2014-2015 CTHS APUSH
Summer Reading Assignment
“It was no coincidence that on September 11, 2001, those who wished to make a symbolic attack on the center of
American power chose the World Trade Center as their target. If what made America great was its ingenious openness
to different cultures, then the small triangle of land at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is the New World birthplace
of that idea, the spot where it first took shape. “
Advanced Placement United States History (APUSH)
Summer Assignment 2014
Email: Kflanagan@pasadenaisd.org
Class site: https://www.myhaikuclass.com/kflanagan/cthsapush/
Welcome to AP U.S. History! The intent of this course is to offer a broad survey of American history
from pre-colonial America to the present. Emphasis will be placed on the development of writing,
interpretative, and analytical skills with a view towards successfully taking the Advanced Placement test.
Some words of advice from Ms. Flanagan:
1. Enjoy your summer. These few assignments should not consume all of your free time this summer. Go to
the movies, take a swim, or stroll the mall with your friends. You will wish for that free time during the school
year!
2. Explore history. If you take a vacation, see if you can stop at an historical marker along the way. Or, do a
little research about the place you are visiting. Take the time to start thinking historically.
3. Read. Try to read several books over the course of the summer. See my suggestion list on the class website!
You will do a ton of reading in this class next year and if you are not in the habit of turning pages, it will be
much more difficult to adjust. Read fiction, if that is your choice, but try picking up a historical book as well.
4. Write. Keep a journal for the summer, or try to write a short story. The more you write the easier it is to
write well. You will do a lot of writing in this class. The more comfortable you are with writing the more
successful you will be.
5. Become an informed citizen. Read the newspaper. Watch CNN. Listen to NPR. Try to keep updated on
world events. Develop an opinion about Obama’s successes and failures as a president.
6. Learn your geography. Geography is going to play an important part of this course. The more you know
about geography the farther ahead you will be.
7. Watch history movies! Do you really need to watch Fast and Furious 6 again? Of course not! If you have a
free evening try to watch something historical. Visit http://www.historyplace.com/films/index.html for
suggestions or type “good history movie” into Google and see what comes up!
8. Know the major Presidents and their major accomplishments. This will help you prepare for the
AP exam in May, so you may as well get a jump-start. Try to do them in blocks of 3: Washington, Adams,
Jefferson (pause) Madison, Monroe, Adams. Or, watch the Animaniacs on YouTube =)
9. Explore your family history. Stuck for a conversation starter at dinner? Ask your elders what it was like
growing up during a major event in US History. Begin to understand that history is a compilation of people’s
lives, their experiences, and their decisions; we are simply a product of those things and so much more. Just
think of it as an old school reality TV show (except we already know the ending!)
10. Ask Questions. There is no such thing as a stupid question. Today we live in a society where it's become
okay to instantly Google and find answers whereas 5 years ago, most of us didn't have the capability to rely on
our phones for such instant answers. Studies show the more you exercise your brain, the longer you will live.
Continue to challenge yourself and resist the urge by taking the easy way out when posed with difficult
challenges. The more you ask questions the more you will understand and the more knowledge you will gain.
Here's to learning together!
CTHS APUSH
Signing Up for Class Website
Go to: https://www.myhaikuclass.com/kflanagan/cthsapush/signup
Enter Your Invitation code: 3MT3C
Register as a Student. You will have to create an account if you do not already have one.
As soon as you’ve created your account, it should take you directly to our class site.
Now you’ll be able to access the readings and podcasts for your summer assignment.
Good luck!
Explanations
Theme
THEME #1
Exploration and
Discovery
All materials can be found on the class website. Please complete the following
assignments for the Exploration and Discovery theme:
Read Chapter #1: New World Beginnings - Master chapter identifications(10) and
complete guided reading (12 questions)
Read on-line article on the Columbian Exchange by Alfred Crosby and generate
notes on the handout provided
THEME #2
European
Settlement
Complete Podcast show notes from Topic #1 When Worlds Collide: Columbus Day
on the handout provided
All materials can be found on the class website Please complete the following
assignments for the European Settlement theme:
Read Chapter #2: The Planting of English America - Master chapter
identifications(12) and complete guided reading (12 questions)
THEME #3
English Settlement
Complete Podcast shownotes from Topic #1 When Worlds Collide Tobacco OR
Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma
All materials can be found on the class website Please complete the following
assignments for the English Settlement theme:
Read Chapter #3: Settling the Northern Colonies - Master chapter
identifications(18) and complete guided reading (16 questions)
Complete Podcast show notes from Topic #1 When Worlds Collide: Witch Hunting
OR Thanksgiving;
THEME #4
American Life in the
17th Century
Read How Capitalism Saved the Pilgrims pages 53 to 62 and generate notes on
the handout provided.
All materials can be found on the class website Please complete the following
assignments for the American Life in the 17th Century theme:
Read Chapter #4: American Life in the Seventeenth Century - Master chapter
identifications(7) and complete guided reading (9 questions)
Read on-line article Conflict and Commerce: The Rise and Fall of New Netherland
by Simon Middleton and generate notes on the handout provided
CTHS APUSH
Summer assignment descriptions
CORE CONTENT
Identifications: Your chapter identifications are simply essential vocabulary terms, people, or events of note.
