Chapter 1: The Meeting of Cultures
Pages 4-9
Questions:
1.
Identify and describe the elaborate native civilizations that developed in South and Central
America and in Mexico.
2.
Why did Europeans consider the Indians they met to be “savages”, regardless of their cultural
achievements?
3.
Describe the way of life of the North American Indians……where they lived and how they
supported themselves.
4.
What were the three largest language groups, and where did their speakers live?
5.
Describe the changes taking place among North American Indians during the century before
Europeans arrived.
Terms:
Tenochtitlan
Iroquois Confederation
Pages 9-23
Questions:
1.
Why was there little incentive for other Europeans to follow after the initial voyage to America
by Norse sailors?
2.
What changes stimulated the Europeans to look toward new lands?
3.
What did Columbus hope to achieve through his voyages, and what did he actually accomplish?
4.
Why did the conquistadors seek to eliminate the underpinnings of existing American civilization?
How was this destruction accomplished?
5.
Explain how the Spanish empire was built primarily through private enterprise.
6.
What were the three distinct periods that the history of the Spanish empire spans?
7.
What role did the Catholic Church play in Spanish Colonization efforts?
8.
What was the “demographic catastrophe” that struck the American Indians? What impact did it
have on European colonization efforts?
9.
What did Europeans gain from the Indians that proved more important than gold?
10. What did the intermarriage of Spanish with North America reveal about the Spanish colonial
system and suggest about the Europeans who administered it?
11. Describe the cultures from which African slaves were taken and brought to America.
12. How did the African slave trade originate, and how did it evolve?
Terms:
Black Death
Prince Henry the Navigator
Amerigo Vespucci
Francisco Pizarro
Pueblo Indians
Mestizos
Pages 23-31
Questions:
1.
What commercial factors contributed to England’s decision to seek colonies in the New World?
2.
What arguments did Richard Hakluyt present in favor of England’s settling colonies?
3.
How did Martin Luther’s doctrine of “faith alone” differ from John Calvin’s doctrine of
“predestination”?
4.
How did the English Reformation differ from that of Luther and Calvin? Why did it fail to satisfy
the religious desires of many English people?
5.
What did the Puritans wish to accomplish, and why did they clash with James I?
6.
How did the English colonization of Ireland influence the way in which the English colonized
America?
7.
Where did the French and Dutch establish colonies in North America, and how did their efforts
differ from those of the Spanish and the English?
8.
How did nationalism inspire the English to get into the race for colonies?
9.
Describe the colonization efforts of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh.
10. How did James I settle the rivalry between London and Plymouth merchants over the
exploration of North America?
Terms:
John Cabot
Enclosures
Mercantilism
Huguenots
Separatists
Plantations
Chapter 2: Founding the Colonies
Pages 33 to mid-page 40
Questions:
1. What were the goals and motivations behind English colonization of the Chesapeake?
2. Why was the survival rate so low for the English settlers of early Virginia?
3. What was the headright system? How did this policy promote British migration to the New
World?
4. What was the nature of the early relationship between the Virginia colonists and the local native
Indian tribes? What happened in 1622 that changed that relationship?
5. How did the introduction of tobacco to the Chesapeake region affect the colony of Virginia?
6. Explain the system of indentureship. What was life like for indentured servants?
7. Why did indentured servants become important to the early Virginia economy and society?
8. How did the evolution of the Virginia colony between 1607 and 1625 reveal the impact of New
World conditions on aims and expectations?
9. Why was Maryland founded? How did it differ from the Virginia colony?
10. What problems plagued the Maryland colony?
11. What powers did a proprietor have?
12. What was the role of the "back-country" settlements in the early colonial Chesapeake region?
13. Why were the back-country settlers such an annoyance to the colonial government?
14. Why did Bacon's Rebellion occur in 1675-1676?
15. What impact did this Rebellion have on African slavery?
Terms:
Jamestown, VA
The "Starving Time"
Virginia Company
Lord De La Warr
Captain John Smith
Powhatan
Pocahontas
John Rolfe
headright system
House of Burgesses
Royal colony
George Calvert
Proprietorship
Maryland Toleration Act- 1649
Indentured servant
Gov. William Berkeley
Nathaniel Bacon
Pages mid-40 – beginning of page 48
Questions:
1. What were the goals of the Separatists who settled in Plymouth in 1620?
2. How was the early "Plymouth Plantation" governed?
3. What was the Pilgrims' relationship with Native Americans? How did their experiences differ from
those of the Virginia settlers?
4. What were some of the religious beliefs of the early Puritans who settled in New England? Why
were they called Puritans?
5. What were the differences between Puritans and Pilgrims?
6. According to their leader, John Winthrop, what did the Puritans believe to be their purpose in
coming to America?
7. List some of the reasons for dissent in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Trace the evolution of
increased political participation of the colony's male members.
8. What threats did Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson pose to the Massachusetts Bay leadership?
9. What did the challenges to Puritan authority reveal about Puritan religious and social beliefs?
10. What was the basis of economic wealth in the New England colonies?
11. How was agriculture and the economy in New England different from that in the South?
12. What factors caused relations between the Native Americans and the colonists in New England to
result in the Pequot War?
