Dr. Murray
AP U. S. History, 2008-09
STUDY GUIDE FOR UNIT 1: 17TH-CENTURY COLONIAL AMERICA
Major Issues
How did developments in Europe affect the European conquest of the New World? Specifically, how did
events in England affect the timing and character of English colonization?
How did England’s North American colonies differ from one another? Why did they differ? What role did
the expectations and values of the colonists play?
To what extent is it significant that the Chesapeake colonies, the Carolinas, and Georgia developed staplecrop economies, while New England and the middle colonies did not? What factors explain the shift from
indentured servitude to race slavery in England’s staple-crop colonies?
Why is it significant that the Puritans conceived of themselves as a “city on a hill”? How did the Quaker
religious experiment in Pennsylvania differ from the Puritan mission?
What was the significance of the Navigation Acts?
Why did Virginia, Maryland, New York, and Massachusetts all experience instability in the late
seventeenth century?
Europe in the Age of Exploration (Text, Chapter 1, 10-20, Chapter 2, 22-3)
What factors had contributed to a transformation of European society and culture by the fifteenth century?
How did these changes encourage European exploration and conquest? What was the objective of
Columbus’s voyage in 1492? Why did the Spanish monarchs support him? What was Columbus’s big
mistake? Who were the “conquistadores,” and what did they do? How did their experience shape the
expectations of future European colonists? What was the primary function of Spain’s New World empire?
What were the main purposes of France’s colonial empire in North America? Why did the French develop
better relationships with the Indians than did the English? How would New France differ from the future
English settlements along the Atlantic seaboard?
Why were the English so far behind in their efforts to establish colonies in the New World? How did the
Protestant Reformation and dynastic instability contribute to England’s late start? How did Protestantism
ultimately shape English nationalism—and eventually contribute to England’s colonization efforts? How
did England’s experience in Ireland prepare the English for the New World? How did Richard Hakluyt the
Younger attempt to “sell” colonization to Englishmen discouraged by the Roanoke debacle?
How did social, religious, and political problems in England in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries contribute to the diversity of American settlement?
"Hakluyt Sees England Salvation in America," The American Spirit, Vol. 1, 26-7
What reasons did Richard Hakluyt provide for why England ought to establish colonies in America?
Assuming that English colonists believed Hakluyt's propaganda, what expectations did the colonists carry
with them to the New World?
2
Jamestown, “Sotweed,” and the Settling of the Chesapeake Coastal Regions (Text, Chapter 2, 238, Chapter 3, 45-7)
How did the invention of the joint-stock company contribute to English success in colonization in the early
17th century? What were the initial problems at the Jamestown settlement in 1607-08? How did John
Smith help save the colony—a least temporarily? What proved to be the ultimate savior of the Virginia
colony? Thanks to a staple-crop economy and the “headright” system, what kind of social structure
developed in Virginia? Why was the mortality rate so high? How and why did Virginia’s form of
government change in 1624? How did the colony of Maryland come into being? How did the eventual
reality differ from Lord Baltimore’s original scheme?
About what percentage of immigrants to the 17 th-century Chesapeake come as indentured servants? What
age and sex were most immigrants? What was life expectancy for Chesapeake males? What impact did
the high mortality rate have upon family structure? What was the class structure of Chesapeake society?
How did the emergence of an hereditary ruling elite around 1680 affect social mobility? Why were there
so few social institutions (e.g., schools) in the Chesapeake?
The Establishment of Puritan New England (Text, Chapter 2, 28-32)
How did the reality of the Pilgrim experience differ from the legend? How did the Pilgrims, who emigrated
to the New World in 1620, differ from the much more numerous Puritans who came a decade later? What
were the concerns of the Puritans? Why were many of them so unhappy with James I and (especially)
Charles I? How did the Puritan settlers in Massachusetts differ from the settlers of Virginia and Maryland?
How did the Puritans’ religious beliefs contribute to social cohesion? Why would it be inaccurate to
portray the Puritans as separatists? What was “Congregationalism”? How did one become a full member
of the Church? How “democratic” was Puritan New England? Did the rulers see themselves as
accountable to the people? How “theocratic” were the Puritans? How did settlement patterns in New
England help strengthen social cohesion?
How did Roger Williams’ religious ideas differ from those of the Puritan establishment in Massachusetts?
What was ultimate result of the disagreement? Who was Anne Hutchinson, and why were her ideas so
threatening to the Puritan authorities? What remark ultimately got Hutchinson banished from
Massachusetts? What were the four other New England colonies?
John Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity" (1630)—Source 2
According to Winthrop, how did God intend human society to be structured? Why did God intend this?
How is Winthrop’s emphasis on hierarchy connected to his preoccupation with community? According to
Winthrop, what is the purpose of the work that the Puritan emigrants have undertaken? What are their
values? What kind of society are they likely to build?
"Winthrop's Concept of Liberty,"American Spirit, Vol. I, 28-29—Source 3
Why is it significant that Winthrop defines “moral liberty” in the way that he does?
17th-Century New England tombstones—Source 6
What do the tombstones reveal about Puritan values and attitudes?