As we progress through the year it is your responsibility to master these identifications. A mastery of this
material will complement lecture discussions and serve as review for the May exam.
Guided Readings: Each chapter you read this year will have a collection of questions to guide you through the
40 pages of reading. We will be covering nearly 40 chapters in the 110 class meetings, so the guided reading
questions are designed to move you through an average of 1.5 chapters per week in an efficient manner.
Please see an example of guided reading responses on the back of this handout.
SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES
Outside Readings- Your outside readings will encompass historical journals, scholarly articles,
historical novels, or biographies to complement course content and examine alternative
perspectives. You will be expected to generate notes in a variety of formats.
Podcasts - A podcast is distinguished from other digital audio format by its ability to be
downloaded to your desktop, flash drive or automatically using software capable of reading
RSS feeds. Throughout the year I will be assigning Historical podcasts from profession websites
(Organization of American Historians, Gilder Lerhman Institute, The Constitution Center,
Massachusetts School of Law, and NPR)
APUSH SUMMER ASSIGNMENT
Guided Reading Examples
COMMENTARY: This is a minimalist response that does not serve as a useful tool for content mastery or May
exam review. Based on the language contained in the response, there is limited evidence of text reading and no
details beyond surface level recall. Please avoid this type of response.
COMMENTARY: This response contains relevant language and details that essentially summarize the text
reading. Combined with chapters Ids, references to “white collar” and “cult of domesticity” in the context of the
1950s are as necessary components of a developed response.
COMMENTARY: This is an exemplary response that contains relevant language, dates, and details . It
includes references to baby boom and the Feminine Mystique. A complete response to an essay prompt on
women of the 1950s has to include Betty Freidan’s book as a connection to the feminist movement. Great for
unit test review or national exam review.
APUSH SUMMER ASSIGNMENT
THEME #1 EXPLORATION and DISCOVERY
BIG PICTURE THEMES: Chapter #1: New World Beginnings (pages 4 – 24)
1. The New World, before Columbus, there were many different Native American tribes. These people were
very diverse. In what’s today the U.S., there were an estimated 400 tribes, often speaking different
languages. It’s inaccurate to think of “Indians” as a homogeneous group.
2. Columbus came to America looking for a trade route to the East Indies (Spice Islands). Other explorers
quickly realized this was an entirely New World and came to lay claim to the new lands for their host
countries. Spain and Portugal had the head start on France and then England.
3. The coming together of the two world had world changing effects. The biological exchange cannot be
underestimated. Food was swapped back and forth and truly revolutionized what people ate. On the bad side,
European diseases wiped out an estimated 90% of Native Americans
IDENTIFICATIONS: Chapter #1: New World Beginnings (pages 4 – 24)
1. Marco Polo
Italian explorer; spent many years in China or near it; his return to Europe in 1295 sparked a European interest
in finding a quicker route to Asia.
2. Montezuma
Aztec chieftan; encountered Cortes and the Spanish and saw that they rode horses; Montezuma assumed that
the Soanush were gods. He welcomed them hospitably, but the explorers soon turned on the natives and
ruled them for three centuries.
3. Christopher Columbus
An Italian navigator who was funded by the Spanish Government to find a passage to the Far East. He is given
credit for discovering the "New World," even though at his death he believed he had made it to India. He
made four voyages to the "New World." The first sighting of land was on October 12, 1492, and three other
journies until the time of his death in 1503.
4. Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)
In 1494 Spain and Portugal were disputing the lands of the new world, so the Spanish went to the Pope, and
he divided the land of South America for them. Spain got the vast majority, the west, and Portugal got the
east.
5. Mestizos
The Mestizos were the race of people created when the Spanish intermarried with the surviving Indians in
Mexico.
6. Spanish Armada
"Invincible" group of ships sent by King Philip II of Spain to invade England in 1588; Armada was defeated by
smaller, more maneuverable English "sea dogs" in the Channel; marked the beginning of English naval
dominance and fall of Spanish dominance.
7. "Black legend"
The idea developed during North American colonial times that the Spanish utterly destroyed the Indians
through slavery and disease while the English did not. It is a false assertion that the Spanish were more evil
towards the Native Americans than the English were.
8. Conquistadores
Spanish explorers that invaded Central and South America for it's riches during the 1500's. In doing so they
conquered the Incas, Aztecs, and other Native Americans of the area. Eventually they intermarried these
tribes.
9. Joint stock company
These were developed to gather the savings from the middle class to support finance colonies. Ex. London
Company and Plymouth Company.
10. Encomienda system
The Spanish labor system in which persons were help to unpaid service under the permanent control of their
masters, though not legally owned by them.
GUIDED READING QUESTIONS: Chapter #1: New World Beginnings (pages 4 – 24)
Introduction
Know: Old World, New World
1.
What conditions existed in what is today the United States that made it "fertile ground" for a great
nation?
The Shaping of North America
Know: Appalachian Mountains, Tidewater Region, Rocky Mountains, Great Basin, Great Lakes, MissouriMississippi-Ohio River System
2.
Speculate how at least one geographic feature affected the development of the United States.
Peopling the Americas
Know: Land Bridge
3.
"Before the arrival of Europeans, the settlement of the Americas was insignificant." Assess this statement.
The Earliest Americans
Know: Maize, Aztecs, Incas, Pueblo, Mound Builders, Three-sister Farming, Cherokee, Iroquois
4.
