Topic 1 AP Exam Practice
Multiple-Choice Questions
Questions 1 to 3 refer to the passage below.
“The English in India had always been somewhat more detached from the indigenous environment than the Dutch in Indonesia. After the 1780s, their isolation gradually intensified and became obvious with the decline in status of Eurasian Anglo-Indians. . . . The club became the center of British social life in India and the other Asian colonies during the Victorian era. In clubs, one could feel like a gentleman among other gentlemen while being served by a native staff. . . . The large clubs of Calcutta remained closed to Indians until 1946. This type of color bar was especially disturbing because it excluded from social recognition the very people who had carried their self-Anglicizing [becoming more like the British] the furthest and loyally supported British rule. . . .
In most regions of Africa . . . the Europeans saw themselves as foreign rulers separated from the African cultures by an abyss. . . . A process of great symptomatic significance was the rejection of the highly educated West Africans who had worked with the early mission. They had envisioned the colonial takeover as an opportunity for a joint European-African effort to modernize and civilize Africa. Instead, they were now, as ‘white Negroes,’ despised by all.”
Jurgen Osterhammel, Colonialism, 1997
1. Which theory did Europeans use most directly to justify the social patterns described in the passage?
- (A) Social Darwinism
- (B) Pan-Africanism
- (C) Popular sovereignty
- (D) Laissez-faire capitalism
2. Which statement best provides the context for the racial policies described in the passage that shaped imperialism in India and Africa?
- (A) In both places, the English did not encourage highly educated native people to prepare for self-rule.
- (B) In both places, a smooth transition of power helped the highly educated native people gain political power.
- (C) In both places, social clubs were the meeting places for native people planning to fight for self-rule.
- (D) In both places, the colonizers finally began to respect educated natives, thus weakening their own colonial rule.
3. The context for the European attitudes noted in the passage was that
- (A) most Americans told the British that “all men are created equal”
- (B) some scientists claimed Europeans were a biologically superior race
- (C) most Indians and Africans preferred to create non-British clubs
- (D) some Europeans wanted native people to leave India and Africa
Short-Answer Questions
1. Use the passage below to answer all parts of the question that follows.
“Gentlemen, we must speak more loudly and more honestly! We must say openly that indeed the higher races have a right over the lower races. . . .
I repeat, that the superior races have a right because they have a duty. They have the duty to civilize the inferior races. . . . In the history of earlier centuries these duties, gentlemen, have often been misunderstood; and certainly when the Spanish soldiers and explorers introduced slavery into Central America, they did not fulfill their duty as men of a higher race. . . . But, in our time, I maintain that European nations acquit themselves with generosity, with grandeur, and with sincerity of this superior civilizing duty. I say that French colonial policy, the policy of colonial expansion, the policy that has taken us under the Empire [the Second Empire, of Napoleon III], to Saigon, to Indochina [French Southeast Asia], that has led us to Tunisia, to Madagascar–I say that this policy of colonial expansion was inspired by . . . the fact that a navy such as ours cannot do without safe harbors, defenses, supply centers on the high seas . . . . Are you unaware of this? Look at a map of the world.”
Jules Ferry, speech on French colonial expansion, 1884
2. Answer all parts of the question that follows.