Please help me with some AP World History Questions! Thank you so much! (I am practicing on my own with a prep book so it will not be considered as copying)

1) "Evaluate the economic and cultural changes that came to the Kingdom of Kongo from 1450 to 1650." Describe the context that would set the scene for your thesis.

2) Read the following document then answer these two questions in the box below. First, what is the main idea of the document (not just the subject but what the author wants the audience to think about it)? Second, what are the historical situation, point of view, audience, and purpose of this document, and how does each affect your understanding of the document?

"There is, my Lord, another great obstacle to the service of God in our kingdoms. Many of our subjects greatly covet the goods which your men bring in our kingdoms from Portugal. To quench this uncontrollable thirst they kidnap many of our free or freed black subjects, even nobles, sons of noblemen and even our relatives. They sell them to the white men who are in our kingdom after having delivered their prisoners in secret or during the night in order not to be recognized. As soon as the captives are under the white men's power they are branded. This is how they are found by our guards when they board the ships. The white men then explain that they were bought but they cannot say from whom. Yet it is our duty, as the prisoners claim, to do justice and set them free. To prevent such incidents we have decreed that all white men buying slaves in our kingdoms, however it may happen, should first inform three noblemen and officers of our court to whom I entrusted this control. ... They will check whether the slaves are not actually free men. If they are found to be slaves nothing will prevent anyone from having them and taking them aboard. However, should the opposite be true, the captives will be taken away from the white men."

- From King Afonso to King João III, October 18, 1526, in Michael P. Johnson, ed., Reading the American Past, Vol. 1: To 1877, Boston: Beford, /St. Martin's, 2012, p. 19.

3) Now read this document and answer the same questions. First, what is the main idea of the document (not just the subject but what the author wants the audience to think about it)? Second, what are the historical situation, point of view, audience, and purpose of this document, and how does each affect your understanding of the document?

"You . ... tell me that you want no slave-trading in your domains, because this trade is depopulating your country. ... The Portuguese there, on the contrary tell me how vast the Congo is, and how it is so thickly populated that it seems as if no slave has ever left."

- From King João III to King Afonso, 1529, quoted in Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost, New York: Mariner Books, 1998, p. 14.

4) And one more time, write the main idea then describe and analyze the four contextual elements from this more modern source.

"In another letter of 1526 Afonso provided additional information that allows us to reconstruct social categories more clearly. In one part of the letter, Afonso referred to 'nossos filhos, parentes e naturaes' ('our children, relatives, and natives [citizens]'), while elsewhere in the same letter he complained that slave traders were taking away his 'naturaes forros' ('free citizens'). Afonso's language leaves no doubt that Kongo had a group of freeborn commoners. In fact, in a 1529 letter that King João III of Portugal wrote to Afonso in response to complaints Afonso had made about the illegal enslavement of freeborn Kongos, the king referred to 'naturaes ou de fora' ('citizens or outsiders [foreigners]') in summarizing the complaint that Afonso had made about who could be enslaved and who could not be. ...

"Indeed, the majority of the slaves Kongo exported during Afonso's reign and for the rest of the sixteenth century were foreign captives obtained from wars Kongo kings and their Portuguese allies waged against the neighboring Mbundu kingdom of Ndongo or in the region of Pamzelungu across the mouth of the Zaire River, as well as the Anzico region around the Malebo Pool (formerly Stanley Pool) on the river. ... Moreover, in a 1529 letter written by the Portuguese king, João III, to Afonso, João noted that he had heard that 'no slave ever leaves the country [Kongo]' and went on to add that he had been told that slaves 'are ordered to be bought outside.' ...

"Afonso facilitated the trade in slaves by establishing secure markets where Portuguese factors could conduct their business and where his representatives could sell war captives to them. Thus Afonso could continue selling foreign captives and still respect local customs about who could be enslaved.

"Kongo did support a slave population, however, for Afonso noted in his 1514 letter that he had retained some of the slaves he had captured. Besides the foreign captives whom Afonso held as slaves, he and later sixteenth-century kings and other members of the monarchy also held as slaves people born in Kongo who had been condemned for various kinds of crimes. Here, however, rules existed that limited opportunities for the enslavement of freeborn Kongos as well as restricted their sale. ...

"Kongo also had rules that restricted the selling of Kongo subjects. For example in 1526 Afonso wrote to the Portuguese king, João III, noting that the numbers of Portuguese traders bringing goods into Kongo had increased and that they were selling their goods directly to unscrupulous Kongo noblemen who no longer relied on him to supply the imports. He complained that some of his vassals were conniving with the Portuguese and were enslaving Kongo subjects, even noblemen. ...

"The dilemma that the Kongo leadership faced was that, in order to enforce the laws concerning who could be enslaved, Kongo needed to remain a strong state. From the 1590s, however, the Kongo penchant for civil wars weakened the monarchy."

- From Linda M. Heywood, "Slavery and Its Transformation in the Kingdom of Kongo," The Journal of African History 50, no. 1 (2009): 4-6. Ms. Heywood is a professor of African History and the History of the African Diaspora at Boston University. As she wrote, "This article was first presented in 2007 at a conference held at the University College of London in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the ending of the Atlantic slave trade."

5) What other thoughts or questions do you have on understanding the content and context of these or any other sources? Or on the world history you have been learning about in general so far?

pur-new-sol

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