Describe some of the common features North American Indian culture.
Indirect Discoverers of the New World
Know: Finland, Crusaders, Venice, Genoa
5.
What caused Europeans to begin exploring?
Europeans Enter Africa
Know: Marco Polo, Caravel, Bartholomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand and Isabella, Moors
6.
What were the results of the Portuguese explorations of Africa?
Columbus Comes upon a New World
Know: Columbus
7.
What developments set the stage for “a cataclysmic shift in the course of history?”
When Worlds Collide
Know: Corn, Potatoes, Sugar, Horses, Smallpox
8.
Explain the positive and negative effects of the Atlantic Exchange.
The Spanish Conquistadors
Know: Treaty of Tordesillas, Vasco Nunez Balboa, Ferdinand Magellan, Juan Ponce de Leon, Francisco Coronado,
Hernando de Soto, Francisco Pizarro, Encomienda
9.
Were the conquistadors great men? Explain.
The Conquest of Mexico
Know: Hernan Cortes, Tenochtitlan, Montezuma, Mestizos
10. Why was Cortes able to defeat the powerful Aztecs?
The Spread of Spanish America
Know: John Cabot, Giovanni da Verazano, Jacques Cartier, St. Augustine, New Mexico, Pope's Rebellion, Mission
Indians, Black Legend
11. What is the “Black Legend,” and to what extent does our text agree with it?
THEME #1 EXPLORATION and DISCOVERY
Outside Reading
The Columbian Exchange
by Alfred Crosby
Professor Emeritus, University of Texas at Austin
SOURCE LINK: http://www.gilderlehrman.org/historynow/06_2007/historian2.php
Directions: Read the Columbian Exchange by Alfred Crosby and generate notes on the handout provided on pages
Millions of years ago, continental drift carried the Old World and New Worlds apart, splitting North and South America
from Eurasia and Africa. That separation lasted so long that it fostered divergent evolution; for instance, the
development of rattlesnakes on one side of the Atlantic and vipers on the other. After 1492, human voyagers in part
reversed this tendency. Their artificial re-establishment of connections through the commingling of Old and New World
plants, animals, and bacteria, commonly known as the Columbian Exchange, is one of the more spectacular and
significant ecological events of the past millennium.
When Europeans first touched the shores of the Americas, Old World crops such as wheat, barley, rice, and turnips had
not traveled west across the Atlantic, and New World crops such as maize, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, and manioc
had not traveled east to Europe. In the Americas, there were no horses, cattle, sheep, or goats, all animals of Old World
origin. Except for the llama, alpaca, dog, a few fowl, and guinea pig, the New World had no equivalents to the
domesticated animals associated with the Old World, nor did it have the pathogens associated with the Old World’s
dense populations of humans and such associated creatures as chickens, cattle, black rats, and Aedes egypti mosquitoes.
Among these germs were those that carried smallpox, measles, chickenpox, influenza, malaria, and yellow fever.
The Columbian exchange of crops affected both the Old World and the New. Amerindian crops that have crossed oceans
– for example, maize to China and the white potato to Ireland - have been stimulants to population growth in the Old
World. The latter’s crops and livestock have had much the same effect in the Americas – for example, wheat in Kansas
and the Pampa, and beef cattle in Texas and Brazil. The full story of the exchange is many volumes long, so for the sake
of brevity and clarity let us focus on a specific region, the eastern third of the United States of America.
As might be expected, the Europeans who settled on the east coast of the United States cultivated crops like wheat and
apples, which they had brought with them. European weeds, which the colonists did not cultivate, and, in fact, preferred
to uproot, also fared well in the New World. John Josselyn, an Englishman and amateur naturalist who visited New
England twice in the seventeenth century, left us a list, "Of Such Plants as Have Sprung Up since the English Planted and
Kept Cattle in New England," which included couch grass, dandelion, shepherd's purse, groundsel, sow thistle, and
chickweeds. One of these, a plantain (Plantago major), was named "Englishman's Foot" by the Amerindians of New
England and Virginia who believed that it would grow only where the English "have trodden, and was never known
before the English came into this country." Thus, as they intentionally sowed Old World crop seeds, the European
settlers were unintentionally contaminating American fields with weed seed. More importantly, they were stripping and
burning forests, exposing the native minor flora to direct sunlight, and the hooves and teeth of Old World livestock. The
native flora could not tolerate the stress. The imported weeds could, because they had lived with large numbers of
grazing animals for thousands of years. Cattle and horses were brought ashore in the early 1600s and found hospitable
climate and terrain in North America. Horses arrived in Virginia as early as 1620 and in Massachusetts in 1629. Many
wandered free with little more evidence of their connection to humanity than collars with a hook at the bottom to catch
on fences as they tried to leap over them to get at crops. Fences were not for keeping livestock in, but for keeping
livestock out.
Native American resistance to the Europeans was ineffective. Indigenous peoples suffered from white brutality,
alcoholism, the killing and driving off of game, and the expropriation of farmland, but all these together are insufficient
to explain the degree of their defeat. The crucial factor was not people, plants, or animals, but germs. The history of the
United States begins with Virginia and Massachusetts, and their histories begin with epidemics of unidentified diseases.
