Question

Complete the passage describing Spanish economic and social systems in the Americas. Society in Spanish-controlled America was both stratified and highly complex: in general, Spanish immigrants, American-born individuals of European descent, and individuals with mixed European, African, and Native American ancestry, known as - , dominated the larger Native American populations. While technically local populations retained ownership of the land, under the - system, the agents of the Spanish government who oversaw these lands exploited them for their own profit. Often they adopted the Inca system of - labor to force locals to work in silver mines.

1. viceroys
2.encomienda
3. mita
4. indentured
5. reconquista
6. Creoles
7. mestizos

Answer 1

Society in Spanish-controlled America was both stratified and highly complex: in general, Spanish immigrants, American-born individuals of European descent, and individuals with mixed European, African, and Native American ancestry, known as mestizos, dominated the larger Native American populations. While technically local populations retained ownership of the land, under the encomienda system, the agents of the Spanish government who oversaw these lands exploited them for their own profit. Often they adopted the Inca system of mita labor to force locals to work in silver mines.

(Answers used: 7. mestizos; 2. encomienda; 3. mita)