The Legacy of Colonial America
Essay Question
Welcome to the DBQ (Document Based Question). This type of essay question asks students to use
documents to help answer an essay question. The documents are meant to serve as a guide, not the
only source of information. For example, below, the documents should suggest different values or
traits that originated from the original English colonists. Your job is to find out whether or not these
values truly existed in colonial American and then whether or not they carried through American
history to the present day.
You may want to find other information from your text or quote, but you must use outside informationinformation that may be related to the topic of a document but doesn’t come from the document. You
will need outside information to prove either the origin of the value, how the value molded the
American character and the extent to which it still molds it today.
Question: “The original English colonists (1607-1630) molded and continue to mold the
American character.” Assess the validity of this statement.
Document A
“Also we might inhabit some part of those countries, and settle there such needy people of our country,
which now trouble the commonwealth…” (Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 1576)
“The offspring of the wandering beggars of England, that grow up idly, and hurtful and burdenous to
this realm, may there be unladen, and better bred up…” (Richard Hakluyt. 1584)
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of
your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden
door.” (The New Colossus, Emma Lazarus, 1903)
Document B
“Also we might sail to diverse very rich countries… where there is to be found great abundance of
gold, silver, precious stones… and other merchandise of an inestimable price…” (Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, 1576)
“For I am not so simple to think that ever any other motive than wealth will ever erect there a
commonweal or draw company from their ease and humors at home, to sty in New England to effect
my purposes…” (Captain John Smith, 1616)
Document C
“But then it has always been the American way as well, when faced with any injustice or harshness in
this society, to say ‘it ain’t necessarily so’, and to do something about it.” (Henry Fairlie, July 4, 1983)
“As I understand it, laws, commands, rules and edicts are for those who have not the light which
makes plain the pathway.” (Anne Hutchinson, ca. 1636)
Document D
“For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so if
we shall deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his
present help from us, we shall… shame the faces of many of gods worthy servants, and cause their
prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whether we are
going…” (John Winthrop, 1630)
“Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God acknowledged.” (Ronald
Reagan, 1983)
“I repeat: America is in the midst of a spiritual awakening and a moral renewal. With your biblical
keynote, I say today let ‘justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream’.” (Ronald
Reagan, 1983)
“God’s words, the concept of godly government, are woven into the warp and woof of the fabric of our
nation and this Constitution. It’s rightly called the ‘Miracle in Philadelphia.’ ” (James Renwick
Manship, November 4, 2010)
Document E
“The second general rule which must be remembered is this: That every man must do the duties of his
calling with diligence…” (“Treaties of the Vocations or Callings of Men”, Reverend William Perkins)
“But with barely 700 days left in the 20th century this is not the time to rest. It is a time to build- to
build America where everybody has a chance to get ahead, with hard work.” (State of the Union
Address, Bill Clinton, 1998)
“I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” (Thomas Jefferson)
“A society rooted in responsibility must first promote the value of work, not welfare.” (State of the
Union Address, Bill Clinton, 1998)