Bunuel wrote:
The first African slaves were brought to the Americas in the early 1600s, where their labor was used primarily for agricultural and household purposes. The institution of slavery in the New World presupposes not only the existence of slaves and owners, but also a system of laws in place which recognized and protected the practice of slavery. However, laws were not enacted, for example, declaring slaves the personal property of their owners and imposing punishments upon those who aided slaves in escape, until many years later.
If the sentences in the passage above are true, then they support which one of the following statements?
(A) Arguing that laws needed to be enacted recognizing and protecting the institution of slavery before the practice of slavery could have existed in the New World is to ignore historical fact.
(B) Prior to 1700, some of the Europeans who came to the New World enslaved native Indian populations.
(C) Slavery was practiced in many parts of the world before Africans were first brought to the New World as slaves.
(D) The prior existence of a supportive legal system is needed before an institutional practice can develop.
(E) One of the reasons slavery developed in the New World was the tremendous need for manual labor.
Official Explanation
(A) Yes. According to the passage, the practice of slavery began much sooner than laws were enacted to protect its practice. Thus, to argue that laws needed to be in place
first is to ignore historical fact.
(B) No. The passage is concerned with the importation of African slaves and when laws were first enacted concerning slavery. We don’t know the timing of slavery laws relative to when Europeans enslaved native Indian populations, so this statement is not supported by the passage.
(C) No. Whether or not slavery was practiced elsewhere prior to the importation of African slaves is irrelevant to the question—which statement is
supported by the passage with respect to the
institution of slavery in the New World?(D) No. This statement is directly contradicted by the passage. The facts set forth in the passage prove just the opposite—that slavery was practiced long before a supportive legal system developed.
(E) No. Again, this statement is irrelevant to the question. The reasons slavery developed in the New World are not significant to