2007 ALIEF HISTORY CHALLENGE ESSAY QUESTIONS
GRADE 8
*****************PART 1: DOCUMENT-BASED QUESTION:*****************
Directions: The following question requires you to construct a coherent essay that integrates your
interpretation of Documents A-H and your knowledge of the period 1607-1865. You should cite key
pieces of evidence from the documents and outside knowledge of the period.
TASK A: Using information from the documents and your knowledge of social studies, answer the
questions that follow each document. Your answers to the questions will help you write the essay
(Task B)
TASK B: Using information from the documents and your knowledge of social studies, write an
essay that answers the following question:
Because of their differing geographies, the regions of colonial America developed very
different economies. How did these differences help lead to the Civil War and contribute to its
outcome?
Detailed Instructions for the essay:
1. Write a well-organized essay that includes an introduction, several paragraphs, and a
conclusion.
2. Use evidence from the documents to support your response, which should:



Compare and contrast the geographic characteristics of the regions of Colonial America.
Describe the economic differences that resulted from these characteristics.
Analyze the impact of these economic differences on both the causes of the Civil War and
its outcome.
3. Include specific related outside information.
4. Use black or dark ink to write your essay.
Document A
What differences in ways of making a living do you see between the northern and southern
regions?
What geographic conditions helped lead to these differences??
Document B
New England
Alabama and North Carolina
How are the two regions different?
How would these differences affect their economies?
Document C
According to the map, how did slave population density differ between the North and the
South?
Why were there such great differences between slave population in the North and the
South?
Document D
In the south the most important characteristic of the [colonial] period is the gradual rounding out and
crystallizing of the plantation system. In Virginia during the seventeenth century the tendency to form large
estates, favored by the physiographical conditions and the almost exclusive cultivation of tobacco… became
common…
The industrial life of the northern colonies was developing on lines clearly divergent from that of the south.
There is nothing comparable to the great plantation systems of Virginia and South Carolina, except among
some exceptional communities like the Narragansett and Hudson River farmers… Generally speaking… the
middle colonies as well as those of New England continued to be occupied by comparatively small holdings,
not isolated economic units like the Virginia plantations, but grouped together in more or less compact
communities.
The labor system of the north shows a similar divergence from southern conditions. Negroes were few, and
though white servants were numerous in Pennsylvania, even they did not form a permanently servile class…
The greater variety of northern industry appeared the moment one passed from the Chesapeake colonies into
Pennsylvania. In 1700, Robert Quarry reported that the Pennsylvanians as the result of their industry had made
“bread, flower and Beer a drugg in all the Markets in the West Indies.” In later years beef, pork, and lumber
appear as important articles of export.
The colonists still depended mainly upon England for their clothing and other manufactures, though their
early experiments in this field were important enough to arouse the jealousy of the mother-country. In these
enterprises the southern colonies were observed to be far less active and successful than those of the north. The
Board of Trade declared in 1732 that there were “more trades carried on and manufactures set up in the
provinces on the continent of America to the northward of Virginia, prejudicial to [in competition with] the
trade and manufactures of Great Britain, particularly in New England, than in any other of the British
colonies.”
Two kinds of colonial manufacture which were thoroughly established and carried far beyond provincial
limits were the building of ships and the distilling of rum, and the chief seat of both was New England. NewEnglanders had been ship-builders almost from the first; but the industry assumed much larger proportions
during the first half of the eighteenth century. The small craft of the seventeenth century were gradually
replaced by larger ones, though even in 1780 a ship of five hundred tons was considered unusually large. New
England ship-building was not confined to a few leading ports but spread to nearly all the coast and river
towns; and Pennsylvania also developed a considerable ship-building industry.
Greene, Evarts Boutell, Provincial America, 1690-1740; published 1905
What differences does the passage show in how the economies of the two colonial
regions developed?
How might those differences lead to conflict in the future?
Document E
Year
1650
1670
1690
1710
1730
1750
1770
North
880
1,125
3,340
8,303
17,323
30,222
48,460
South
720
3,410
13,389
36,563
73,698
206,198
411,362
Total
1,600
4,535
16,729
44,866
91,021
236,420
459,822
Slave Population in the Colonies, 1650-1770
How did the population of slaves change between the North and South in the years noted in the
chart?
Why did these changes occur?
Document F
Source: Muscogee, Georgia, Herald, quoted in the New York Tribune, September 10, 1856
Free society! We sicken at the name. What is it but a conglomeration of greasy mechanics, filthy
operatives, small-fisted farmers, and moon-struck theorists? All northern, and especially the New
England, states are devoid of society fitted for well-bred southern gentlemen. The prevailing class
one meets with is that of mechanics struggling to be genteel, and small farmers who do their own
drudgery, and yet are hardly fit for association with a southern gentleman’s body servant.
In what section of the nation was this quotation published?
How does it illustrate the economic differences between the North and South?
Document G
According to the graph, which region of the country is most industrialized and what factors led to
this?
What impact might this have on the outcome of a war between the two regions?
Document H
Economic Causes of the War
No one seriously doubts that the enormous economic stake the South had in its slave labor force was
a major factor in the sectional disputes that erupted in the middle of the nineteenth century. Figure 1
plots the total value of all slaves in the United States from 1805 to 1860. In 1805 there were just over
one million slaves worth about $300 million; fifty-five years later there were four million slaves worth
close to $3 billion. In the 11 states that eventually formed the Confederacy, four out of ten people
were slaves in 1860, and these people accounted for more than half the agricultural labor in those
states. In the cotton regions the importance of slave labor was even greater. The value of capital
invested in slaves roughly equaled the total value of all farmland and farm buildings in the South.
Though the value of slaves fluctuated from year to year, there was no prolonged period during which
the value of the slaves owned in the United States did not increase markedly. Looking at Figure 1, it is
hardly surprising that Southern slave-owners in 1860 were optimistic about the economic future of
their region. They were, after all, in the midst of an unparalleled rise in the value of their slave assets.
Roger L. Ransom, University of California, Riverside
According to Dr. Ransom, did slavery become more or less important to the South during the
1800s? Explain your answers.
Would freeing the slaves been a serious threat to the economy of the South in 1860?
2007 ALIEF HISTORY CHALLENGE ESSAY QUESTIONS
GRADE 8
***************** PART 2:
FREE RESPONSE ESSAY
*****************
Directions: This question requires you to construct a coherent essay that addresses the prompt
below. You should use relevant historical evidence in support of your conclusions and present your
arguments clearly and logically. Use black or dark ink to write your essay.
To what extent was the Constitution a product of compromise?