At the time of the abortive Virginia colony at Roanoke in the 1580s the nearby Amerindians “began to die quickly. The
disease was so strange that they neither knew what it was, nor how to cure it….”1 When the Pilgrims settled at
Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620, they did so in a village and on a coast nearly cleared of Amerindians by a recent
epidemic. Thousands had "died in a great plague not long since; and pity it was and is to see so many goodly fields, and
so well seated, without man to dress and manure the same."2
Smallpox was the worst and the most spectacular of the infectious diseases mowing down the Native Americans. The
first recorded pandemic of that disease in British North America detonated among the Algonquin of Massachusetts in
the early 1630s: William Bradford of Plymouth Plantation wrote that the victims “fell down so generally of this disease
as they were in the end not able to help one another, no not to make a fire nor fetch a little water to drink, nor any to
bury the dead.”
The missionaries and the traders who ventured into the American interior told the same appalling story about smallpox
and the indigenes. In 1738 alone the epidemic destroyed half the Cherokee; in 1759 nearly half the Catawbas; in the first
years of the next century two-thirds of the Omahas and perhaps half the entire population between the Missouri River
and New Mexico; in 1837-38 nearly every last one of the Mandans and perhaps half the people of the high plains.
European explorers encountered distinctively American illnesses such as Chagas Disease, but these did not have much
effect on Old World populations. Venereal syphilis has also been called American, but that accusation is far from proven.
Even if we add all the Old World deaths blamed on American diseases together, including those ascribed to syphilis, the
total is insignificant compared to Native American losses to smallpox alone.
The export of America’s native animals has not revolutionized Old World agriculture or ecosystems as the introduction
of European animals to the New World did. America’s grey squirrels and muskrats and a few others have established
themselves east of the Atlantic and west of the Pacific, but that has not made much of a difference. Some of America’s
domesticated animals are raised in the Old World, but turkeys have not displaced chickens and geese, and guinea pigs
have proved useful in laboratories, but have not usurped rabbits in the butcher shops.
The New World’s great contribution to the Old is in crop plants. Maize, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, various
squashes, chiles, and manioc have become essentials in the diets of hundreds of millions of Europeans, Africans, and
Asians. Their influence on Old World peoples, like that of wheat and rice on New World peoples, goes far to explain the
global population explosion of the past three centuries. The Columbian Exchange has been an indispensable factor in
that demographic explosion.
All this had nothing to do with superiority or inferiority of biosystems in any absolute sense. It has to do with
environmental contrasts. Amerindians were accustomed to living in one particular kind of environment, Europeans and
Africans in another. When the Old World peoples came to America, they brought with them all their plants, animals, and
germs, creating a kind of environment to which they were already adapted, and so they increased in number.
Amerindians had not adapted to European germs, and so initially their numbers plunged. That decline has reversed in
our time as Amerindian populations have adapted to the Old World’s environmental influence, but the demographic
triumph of the invaders, which was the most spectacular feature of the Old World’s invasion of the New, still stands.
1
Quinn, David B., Ed. The Roanoke Voyages, 1584-1590: Documents to Illustrate the English Voyages to North America.
London: Hakluyt Society, 1955, 378.
2
Winslow, Edward, Morton, Nathaniel, Bradford, William, and Prince, Thomas. New England’s Memorial. Cambridge:
Allan and Farnham, 1855, 362.
APUSH SUPPLEMENTAL READING NOTES
The Columbian Exchange
Please answer each question thoroughly and completely. If you have treated this assignment lightly, you will
be at a disadvantage in writing essays that call for “substantial and appropriate outside information.” Read The
Columbian Exchange (http://www.historynow.org/06_2007/historian2.html ) by Alfred Crosby and complete the
prompts below.
In two or three well thought out sentences, summarize the major point of this reading. (Please be thorough.
This will be very important to you late in the year when reviewing for the AP test or NYS Regents Exam)
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In a couple of sentences, what was the bias of the author? From what perspective does the author write--political, social,
and economic? Why is this significant in the document you have read?
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Different from the “what is the main point” question above, list several things that you learned from this reading, things
that you did not know before doing this reading.
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The purpose of this assignment is to help you be prepared to refer to historians or historically significant individuals in
your AP test essays. In the space below, write down quotes from the document that you think might be useful. Try to be
selective--choose those that are genuinely typical of the writer’s thinking or that highlight a major point in the writer's
thinking or argument. Include page numbers so that you can find them again when we review.
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SOURCE:
http://www.murrayschools.org/MHS/apus/
CTHS APUSH
Topic #1 - Podcast Notes
Please answer each question thoroughly and completely. Develop a system for downloading an organizing the podcasts
available on our class website. During the school year you will be able to submit podcasts for extra points. Complete
Podcast show notes from Topic #1 When Worlds Collide: Columbus Day
BEFORE
Prepare to Listen
What do you know about the podcast topic or theme based on text readings and class discussions? What do you expect
to hear regarding this topic?
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DURING
Question and Comment
Who was involved? What ideas, events, or people does the podcast emphasize? What are the causes of the event or
topic being discussed? What are the consequences of the event of topic being discussed?
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DURING (Con’t)
Question and Comment
Who was involved? What ideas, events, or people does the podcast emphasize? What are the causes of the event or
topic being discussed? What are the consequences of the event of topic being discussed?
