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Difficulty: MediumThe Columbian Exchange

Source: Toribio de Benavente Motolinía, a Spanish Franciscan missionary, *History of the Indians of New Spain*, 1541.

'God struck this land with ten terrible plagues... The first was a plague of smallpox, which broke out at the time when Pánfilo de Narváez arrived in this land... As the Indians did not know the remedy for this disease and were accustomed to bathe frequently, they died in heaps, like bedbugs. In many places it happened that everyone in a house died, and, as it was impossible to bury the great number of dead, they pulled down the houses over them, so that their homes became their tombs.'

Which of the following developments in the Americas was a direct long-term consequence of the demographic trends described in the excerpt?

  1. An increased Spanish reliance on imported African laborers to meet the demand for agricultural and mining labor.Answer
  2. B
    The introduction of new Old World staple crops, such as maize and potatoes, which restored indigenous population levels.
  3. C
    The voluntary conversion of the encomienda system into a network of cooperative, wage-paying agricultural farms.
  4. D
    The political unification of all North and South American indigenous groups into a single empire to combat Spanish expansion.

Answer

The correct answer is the option stating that Spanish colonizers increasingly relied on imported African laborers to meet labor demands in plantations and mines.
The correct answer is correct because the massive mortality rates among indigenous populations from Old World diseases like smallpox severely depleted the native labor force. To sustain their colonial economy, Spanish colonizers increasingly turned to the transatlantic slave trade to import enslaved African laborers.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the source to identify the primary historical phenomenon described.
The source describes the catastrophic demographic collapse of the indigenous population in New Spain due to the introduction of smallpox.
Understanding the immediate impact of European diseases on native populations establishes the context for subsequent labor shifts.
2
Evaluate the options to identify which direct long-term consequence resulted from this demographic collapse.
The drastic reduction of the native population depleted the primary labor source for Spanish colonial agricultural and mining enterprises, prompting the Spanish to look elsewhere for labor.
This connects the epidemiological impact of the Columbian Exchange to its labor and economic consequences.
3
Identify the correct option that reflects this labor transition.
The correct option is the one stating that the Spanish turned to importing enslaved Africans to meet labor demands.
The transition from indigenous to African labor is a key structural shift in the Atlantic world resulting from the Columbian Exchange.

Key Concept

The demographic and labor impacts of the Columbian Exchange, specifically the introduction of Old World diseases and the resulting transition to African slave labor.
Estimated Time:1m 15s
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Topics

The Columbian Exchange

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