Discussion Questions for Handouts on the American Colonies
Laborers
1. Compare and contrast the two labor systems in colonial America: indentured servitude and slavery.
2. What challenges did both groups face?
3. What role has slavery played in world history?
Europeans and Native Americans (Indians)
1. Why did the Native Americans appear to be uncivilized and savage to the Europeans?
2. How did the Europeans hope to exploit the Indians?
3. What suggests in these description that the Indians might be a danger to both the Europeans and to other
Indians?
4. What did the two groups have in common?
Colonial Life
1. How were the colonists very similar to modern Americans? What continuity do you see between their
lives and ours?
2. How were the colonists very different from modern Americans? What changes have occurred that make
our world very different from theirs? What customs and beliefs of their world seem most foreign to us?