The Slave Trade Practice Test

A Portuguese trader describes purchasing captives from African intermediaries near the Kongo region in the 1700s, noting that local rulers sought European firearms, cloth, and prestige goods. The trader claims Europeans rarely penetrated far inland and depended on African political networks to supply captives. Which interpretation best aligns with the trader’s description?

A historian notes that between 1500 and 1800 European powers increasingly justified African enslavement by emphasizing “racial” difference, hereditary status, and supposed biological inferiority, even as Christian conversion became less central to legal definitions of bondage. This shift helped harden slavery into a permanent, inheritable condition in Atlantic colonies. Which change best matches the historian’s argument?