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AFTER
Summarize and Synthesize
Based the on the information from the podcast, what did you learn. Include things that you did not know before listening
to the podcast. Include quotes or anecdotes from the podcast that you think might be useful. Try to be selective--choose
those that are genuinely typical of the main points or highlights
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SOURCE LINKS
http://www.murrayschools.org/MHS/apus/
APUSH SUMMER ASSIGNMENT
THEME #2 EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT
BIG PICTURE THEMES: Chapter #2 The Planting of English America (pp. 25 – 42)
1. Jamestown, VA was founded with the initial goal of making money via gold. They found no gold, but did
find a cash crop in tobacco.
2. Other southern colonies sprouted up due to (a) the desire for more tobacco land as with North Carolina, (b)
the desire for religious freedom as with Maryland, (c) the natural extension of a natural port in South Carolina,
or (d) as a “second chance” colony as with Georgia.
IDENTIFICATIONS: Chapter #2: The Planting of English America (pp. 25 – 42)
Pocahontas
A native Indian of America, daughter of Chief Powahatan, who was one of the first to marry an Englishman, John Rolfe,
and return to England with him; about 1595-1617; Pocahontas' brave actions in saving an Englishman paved the way for
many positive English and Native relations.
John Rolfe
Rolfe was an Englishman who became a colonist in the early settlement of Virginia. He is best known as the
man who married the Native American, Pocahontas and took her to his homeland of England. Rolfe was also
the savior of the Virginia colony by perfecting the tobacco industry in North America. Rolfe died in 1622,
during one of many Indian attacks on the colony.
Sir Walter Raleigh
An English adventurer and writer, who was prominent at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, and became an
explorer of the Americas. In 1585, Raleigh sponsored the first English colony in America on Roanoke Island in
present-day North Carolina. It failed and is known as " The Lost Colony."
James Oglethorpe
Founder of Georgia in 1733; soldier, statesman , philanthropist. Started Georgia as a haven for people in debt
because of his interest in prison reform. Almost single-handedly kept Georgia afloat.
John Smith
John Smith took over the leadership role of the English Jamestown settlement in 1608. Most people in the
settlement at the time were only there for personal gain and did not want to help strengthen the settlement.
Smith therefore told the people, "people who do not work do not eat." His leadership saved the Jamestown
settlement from collapsing.
House of Burgesses
The House of Burgesses was the first representative assembly in the New World. The London Company
authorized the settlers to summon an assembly, known as the House of Burgesses. A momentous precedent
was thus feebly established, for this assemblage was the first of many miniature parliaments to sprout form
the soil of America.
“Slave Codes" 1661
In 1661 a set of "codes" was made. It denied slaves basic fundamental rights, and gave their owners
permission to treat them as they saw fit.
Proprietor
A person who was granted charters of ownership by the king: proprietary colonies were Maryland,
Pennsylvania and Delaware: proprietors founded colonies from 1634 until 168 . A famous proprietor is William
Penn.
Indentured Servant
Indentured servants were Englishmen who were outcasts of their country, would work in the Americas for a
certain amount of time as servants.
“Starving Time”
The winter of 1609 to 1610 was known as the "starving time" to the colonists of Virginia. Only sixty members
of the original four-hundred colonists survived. The rest died of starvation because they did not possess the
skills that were necessary to obtain food in the new world.
Act of Toleration
A legal document that allowed all Christian religions in Maryland: Protestants invaded the Catholics in 1649
around Maryland: protected the Catholics religion from Protestant rage of sharing the land: Maryland became
the #1 colony to shelter Catholics in the New World.
Iroquois Confederacy
The Iroquois Confederacy was nearly a military power consisting of Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, and Senecas.
It was founded in the late 1500s.The leaders were Degana Widah and Hiawatha. The Indians lived in log
houses with relatives. Men dominated, but a person's background was determined by the women's family.
Different groups banded together but were separate fur traders and fur suppliers. Other groups joined; they
would ally with either the French or the English depending on which would be the most to their advantage.
GUIDED READING QUESTIONS: Chapter #2 The Planting of English America (pp. 25 – 42)
England's Imperial Stirrings
Know: Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, Catholic Ireland
1
Why was England slow to establish New World colonies?
Elizabeth Energizes England
Know: Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Virginia, Spanish Armada
2
What steps from 1575-1600 brought England closer to colonizing the New World?
England on the Eve of Empire
Know: Enclosure Movement, Primogeniture, Joint-stock company
3
Explain how conditions in England around 1600 made it "ripe" to colonize N. America.
England Plants the Jamestown Seedling
Know: Virginia Company, Jamestown, John Smith, Powhatan, Pocahontas, Starving Time, Lord De La Warr
4.
Give at least three reasons that so many of the Jamestown settlers died.
Cultural Clash in the Chesapeake
Know: Powhatan's Confederacy, Anglo-Powhatan Wars
5. What factors led to the poor relations between Europeans and Native Americans in Virginia?
Virginia: Child of Tobacco
Know: John Rolfe, Tobacco, House of Burgesses
6.
"By 1620 Virginia had already developed many of the features that were important to it two centuries
later." Explain.
Maryland: Catholic Haven
Know: Lord Baltimore, Indentured Servants, Act of Toleration
7.
In what ways was Maryland different than Virginia?
The West Indies: Way Station to Mainland America
Know: West Indies, Sugar, Barbados Slave Code
8
What historical consequences resulted from the cultivation of sugar instead of tobacco in the British
colonies in the West Indies?
