European Colonization
This settlement, established in 1607, became the first permanent English colony in North America.
What is Jamestown?
Rocky soil and long winters contributed to this region's reliance on commerce, fishing, lumber, and small farms rather than plantation agriculture.
What is New England?
Established in Virginia in 1619, this institution provides evidence for the early development of representative government in the colonies.
What is the House of Burgesses?
Under this economic system, colonies supplied raw materials and markets in order to increase the wealth of the mother country.
What is mercantilism?
This Native American leader, known to English colonists as King Philip, led a major war against New England settlers.
Who is Metacom?
This economic activity encouraged French colonists to establish extensive trading relationships with Native Americans.
What is the fur trade?
Fertile land, good harbors, and religious toleration helped make this region particularly ethnically and religiously diverse.
What are the Middle Colonies?
The Mayflower Compact is significant because it demonstrates the development of this political principle in the British colonies.
What is self-government/government based upon the consent of the governed?
This term describes the forced Atlantic voyage endured by enslaved Africans transported to the Americas.
What is the Middle Passage?
Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New Haven formed this organization in 1643 for mutual protection.
What is the New England Confederation?
Explain ONE significant difference between Spanish and French interactions with Native Americans.
Spanish colonization relied more heavily on missions, conversion, and coerced Native labor, while French colonization relied more heavily on trade and alliances with Native peoples.
Explain ONE way geography contributed to the development of plantation agriculture in the Southern colonies.
The South's climate and soils supported profitable cash crops such as tobacco and rice, encouraging the development of large plantations.
Explain why salutary neglect contributed to the development of colonial self-government.
Britain's loose enforcement of colonial regulations allowed colonial legislatures and local governments to exercise considerable authority over their own affairs.
Explain ONE reason plantation owners increasingly turned from indentured servants to enslaved African labor.
Indentured servants provided labor only temporarily, while colonial laws increasingly allowed enslaved Africans and their descendants to be held permanently in bondage.
Explain ONE reason Native American groups sometimes allied with Europeans against other Native groups.
Native groups pursued their own political and economic interests and sometimes used European alliances against traditional rivals.
Explain how economic conditions in England contributed to English colonization during the 1600s.
England's population was growing faster than its economy, creating increasing numbers of poor and landless families who were attracted to economic opportunities and land in North America.
Explain ONE significant difference between settlement patterns in New England and the Chesapeake colonies.
New England attracted more families and developed towns and small farms, while Chesapeake settlement was more dispersed and centered on plantations and agricultural opportunities.
Explain the contradiction between developing democratic institutions and colonial society during the 1600s and early 1700s.
Institutions such as representative assemblies expanded political participation for some colonists while women, landless men, indentured servants, enslaved people, and Native Americans remained largely or entirely excluded from political power.
Explain ONE way Britain's Navigation Acts affected the colonial economy.
The Navigation Acts restricted colonial trade to benefit England, limiting where colonists could sell certain products and requiring many imported goods to pass through England.
Other supported answers include benefits to colonial shipbuilding or guaranteed English markets for certain products.
Explain ONE major cause of Metacom's War and ONE consequence of the conflict.
English settlers' continued expansion onto Native lands contributed to the war. The colonial victory weakened organized Native resistance to English expansion in New England.
Explain how different economic goals contributed to differences between French and English relationships with Native Americans.
French dependence on the fur trade encouraged cooperation and alliances with Native peoples, while English dependence on agriculture encouraged permanent settlement and expansion onto Native lands, producing greater conflict.
Evaluate the extent to which environmental factors explain differences between New England and the Southern colonies.
Environmental factors significantly contributed to regional differences because New England's rocky soil and long winters encouraged commerce and smaller farms, while southern climates supported plantation agriculture. However, religion and migration patterns also contributed to regional differences.
Provide TWO pieces of specific historical evidence demonstrating the development of self-government in the British colonies before 1754.
Any two, such as the House of Burgesses, Mayflower Compact, New England town meetings, Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, or elected colonial assemblies.
Explain how the growth of plantation agriculture contributed to BOTH economic and social changes in the British colonies.
Profitable cash crops increased demand for labor and encouraged the expansion of slavery. As slavery expanded, colonial laws increasingly established permanent racial slavery, contributing to a society divided by race and legal status.
Bacon's Rebellion demonstrates the intersection of what TWO major tensions in colonial Virginia? Explain the connection.
The rebellion reflected tensions between frontier settlers and Virginia's political elite as well as conflict between colonists and Native Americans. Frontier settlers resented Governor Berkeley and the planter elite for failing to protect them from Native attacks, and Bacon's forces attacked Native communities while rebelling against Berkeley's government.