APUSH Unit 2
Heasman
Unit 2: The American Colonies (1607-1763)
Essential Question:
How did the British colonies become the prominent economic and political force among
European powers in North America?
Overview:
Americans often pay little attention to colonial history, because it’s portrayed so
simply. In the traditional account we’re most familiar with, colonists - mostly English
(British, after 1707) - came to North America, conquered native peoples, obtained land, set
up farms and plantations, and established slavery. At the same time, they introduced
elected government, sought freedom of worship, and slowly spread across the continent. In
the traditional account, America was different, or exceptional, from the rest of the world:
American democracy grew almost naturally and inevitably, during a period of “salutary
neglect” by the British government in London.
This story has been challenged by historians over the last two decades in a number
of ways. Scholars have begun to look more closely at how British colonization efforts
paralleled those of other European nations, and have found some similarities – but they’ve
also found new ways in which British colonial societies were different from others, and have
focused on what was emerging in this time period that we could call uniquely American.
Whilst it’s true that many cherished ideals of personal liberty and representative democracy
find their American roots during the colonial era so too do some of their most glaring
contradictions, and the development of both was a part of a global, not local, process.
The increasing political, economic, and cultural exchanges within the Atlantic World
during the 16th and 17th centuries held very different outcomes for European, African, and
American Indian peoples. However, even within these broad ethnic groups the impact of
new labor systems, changing political and social structures, and the ideals that stemmed
from these changes varied wildly. Although some broad interpretations of this time period
infer that people were either winners or losers depending on their ethnicity, a closer look
reveals that the reality was far more complex.
Focus Questions:

How did patterns of migration and exchange around the Atlantic World shape
North American societies in the colonial era?

How and why did the colonies develop different social, political, and economic
structures?

How and why did the relationships between Europeans and American Indians
vary, and how did these affect the colonies’ chances of success?

How did conflict and competition between the European colonies affect their
respective development?

To what extent did Anglo-American colonies encourage the development of
democratic societies?
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APUSH Unit 2
Heasman
American People, Chapter 2 – “Colonizing A Continent”
1. What political and cultural developments in Europe caused the English to get involved in
seeking colonies in North America in the first place?
2. How did the English raise the money to launch their expeditions? What products did the
various English colonies produce in the 17th century?
3. Why did the early settlers in Jamestown find survival so hard? How close did the colony come
to complete failure? How did they eventually overcome their initial hardships?
4. How did relations between the English settlers in Virginia and the Powhatan progress between
1607 and 1680?
5. In what ways did tobacco cultivation impact the economic, social, and environmental health of
the Chesapeake colonies?
6. In what ways were the economic reasons for colonization similar, and in what ways were they
different, in Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and the West Indies?
7. In what ways were the political structures that developed in New England, the Chesapeake,
and the Middle colonies similar and in what ways were they different?
8. In what ways did environmental factors (like climate, geography, and soil type) determine the
way the different colonial regions would develop?
9. Which major events in seventeenth-century England sometimes caused waves of settlers to
flee to North America? In contrast, which events sometimes closed off the stream of migrants?
10. Who were the Quakers? Why did they come to the ‘New World’ and where did they settle?
How did their ‘utopian’
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APUSH Unit 2
Heasman
American People, Chapter 4 – “The Maturing of Colonial Society”
1. What factors contributed to the rapid growth in the population of the American colonies up to
1730? Where did most of the migrants come from? How did the hopes of migrants and the
reality of life in the colonies differ?
2. What policies and incentives did the colonies use to attract settlers from Europe?
3. In addition to disease, how did the establishment of European colonies affect Native American
societies, even those far from the borders of colonial settlements?
4. Define the geographic extent of the French and Spanish empires in North America.
5. How did the relationship between the French and Dutch colonists and their Indian neighbors
compare with the relationship between the English and their Indian neighbors?
6. In what ways did the political structure and organization of the Spanish and French colonies
differ from that of the English colonies?
7. How did the economies of the eighteenth century American colonies differ according to
geographic location? What factors accounted for these differences?
8. In what ways did religious piety affect the social and political development of the New England
colonies?
9. What was life like for women in New England? What roles and opportunities were available to
them there? In what ways were women who sought independent lives at risk in New England?
10. How did the environment and geography of the Northern and Southern colonies affect their
societies and cultures? In turn, what effect did the European colonies, especially the English,
have on the ecosystems of North America?
11. How and why did the forms of governance differ, and in what ways were they similar, in the
Northern and Southern colonies?
12. How did rural life for people in the frontiers and in the South differ from those living in the
urban areas of New York, Boston, Savannah, and Philadelphia?
13. How did the European Enlightenment affect the ways American colonists started thinking
about science, nature, and concepts of ‘liberty’?
America; A Narrative History, Ch. 3 – “Colonial Ways of Life”
1. In addition to disease, how did the establishment of European colonies affect Native American
societies, even those far from the borders of colonial settlements?
2. What was life like for women in the various English colonies of North America? To what extent
did colonial life offer women opportunities for independence?
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APUSH Unit 2
Heasman
African-American Lives, Ch 3 – “Africans in Early North America, 1619-1726”
1. What factors contributed to the rapid growth in the population of Africans in the American
colonies up to 1730? Where in Africa did most of the migrants come from?
2. How did plantation owners fulfil their labor needs before they used Africans?
3. How and why did attitudes towards using slaves differ among the various colonial regions?
4. What caused the ‘fateful transition’ to using African slaves for labor?
5. What caused Bacon's rebellion, and how did it contribute to the development of African slavery
in North America?
6. How did the arrival of Africans impact colonial societies, especially in the South? How did the
Chesapeake and Southern colonies start to define and legislate relations between whites and
blacks?
7. In what ways did some African settlers (and white allies) attempt to protest and resist their
legal subjugation?
8. To what extent and in what ways did Spanish Florida offer a sanctuary for escaped slaves?
America: A Narrative History, Ch. 4 – “The Imperial Perspective”
1. By what methods did Britain control the colonial economics and governments?
2. Why did mercantilism seem like a justified approach to regulating imperial trade?
3. How and why did the establishment of the Dominion of New England upset so many colonists
in such a short space of time?
4. What was the ‘Glorious Revolution’, and how did it affect the colonies? What was the ‘English
Bill of Rights’?
5. To what extent did the colonies enjoy some degree of self-governance under the policies of
‘salutary neglect’? In what ways did the British government and the Crown still retain some
power over the colonies?
6. How and why did the power of the French and Spanish colonies decline relative to their British
neighbors in the late 17th and early 18th centuries?
7. How did the patterns of settlement of New France contrast with those found in the English
colonies?
8. How and why did European wars of the late 17th/early 18th centuries affect relations between
the European colonies, as well as with Native American tribes?
9. How did the French & Indian war affect the power balance between European colonies in
North America?
10. In what ways can some of the events surrounding the French & Indian War be seen as a
foreshadowing of the later war for American independence?
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