
B) included an analysis of the non-Christian philosophies of Plato and Aristotle so as to reveal superior aspects of their theories.
C) listed the errors and delusions of an entire host of writers on religion in an effort to show that religions must be held accountable to reason.
D) was an attempt to offer clear definitions of commonly used religious terms that Bayle felt were too often misunderstood, a contributing factor to religious intolerance.

Question 60

What did critics of the Enlightenment find so dangerous about the new intellectual movement?

A) Its proponents encouraged amateur scientific exploration, which led to dangers such as unlicensed surgeons and pharmacists.
B) Its proponents actively supported lower-class revolt against factory owners and wealthy elites.
C) Its proponents discouraged formal education by placing enormous value on the self-taught individual.
D) Its proponents subjected everything to criticism and challenged both political and religious authority.

Question 61

How did the French government respond to Voltaire's Letters Concerning the English Nation, published in the early 1730s?

A) Voltaire received the patronage of the king.
B) Voltaire was protected from prosecution by Catholic church officials.
C) The state ordered his arrest.
D) The state called for his execution.

Question 62

In his 1721 book Persian Letters, the baron of Montesquieu (1689-1755) used what genre of writing to satirically explore good government and morality?

A) Dramatic theater
B) The serialized novel
C) Travel literature
D) Literary criticism

Question 63

Why was the Enlightenment a key historical moment in the discussion of the "woman question" in European society?

A) It was the first time that women writers had published books in Europe and were considered part of intellectual society.
B) Feminist ideas were presented systematically for the first time, representing a fundamental challenge to traditional ways of society.
C) The Enlightenment emphasis on reason and scientific inquiry proved that women were not capable of higher education.
D) Male Enlightenment writers fully embraced feminism, and women's emancipation became a major platform of the movement.

Question 64

How did Mary Astell's A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694) challenge the subservient roles traditionally ascribed to women?

A) It advocated the founding of a private women's college to remedy women's lack of education.
B) It called for sweeping reforms of English divorce and inheritance laws.
C) It argued for the establishment of writers' colonies where women could work in peace, free from the constraints of men and family.
D) It called for the widespread adoption of contraception and other family planning measures as a way of empowering women.

Question 65

Which of the following statements about Europe by 1750 is supported by this map?
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A) Significant amounts of conflict occurred in the Holy Roman Empire for nearly all of the 1740s.
B) Great Britain expanded its empire by seizing territories within the Holy Roman Empire.
C) Poland-Lithuania began to encroach on Russian territory, despite Peter the Great's efforts to expand Russia.
D) France established itself as a Catholic nation and became part of the Holy Roman Empire.