Colonizing the Carolinas
Know: Oliver Cromwell, Charles II, Rice
9.
Why did Carolina become a place for aristocratic whites and many black slaves?
The Emergence of North Carolina
Know: Tuscarora
10
North Carolina was called "a vale of humility between two mountains of conceit." Explain.
Late-Coming Georgia: The Buffer Colony
Know: James Oglethorpe
11.
In what ways was Georgia unique among the Southern colonies?
The Plantation Colonies
12.
Which Southern colony was the most different from the others? Explain.
Ballston APUSH
Topic #1 - Podcast Notes
Please answer each question thoroughly and completely. Develop a system for downloading an organizing the podcasts
available on our class website. During the school year you will be able to submit podcasts for extra points. Complete
Podcast show notes from Topic #1 When Worlds Collide Tobacco OR Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma
BEFORE
Prepare to Listen
What do you know about the podcast topic or theme based on text readings and class discussions? What do you expect
to hear regarding this topic?
______________________________________________________________________________
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______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
DURING
Question and Comment
Who was involved? What ideas, events, or people does the podcast emphasize? What are the causes of the event or
topic being discussed? What are the consequences of the event of topic being discussed?
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DURING (Con’t)
Question and Comment
Who was involved? What ideas, events, or people does the podcast emphasize? What are the causes of the event or
topic being discussed? What are the consequences of the event of topic being discussed?
______________________________________________________________________________
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AFTER
Summarize and Synthesize
Based the on the information from the podcast, what did you learn. Include things that you did not know before listening
to the podcast. Include quotes or anecdotes from the podcast that you think might be useful. Try to be selective--choose
those that are genuinely typical of the main points or highlights
______________________________________________________________________________
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SOURCE LINKS
http://www.murrayschools.org/MHS/apus/
and www.englishcompanion.com
APUSH SUMMER ASSIGNMENT
THEME #3 ENGLISH SETTLEMENT
BIG PICTURE THEMES: Chapter #3: Settling the Northern Colonies (pages 43 – 65)
1. Plymouth, MA was founded with the initial goal of allowing Pilgrims, and later Puritans, to worship independent of
the Church of England. Their society, ironically, was very intolerant itself and any dissenters were pushed out of the
colony.
2. Other New England colonies sprouted up, due to (a) religious dissent from Plymouth and Massachusetts as with
Rhode Island, (b) the constant search for more farmland as in Connecticut, and (c) just due to natural growth as in
Maine.
3. The Middle Colonies emerged as the literal crossroads of the north and south. They held the stereotypical qualities of
both regions: agricultural and industrial. And they were unique in that (a) New York was born of Dutch heritage rather
than English, and (b) Pennsylvania thrived more than any other colony due to its freedoms and tolerance.
IDENTIFICATIONS: Chapter #3: Settling the Northern Colonies (pages 43 – 65)
Anne Hutchinson A religious dissenter whose ideas provoked an intense religious and political crisis in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1636 and 1638. She challenged the principles of Massachusetts's religious
and political system. Her ideas became known as the heresy of Antinomianism, a belief that Christians are not
bound by moral law. She was latter expelled, with her family and followers, and went and settled at Pocasset
(now Portsmouth, R.I.)
Roger Williams He was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for challenging Puritan ideas. He later
established Rhode Island and helped it to foster religious toleration.
William Bradford A pilgrim that lived in a north colony called Plymouth Rock in 1620. He was chosen governor
30 times. He also conducted experiments of living in the wilderness and wrote about them; well known for "Of
Plymouth Plantation."
William Penn English Quaker;" Holy Experiment"; persecuted because he was a Quaker; 1681 he got a grant to
go over to the New World; area was Pennsylvania; "first American advertising man"; freedom of worship there
John Winthrop John Winthrop immigrated from the Mass. Bay Colony in the 1630's to become the first
governor and to led a religious experiment. He once said, "we shall be a city on a hill."
The "Elect"
A religious belief developed by John Calvin held that a certain number of
people were predestined to go to heaven by God. This belief in the elect, or "visible
saints," figured a major part in the doctrine of the Puritans who settled in New England
during the 1600's.
Predestination
Primary idea behind Calvinism; states that salvation or damnation are foreordained and unalterable; first put
forth by John Calvin in 1531; was the core belief of the Puritans who settled New England in the seventeenth
century.
Pilgrims Separatists; worried by "Dutchification" of their children they left Holland on the Mayflower in 1620;
they landed in Massachusetts; they proved that people could live in the new world
New England Confederation
New England Confederation was a Union of four colonies consisting of the two Massachusetts colonies (The
Bay colony and Plymouth colony) and the two Connecticut colonies (New Haven and scattered valley
settlements) in 1643. The purpose of the confederation was to defend against enemies such as the Indians,
French, Dutch, and prevent intercolonial problems that effected all four colonies.
Calvinism Set of beliefs that the Puritans followed. In the 1500's John Calvin, the founder of Calvinism,
preached virtues of simple worship, strict morals, pre-destination and hard work. This resulted in Calvinist
followers wanting to practice religion, and it brought about wars between Huguenots (French Calvinists) and
Catholics, that tore the French kingdom apart.
