“You have told us that we do not know the One who gives us life and being, who is Lord of the heavens and of the earth. You also say that those we worship are not gods. This way of speaking is entirely new to us, and very scandalous. We are frightened by this way of speaking because our forebears who engendered and governed us never said anything like this. . . .
“It would be a fickle, foolish thing for us to destroy the most ancient laws and customs left by the first inhabitants of this land. . . . All of us together feel that it is enough to have lost, enough that the power and royal jurisdiction have been taken from us. As for our gods, we will die before giving up serving and worshiping them. This is our determination; do what you will.”
Lords and holy men of Tenochtitlan [the Aztec capital], reply to the Franciscans in 1524 after the conquest of Mexico, from a Spanish account written in 1564
Question
Which of the following most immediately resulted from the Columbian Exchange?
Responses
Expansion of the trans-Atlantic slave trade
Growth of feudalism in Europe
Decline of Native American populations due to disease
Rise of mercantilism as an economic system