When they first arrived in America as slaves in the 1600s, A

by **abhishek** Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:26 pm

When they first arrived in America as slaves in the 1600s, Africans joined a society tha

Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
A - No free African Americans in the American colonies were the offspring of white slave owners.
B - Some colonial legislatures passed laws to prevent interbreeding between white colonists and African Americans.
C - White servants were not as numerous as African American slaves in early America.

In this question the correct answer is B, the reason cited being "despite the efforts of the various colonial legislatures, white servant women continued to bear children by African American fathers through the late seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth century."
But this statement never says anything about col legislatures passing laws to prevent inbreeding between white colonists and Af Americans. It would be reasonable to infer that legislation was passed to prevent white servent women (who were not white colonists, referred to as the masters, they were almost slaves themselves) and Af Americans interbreeding.
To infer that there was also legislation that seeked to prevent white colonists and Af Americans from breeding is taking the inference a bit too far.

Do you agree ?

by **StaceyKoprince** Wed Sep 10, 2008 4:35 pm

It looks like you attempted to paste the text of the passage but it didn't work. I think I can still answer your question, but if you want a more thorough answer, please paste the entire text of the passage.

According to the passage, the legislature made some effort to prevent some white people from producing children with some black people. The purpose of the legislature is to pass laws, not to enforce laws, or publish news reports, or preach, or whatever. So if the legislature tried to prevent something, it would have done so via laws.

White servant women were still colonists - they may have been treated little better than slaves, but they were free people who chose themselves to come to a new country and start a life there. That's what a colonist is. White masters were also colonists - but "white colonists" does not equal only those whites who were in power. "White colonist" refers to any white person who was previously a citizen or another (presumably European) country who chose to settle in America.

by **tanyatomar** Tue Jul 31, 2012 3:45 pm

When they first arrived in America as slaves in the 1600s, Africans joined a society that was divided between master and white servants brought from Europe. In most parts of the South, some of these first African slaves became free either through escape or through emancipation by their owners. It is therefore a misconception that all African Americans in the pre-Civil War South were slaves. Many researchers have also assumed that these free African Americans were the offspring of white slave owners who took advantage of their female slaves. However, these cases represent only a small minority of free African Americans in the South. Most free African Americans were actually the descendants of African American men and white servant women.
In fact, despite the efforts of the various colonial legislatures, white servant women continued to bear children by African American fathers through the late seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth century. It appears that such births were the primary source of the increase in the free African American population for this period. Over two hundred African American families in Virginia descended from white women. Forty-six families descended from freed slaves, twenty-nine from Indians, and sixteen from white men who married or had children by free African American women. It is likely that the majority of the remaining families descended from white women since they first appear in court records in the mid-eighteenth century, when slaves could not be freed without legislative approval, and there is no record of legislative approval for their emancipations.
The history of free African Americans families in colonial New York and New Jersey, by contrast, is quite different from that of free African Americans in the South. Most were descended from slaves freed by the Dutch West India Company between 1644 and 1664 or by individual owners. Researchers have studied these families, especially a group of fourteen families that scholars have traced through at least three generations. None of the fourteen families appears to be descended from a white servant woman and an African American man. However, Lutheran church records from the eighteenth century show that a few such couples had children baptized.

[1] The author of the passage is primarily interested in

A) defending an accepted position on colonial history

B) analyzing an unproven hypothesis regarding slavery

C) presenting an alternate view of a historical period

D) critiquing an outdated theory of colonial development

E) describing the culmination of a historical trend.

OA: C

Want to know answer to primary purpose of passage question. i am just not able to understand how the answer options relate to passage.. i picked B thinking that the author mentions in the end that there were some kids baptised etc which implies nothing is proven yet.

In C what is the alternate view i dont know...

thanks
Tanya

by **jnelson0612** Sun Aug 12, 2012 11:11 pm

Hi Tanya,
I'd really like to help you with this but to facilitate your learning, I'd like to throw the ball back into your court for a second. Can you review the passage again and post your notes for each paragraph? Just try to sum up the main idea of each paragraph in one or two short notes. THEN let's figure out the purpose of the passage. :-)

by **tanyatomar** Mon Aug 13, 2012 4:06 pm

Hi Jamie,
thanks for ur reply.. but i already gave GMAT..
Although i was scoring 750,730 690 on MGMAT CAT.. i got 670 on real test... now applying to colleges :) or more precisely, researching on colleges :) :)

Tanya

by **jnelson0612** Fri Aug 17, 2012 3:08 pm

Hi Tanya,
Well, first, congratulations! 670 is a fine score and I have several students who would LOVE to get that score. If you believe that you need a higher score for your chosen program I hope that you will consider continuing to study and then taking the test again, since you clearly have the ability to score higher. Wishing you the best!

by **mcmebk** Fri Aug 23, 2013 2:59 pm

jnelson0612 Wrote:Hi Tanya,
Well, first, congratulations! 670 is a fine score and I have several students who would LOVE to get that score. If you believe that you need a higher score for your chosen program I hope that you will consider continuing to study and then taking the test again, since you clearly have the ability to score higher. Wishing you the best!

Dear Jamie

I ran across this post and saw your notes above about the score 670...I scored 680 last year but aiming to get 730 next month; I was under pressure and knowing that an expert like you would think 670 is fine score has greatly relieved me...

Back to the question, I was struggling between B/C, while I was not so sure about "an unproven hypothesis" in B, I felt worse about C stating "historic period...", it appears to me, if I were the author to provide a view about a certain period, I would talk about how this period is important in the history of the country, how it has greatly changed people's way of living and thinking...what presented in this passage seems quite far away from what I have in mind.

Would you mind explaining to me about "view on historic period"? Thank you.

by **jlucero** Fri Sep 13, 2013 9:02 pm

Note that C does not say "historic period" but rather "historical period". That is a significant difference, and historical is a much more neutral term that fits right in here.

by **rustom.hakimiyan** Mon May 26, 2014 9:11 pm

jlucero Wrote:Note that C does not say "historic period" but rather "historical period". That is a significant difference, and historical is a much more neutral term that fits right in here.

Hi Joe,

I think the previous user made a typo -- the option is "presenting an alternate view of a historical period". I was stuck between B and C as well.

B) analyzing an unproven hypothesis regarding slavery.
- It was unproven and it was a statement(therefore a hypothesis). Can we not say "analyzed" if he's trying to clear up the misconception?

C) presenting an alternate view of a historical period
-This seems more vague than B but I don't know how this is *better* than B?

How would I go about chosing the right answer? The word "analyze" seem's to be a trap in a lot of answer choices.

Thanks!

by **RonPurewal** Thu Jun 05, 2014 5:29 am

Which statement do you have in mind as the "unproven hypothesis" for B?

When they first arrived in America as slaves in the 1600s, A

When they first arrived in America as slaves in the 1600s, A

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