Massachusetts Bay Colony
One of the first settlements in New England; established in 1630 and became a major Puritan colony. Became
the state of Massachusetts, originally where Boston is located. It was a major trading center, and absorbed the
Plymouth community
Dominion of New England In 1686, New England, in conjunction with New York and New Jersey, consolidated
under the royal authority -- James II. Charters and self rule were revoked, and the king enforced mercantile
laws. The new setup also made for more efficient administration of English Navigation Laws, as well as a better
defense system. The Dominion ended in 1688 when James II was removed from the throne.
The Puritans
They were a group of religious reformists who wanted to "purify" the Anglican Church. Their ideas started with
John Calvin in the 16th century and they first began to leave England in 1608. Later voyages came in 1620 with
the Pilgrims and in 1629, which was the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Separatists
Pilgrims that started out in Holland in the 1620's who traveled over the Atlantic Ocean on the Mayflower.
These were the purest, most extreme Pilgrims existing, claiming that they were too strong to be discouraged
by minor problems as others were.
Quakers
Members of the Religious Society of Friends; most know them as the Quakers. They believe in equality of all
peoples and resist the military. They also believe that the religious authority is the decision of the individual
(no outside influence.) Settled in Pennsylvania.
Protestant Ethic
mid 1600's; a commitment made by the Puritans in which they seriously dwelled on working and pursuing
worldly affairs.
Mayflower Compact 1620
A contract made by the voyagers on the Mayflower agreeing that they would form a simple government
where majority ruled.
Fundamental Orders
In 1639 the Connecticut River colony settlers had an open meeting and they established a constitution called
the Fundamental Orders. It made a Democratic government. It was the first constitution in the colonies and
was a beginning for the other states' charters and constitutions.
GUIDED READING QUESTIONS: Chapter #3 Settling the Northern Colonies 1619—1700
The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism
Know: John Calvin, Conversion Experience, Visible Saints, Church of England, Puritans, Separatists
1.
How did John Calvin's teachings result in some Englishmen wanting to leave England?
The Pilgrims End Their Pilgrimage at Plymouth
Know: Mayflower, Myles Standish, Mayflower Compact, Plymouth, William Bradford
2
Explain the factors that contributed to the success of the Plymouth colony.
The Bay Colony Bible Commonwealth
Know: Puritans, Charles I, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Great Migration, John Winthrop
3
Why did the Puritans come to America?
Building the Bay Colony
Know: Freemen, Bible Commonwealth, John Cotton, Protestant Ethic
4
How democratic was the Massachusetts Bay Colony? Explain.
Trouble in the Bible Commonwealth
Know: Anne Hutchinson, Antinomianism, Roger Williams
5.
What happened to people whose religious beliefs differed from others in Massachusetts Bay Colony?
The Rhode Island "Sewer"
Know: Freedom of Religion
6
How was Rhode Island different than Massachusetts?
Makers of America: The English|
7.
In what ways did the British North American colonies reflect their mother country?
New England Spreads Out
Know: Thomas Hooker, Fundamental Orders
8.
Describe how Connecticut, Maine and New Hampshire were settled.
Puritans versus Indians
Know: Squanto, Massasoit, Pequot War, Praying Towns, Metacom, King Philip's War
9
Why did hostilities arise between Puritans and Native Americans? What was the result?
Seeds of Colonial Unity and Independence
Know: New England Confederation, Charles II
10.
Assess the following statement, "The British colonies were beginning to grow closer to each other by
1700."
Andros Promotes the First American Revolution
Know: Dominion of New England, Navigation Laws, Edmund Andros, Glorious Revolution, William and Mary,
Salutary Neglect
11.
How did events in England affect the New England colonies' development?
Old Netherlanders at New Netherlands
Know: Dutch East India Company, Henry Hudson, New Amsterdam, Patroonships
12.
Explain how settlement by the Dutch led to the type of city that New York is today.
Friction with English and Swedish Neighbors
Know: Wall Street, New Sweden, Peter Stuyvesant, Log Cabins
13.
"Vexations beset the Dutch company-colony from the beginning." Explain.
Dutch Residues in New York
Know: Duke of York
14.
Do the Dutch have an important legacy in the United States? Explain.
Penn's Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania
Know: Quakers, William Penn
15.
What had William Penn and other Quakers experienced that would make them want a colony in America?
Quaker Pennsylvania and Its Neighbors
Know: East New Jersey, West New Jersey, Delaware
16.
Why was Pennsylvania attractive to so many Europeans and Native Americans?
The Middle Way in the Middle Colonies
Know: Middle Colonies, Benjamin Franklin
17.
What do the authors mean when the say that the middle colonies were the most American?
APUSH PODCAST NOTES
Topic #1 When Worlds Collide
Please answer each question thoroughly and completely. Develop a system for downloading and organizing the podcasts
available on our class website. During the school year you will be able to submit podcasts for extra points. Complete
Podcast show notes from Topic #1 When Worlds Collide: Witch Hunting OR Thanksgiving
BEFORE
Prepare to Listen
What do you know about the podcast topic or theme based on text readings and class discussions? What do you expect
to hear regarding this topic?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
DURING
Question and Comment
Who was involved? What ideas, events, or people does the podcast emphasize? What are the causes of the event or
topic being discussed? What are the consequences of the event of topic being discussed?
