Latin America History Study Guide

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  1. What term is used to describe the first people known to inhabit an area?
  1. What name is given to the movement of people, ideas, foods, and diseases between the Old and New Worlds?
  1. What animal was brought to the New World which at first was tremendously negative for the indigenous people, but in the end had positive consequences?
  1. Which of the following items moved from the New World to the Old World? (corn, peaches, potatoes, cocoa beans, wheat, tomatoes, rice, peppers, sugar, pumpkins, squash, pigs, cattle)
  1. What item brought from the Old World to the New World was the biggest factor in causing huge losses of the indigenous population?
  1. Why did so many indigenous people die from diseases like smallpox?
  1. Why did the colonial Europeans need to bring slaves from Africa?
  1. When did slavery end for most parts of Latin America?
  1. Why are there so many mulattoes in Latin America today?
  1. What name is given to people whose ancestors were both European and Native American?
  1. Which two European countries contributed most to the languages of Latin America?
  1. What are the two most important and official languages of Latin America?
  1. What is the most common religion found in Latin America today?
  1. What did the Spanish and Portuguese governments do to help spread their religion in Latin America?
  1. What was the main job of the priests, friars, and monks sent by Spain to the New World?
  1. In the late 1950s, who was elected president of Cuba, but he later made himself dictator?
  1. During the Cuban Revolution, who took over as dictator of Cuba in 1959?
  1. What vocabulary term describes the overthrowing of an existing government?
  1. Why did many Cubans support Fidel Castro in his overthrow of the Batista government?
  1. What happened to American businesses in Cuba when Castro took control of the government?
  1. What type of government did Fidel Castro create in Cuba?
  1. What types of freedoms did Cubans lose under Castro’s government?
  1. What was one reaction the United States had to Cuba taking over property owned by Americans?
  1. What is the Cold War?
  1. Which country helped Castro build Cuba into a communist country? Who was their leader?
  1. What was the Cuban Missile Crisis?
  1. Who was the president of the U.S. during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
  1. In 2008, who took over the Cuban government when Fidel Castro became ill?
  1. In 2016, who was the first American president to visit Cuba since 1928?
  1. What is the main purpose of NAFTA?
  1. Why did some people in Mexico not like NAFTA?
  1. What is the War on Drugs?
  1. What happened in Colombia and Mexico when the illegal drug trade was taken over by major cartels?

*Be sure to study all of your notes and vocabulary words!