Colonial America
Southern Colonies
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. How did the introduction of tobacco to the
Chesapeake region affect the colony of Virginia?
4. What was the headright system? What incentives
were established by the Virginia Company to promote
British migration to the New World?
5. Explain the system of indentureship. What was life
like for indentured servants?
6. How did the evolution of the Virginia colony
between 1607 and 1625 reveal the impact of New
World conditions on aims and expectations?
7. 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?
8. What agricultural technologies and methods did the
English settlers learn from the Native Indians?
9. Why was Maryland founded? How did it differ from
the Virginia colony? How were they similar?
10. What powers did a proprietor have?
11. What problems plagued the Maryland
colony? How did Lord Baltimore attempt to resolve
these problems?
12. How did Governor William Berkeley's rule in
Virginia change from 1642 to the mid-1670s?
13. Why were the back-country settlers such an
annoyance to the colonial government in the tidewater
area?
14. Why did Bacon's Rebellion occur in 1675-1676?
15. Identify the reasons why Bacon's Rebellion was so
significant for the Virginia colony in the early colonial
period.
New England Colonies
16. What were the goals of the Separatists who settled
in Plymouth in 1620?
17. How did these settlers change the physical and
social landscape in and around Plymouth?
18. What was the Pilgrims' relationship with Native
Americans? How did their experiences differ from
those of the Virginia settlers?
19. How was the early "Plymouth Plantation"
governed?
20. How was the Massachusetts Bay Company different
from the earlier settlement at Plymouth?
21. How were the Congregationalist church
communities different from mainstream Anglicanism
[Church of England]?
22. What were some of the characteristics of the
theocratic society established in New England in the
17c?
23. 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.
24. What threats did Roger Williams and Anne
Hutchinson pose to the Massachusetts Bay leadership?
25. How did Native Indians help the early settlers in
New England?
26. How did the Puritans' attitudes toward Native
Indians change over time?
27. What factors caused relations between the Native
Americans and the colonists in New England to result
in the Pequot War?
28. What were the causes of King Philip's War? What
were the long-term effects of this war on Native
Americans? On the New England colonists?
29. How had the conflicts between natives and settlers
been effected by the earlier exchanges of technology?
Middle Colonies
30. How did the Stuart Restoration [1660-1688] affect
attitudes about founding more settlements?
31. How was the charter for the Carolina settlement
similar to that of Maryland?
32. What incentives did the Carolina proprietors offer
for settlement? Why was it different from that
proposed under Carolina's Fundamental Constitution?
33. How did southern Carolina's close ties with the
British island of Barbados influence the development
of the colony's society?
34. Why were the Carolinas one of the most unstable
of all the English colonies in America?
35. Why did the English resent the Dutch presence in
America?
36. List some of the major social and economic
characteristics of the royal colony of New York.
37. Why did power in New York remain widely
dispersed? Who shared this power?
38. How was the colony of New Jersey similar to that
of New York? How was it different?
39. Identify the key beliefs and practices of the Quakers
[or Society of Friends]. Why can it be said that they
were the most anarchistic and democratic of all the
Protestant sects?
40. What plans did William Penn have for the
establishment of a new colony from the land granted
him by King Charles II?
41. How did the influence of the Quakers make
Pennsylvania a unique colony? Why was it called a
"holy experiment?"
43. Why did social and political tensions eventually
occur in the Pennsylvania colony?
44. Why did British colonists in the Caribbean turn to
African slavery as a source of labor?
45. Why was it difficult to establish a stable society and
culture in the Caribbean colonies?
46. Why was Georgia founded? How was it different
from the other British colonies?
47. 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?
48. Why, in the "middle grounds," the European
migrants were both menacing and appealing to the
Native Indians?