Pre-Columbian America
What was the main food crop that supported large populations across the Americas before Columbus?
Maize (corn).
Who sponsored Columbus’s 1492 voyage across the Atlantic?
Spain — Ferdinand and Isabella.
What was the first permanent English colony in North America?
Jamestown (1607).
The Puritans founded Massachusetts Bay to establish what kind of society?
A godly “city upon a hill” as a model Christian community.
The system that governed colonial trade under British control was called what?
Mercantilism.
What was the purpose of the Great Serpent Mound built by the Adena and Hopewell cultures?
Ceremonial and possibly astronomical purposes.
The Columbian Exchange brought horses to the Americas. What did it bring from the Americas to Europe?
Crops like maize, potatoes, and tomatoes.
What cash crop saved the Jamestown colony economically?
Tobacco.
Roger Williams founded which colony after being banished for advocating religious freedom?
Rhode Island.
What role did port cities like Boston, New York, and Charleston play in the colonial economy?
They became centers for trade, shipbuilding, and the exchange of goods across the Atlantic, linking the colonies to global markets.
Cahokia’s Monk’s Mound was built using how many cubic feet of soil—millions, thousands, or billions?
About 22 million cubic feet.
What was the primary goal of Spanish explorers in the New World?
To find wealth (gold, silver) and spread Christianity.
What was the main motivation behind the establishment of Maryland in 1634?
To create a haven for English Catholics facing persecution.
The Salem Witch Trials reflected tensions over what two issues in Puritan society?
Gender roles and declining religious authority.
What was the primary labor system in the Chesapeake colonies before slavery became dominant?
Indentured servitude.
The Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) are best known for what kind of architectural feature?
Multi-story cliff dwellings and pueblos.
Who was Esteban Dorantes, and why is he significant?
An enslaved African explorer who traveled across the Southwest; one of the first non-Indigenous people in that region.
What was the significance of the Pequot War (1636–1638)?
It marked one of the first major conflicts between New England colonists and Native peoples, resulting in the near-destruction of the Pequot tribe and setting a pattern for future colonial expansion.
What did the Great Awakening emphasize that was new to colonial religion?
Personal faith and emotional revivalism over institutional authority.
The Middle Colonies were known for what kind of economy?
Mixed economy of agriculture, trade, and manufacturing.
The Iroquois Confederacy’s Great Law of Peace influenced what aspect of later American political thought?
Ideas of federalism and representative governance.
What catastrophic effect did European contact have on Indigenous populations?
Massive population decline due to diseases like smallpox.
What did the Mayflower Compact establish?
A framework for self-government among Plymouth colonists.
Name one long-term effect of the Great Awakening on colonial society.
Growth of new denominations, greater religious diversity, and democratic impulses.
How did the economies of New England, the Middle Colonies, and the Southern Colonies differ from one another?
New England focused on trade, shipbuilding, and small farms; the Middle Colonies mixed agriculture and commerce; and the South relied on plantation agriculture and enslaved labor.