13. What were the causes of King Philip's War? What were the long-term affects of this war on
Native Americans? On the New England colonists?
14. How was New England society different from that created in the Chesapeake colonies?
Terms:
English Reformation
"The Great Migration"
[1620-1633] Puritan
Church of England [Anglican Church]
Congregationalists
Pilgrims [Separatists]
the "elect"
Mayflower Compact (1620)
MA Bay Colony
John Winthrop (pic)
covenant
New England town meetings
Roger Williams
Anne Hutchinson
Theocracy
Pequot War
King Philip's War
flintlock musket
Pages mid-48 - page 62
Questions:
1. How did the Stuart Restoration affect those English colonies already established in America? How
did it affect attitudes about founding more settlements?
2. What sort of social order took root in the Carolinas? Why was it different from that proposed
under Carolina's Fundamental Constitution?
3. How did southern Carolina's close ties with the British island of Barbados influence the
development of the colony's society?
4. Why were the Carolinas one of the most unstable of all the English colonies in America?
5. Why did the English resent the Dutch presence in America?
6. Why did power in New York remain widely dispersed? Who shared this power?
7. Why were the Dutch unable to maintain a colony in New York? How were the British able to
acquire it?
8. List some of the major social and economic characteristics of the royal colony of New York.
9. Identify the key beliefs and practices of the Quakers. Why can it be said that they were the most
anarchistic and democratic of all the Protestant sects?
10. What plans did William Penn have for the establishment of a new colony from the land granted
him by King Charles II?
11. How did the influence of the Quakers make Pennsylvania an unique colony? Why was it called a
"holy experiment?"
12. Why did social and political tensions eventually occur in the Pennsylvania colony?
13. Why did British colonists in the Caribbean turn to African slavery as a source of labor?
14. Why was it difficult to establish a stable society and culture in the Caribbean colonies?
15. Why was Georgia founded? How was it different from the other British colonies?
16. What were the colonization policies of James Oglethorpe and his fellow trustees in Georgia? Why
did the strict rules governing life in the colony ensure the failure of Oglethorpe's vision?
17. Explain the relationship between Europeans and Native Americans in the "middle grounds."
Terms:
Stuart Restoration
Peter Stuyvesant
Dutch Reformed Church
Quakers [Society of Friends]
"Inner Light"
Charters of Liberty [1701]
William Penn
Barbados
John Locke
Two Treatises on Government [1691]
Chapter 3: Society and Culture in Provincial America
Pages 65-86
Questions:
1. Describe the economy of the Chesapeake region, and explain why it developed as it did.
2. How did the economy of South Carolina and Georgia differ from that of the Chesapeake? How was
it similar?
3. Explain the commercial economy that emerged in the northern colonies alongside the agricultural
one. What role did technology play in this?
4. What were the limitations of colonial technology? Just how self-sufficient were American
colonists?
5. What were the goals of a mercantilist economic policy?
6. What was the "Triangle Trade?" How was it a response to British mercantile policies?
7. How were the Navigation Acts an example of Britain's mercantilist thinking? How successful were
they in achieving their goals?
8. Explain the growing preoccupation with consumption of material goods in the British colonies and
how this preoccupation was associated with social status.
9. How did the plantation system in the American South illustrate both the differences between the
colonial and English class systems and the way in which colonial communities evolved in response to
local conditions?
10. What were the characteristics of plantation slavery?
11. How was the plantation an economic unit? a social unit?
12. What was the cause of the Stono Rebellion?
Terms:
Atlantic trading system
Indigo
African "Rice Coast"
Mercantilism
Dominion of New England
Navigation Acts (1651, 1673, 1696)
Stono Rebellion
Pages 86-91
Questions:
1. What were the characteristics of communities that emerged in Puritan New England?
2. How was the family central to the Puritan community?
3. How did the experience of America affect the patriarchal family?
4. Why did people accuse someone of witchcraft?
5. Who were the typical accused? Typical accusers?
6. Why did "witchcraft" seem to appear so suddenly in Salem, MA in 1692? Were there any
political/economic/cultural reasons?
7. How did the witchcraft hysteria of the 1680s and 1690s result from a "gap between the
expectations of a united community and the reality of a diverse and divided one?"
Terms:
Rev. Increase Mather
Salem Witch Trials
Rev. Cotton Mather
Rev. George Burroughs
Pages 91 - 97
Questions:
1. How was the Halfway Communion [Halfway Covenant] a move to address these tensions?
2. What was the First "Great Awakening?" Who brought it about? What groups in colonial society
were most attracted to this religious movement?
3. Identify the differences between the "Old Lights" and the "New Lights."
4. What were the effects of the Great Awakening?
5. What was the Enlightenment? How did it differ from the Great Awakening?
6. What colonial colleges were in operation by 1763? Why was each founded, and what subjects
were studied in the mid-18c?
7. What evidence was there that the influence of the Enlightenment was spreading in America?
8. Explain the working of the law in colonial America--the concepts on which it was based, and the
way it functioned.
9. What was the significance of the John Peter Zenger trial?
Terms:
Halfway Covenant
First Great Awakening
John Wesley
Methodism
Jonathan Edwards
George Whitefield
The Enlightenment
"dame" schools
Almanacs
John Peter Zenger