Order and Disorder among the Puritans (Text, Chapter 3, 42-5)
Why were the New England Puritans able to replicate a traditional European social order? Why did the
population of New England grow so quickly? Around what age did New Englanders marry? How were
mates chosen? What was the Half-Way Covenant (1662)? Why was education so important to the New
England Puritans? What was the role of women in New England society? How did the realities of their
lives contrast with their status under English common law?
3
“A Puritan Minister Offers Marriage Advice”—Source 4
What reasons does the minister give for why a godly woman must continue to obey her evil husband?
What kind of obedience is the minister talking about? Why is obedience so important to Puritan society?
Poetry of Anne Bradstreet—Source 5
To what extent do these poems reflect what we already know about the New England Puritans? Are there
any surprises?
Modern Interpretations of Puritanism—Interpretations 1-3
In the first interpretation, why does the author argue that the New England colonies should have failed?
According to him, why didn’t they fail? According to the second interpretation, why was Massachusetts
neither a democracy nor a theocracy? According to the third interpretation, why did Winthrop find it
harder to “control the good than to punish the wicked”? Why was separatism such a difficult problem in
Puritan New England?
“The Threat of Anne Hutchinson,” Discovering the American Past, Vol. I, Wheeler and Becker,
eds., 29-33
What were the “five central characteristics” of American Puritanism? Why were religious squabbles
common in Puritan New England, despite the Puritans’ community orientation? What was Antinomianism,
and why would leaders like John Winthrop see it as a threat? How did Anne Hutchinson find herself in
trouble with the authorities?
“The Trial of Anne Hutchinson, 1637,” The American Record, Vol. I, Graebner and Richards, eds.,
73-77
What do Winthrop and other leaders have against Anne Hutchinson? In their eyes, what has she done?
What mistake does Hutchinson make toward the end of her examination?
The Middle Colonies, the Caribbean, and Carolina (Text, Chapter 2, 32-9)
What characteristics were common to the middle colonies? Why was the colony of New Netherland so
easily captured by the English in 1664? How well governed was the new colony of New York? What were
the origins of the colony of New Jersey? Who were the Quakers? What were their distinctive beliefs?
How did the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania come into being? How did Pennsylvania differ from that other
“religious” colony, Massachusetts? How did the Carolina colony come into being? What were the
Fundamental Constitutions? What were Lord Ashley and his assistant, John Locke, trying to create? Why
didn't the plan work? Why was it significant that such a large proportion of the Carolina colonists came
from Barbados? How stable was the society that emerged in Carolina? When James Oglethorpe first
established Georgia in 1732, what were the purposes of the colony? What restrictions did he place on the
colonists? How did the colonists react? What kind of colony ultimately took shape in Georgia?
The Origins of Slavery in British America (Text, Chapter 3, 47-50)
Between the 16th and the 19th centuries, how many slaves were forcibly transported from Africa to the
Americas? What percentage ended up in the thirteen colonies of British North America (see the map)?
How did British planters justify enslaving Africans? How does one explain the shift in the legal status of
Africans in the colonies between 1660 and 1700? Why and how did they go from being virtually
indistinguishable from white indentured servants to being subject to permanent hereditary servitude? What
factors determined whether slaves would be able to maintain their separate African identity? How would
life for a slave in Massachusetts differ from life for slave in South Carolina? What major turning point in
African American history occurred in the early eighteenth century? Why did it occur?
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Peter Kolchin, “The Origin and Consolidation of Unfree Labor,” The American Record, I, 80-5
Forced labor was the answer to what basic economic problem in the colonies? Why were the English
ultimately unsuccessful in enslaving the Indians? Why did they rely on English indentured servants for so
long? Why did African slaves begin replacing English indentured servants in the 1680s? What factors
made slaves more available and more attractive—and indentured servants less available and less attractive?
"People & Events: Olaudah Equiano, 1745-1797," Africans in America website
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/home.html
How was Equiano’s experience similar to and different from the experiences of most Africans who became
ensnared by the slave trade between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries?
Late 17th-Century Tensions: Indian Wars, Rebellion, and Witchcraft (Text, Chapter 3, 52-6)
What were the causes of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia in 1675-76? To what extent did the rebellion
reflect discontent among the masses, as well as division among the gentry? Why were the years
immediately after the Restoration of Charles II difficult ones for the leaders of Puritan New England?
What “shocks” did the New Englanders experience in the 1670s and 80s? What was the impact of Charles
II’s revocation of the Massachusetts charter in 1684 and James II’s creation of the Dominion of New
England in 1686? What happened when the colonists received news in 1689 of the Glorious Revolution
back in England? What kind of royal charter did Massachusetts ultimately receive from William and
Mary? How did all of this confusion contribute to the events in Salem village in 1691-92? What other
factors contributed to this extraordinary witchcraft incident? What was “spectral evidence”? Why was the
decision to accept this sort of evidence so important? What finally brought the nightmare to an end?
What tensions in colonial New York were reflected in Leisler’s Rebellion? What tensions in colonial
Maryland were reflected in Coode’s Rebellion?
“Bacon’s Rebellion: The Declaration (1676),” American Passages,
http://azimuth.harcourtcollege.com/history/ayers/MainAP/welcome.html
What appear to have been the grievances of Bacon and his followers?
Witchcraft materials from Boyer and Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed (handout)
What factors do the maps and tables suggest may have been behind the extraordinary events at Salem in
1692?