______________________________________________________________________________
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DURING (Con’t)
Question and Comment
Who was involved? What ideas, events, or people does the podcast emphasize? What are the causes of the event or
topic being discussed? What are the consequences of the event of topic being discussed?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
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AFTER
Summarize and Synthesize
Based the on the information from the podcast, what did you learn. Include things that you did not know before listening
to the podcast. Include quotes or anecdotes from the podcast that you think might be useful. Try to be selective--choose
those that are genuinely typical of the main points or highlights
______________________________________________________________________________
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______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
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SOURCE LINKS
http://www.murrayschools.org/MHS/apus/
and www.englishcompanion.com
APUSH SUPPLEMENTAL READING NOTES
How Capitalism Saved the Pilgrims
Please answer each question thoroughly and completely. If you have treated this assignment lightly, you will
be at a disadvantage in writing essays that call for “substantial and appropriate outside information.” Read How
Capitalism Saved the Pilgrims pages 53 to 62 and generate notes in the space provided
In two or three well thought out sentences, summarize the major point of this reading. (Please be thorough. This
will be very important to you late in the year when reviewing for the AP test or NYS Regents Exam)
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In a couple of sentences, what was the bias of the author? From what perspective does the author write--political, social,
and economic? Why is this significant in the document you have read?
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Different from the “what is the main point” question above, list several things that you learned from this reading, things
that you did not know before doing this reading.
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The purpose of this assignment is to help you be prepared to refer to historians or historically significant individuals in
your AP test essays. In the space below, write down quotes from the document that you think might be useful. Try to be
selective--choose those that are genuinely typical of the writer’s thinking or that highlight a major point in the writer's
thinking or argument. Include page numbers so that you can find them again when we review.
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SOURCE:
http://www.murrayschools.org/MHS/apus/
10.1.2007
APUSH SUMMER ASSIGNMENT
THEME #4 American Life in the Seventeenth Century
BIG PICTURE THEME: Chapter #4: American Life in the Seventeenth Century (pages 66 – 83)
1. The Southern colonies were dominated by agriculture, namely (a) tobacco in the Chesapeake and (b) rice and indigo
further down the coast.
2. Bacon’s Rebellion is very representative of the struggles of poor white indentured servants. Nathaniel
Bacon and his followers took to arms to essentially get more land out west from the Indians. This theme of
poor whites taking to arms for land, and in opposition to eastern authorities, will be repeated several times
(Shay’s Rebellion, Paxton Boys, Whisky Rebellion).
3. Taken altogether, the southern colonies were inhabited by a group of people who were generally young,
independent-minded, industrious, backwoodsy, down home, restless and industrious.
4. A truly unique African-American culture quickly emerged. Brought as slaves, black Americans blended
aspects of African culture with American. Religion shows this blend clearly, as African religious ceremonies
mixed with Christianity. Food and music also showed African-American uniqueness.
5. New Englanders developed a Bible Commonwealth—a stern but clear society where the rules of society
were dictated by the laws of the Bible. This good-vs-evil society is best illustrated by the Salem witch trials.
6. Taken altogether, the northern colonies were inhabited by a group of people who grew to be self-reliant,
stern, pious, proud, family oriented, sharp in thought and sharp of tongue, crusty, and very industrious.
IDENTIFICATIONS: Chapter #4: American Life in the Seventeenth Century (pages 66 – 83)
William Berkeley
He was a British colonial governor of Virginia from 1642-52. He showed that he had favorites in his second
term which led to the Bacon's rebellion in 1676 ,which he ruthlessly suppressed. He had poor frontier defense.
Headright system
A way to attract immigrants; gave 50 acres of land to anyone who paid their way and/or any plantation owner
that paid an immigrants way; mainly a system in the southern colonies.
Indentured servants
Indentured servants Because of the massive amounts of tobacco crops planted by families, "indentured servants" were
brought in from England to work on the farms. In exchange for working, they received transatlantic passage and
eventual "freedom dues", including a few barrels of corn, a suit of clothes, and possibly a small piece of land
Stono Rebellion (1739)
The Spanish empire enticed slaves of English colonies to escape to Spanish territory. In 1733 Spain issued an edict to free
all runaway slaves from British territory who made their way into Spanish possessions. On September 9, 1739, about 20
slaves, mostly from Angola, gathered under the leadership of a slave called Jemmy near the Stono River, 20 miles from
Charleston. 44 blacks and 21 whites lost their lives. South Carolina responded by placing import duties on slaves from
abroad, strengthening patrol duties and militia training, and recommending more benign treatment of slaves.
Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)
An uprising of western Virginia planters against the Eastern Establishment headed by Sir William Berkeley, the royal
governor. The Westerners, led by Nathaniel Bacon, resented both the social pretensions of the Berkeley group—which
in turn considered the Baconites “a giddy and unthinking multitude”—and Berkeley’s unwillingness to support their
attacks on local Indians. Bacon raised a small army, murdered some peaceful Indians, burned Jamestown, and forced the
governor to flee. But Bacon came down with a “violent flux” and died, and soon thereafter Berkeley restored order.
Leisler’s Rebellion (1689-91)
After news of the abdication of James II had reached New York, Jacob Leisler, a local militia captain, proclaimed himself governor of
the colony. He claimed to rule in the name of the new monarchs, William and Mary, and attempted without success to organize an
expedition against French Canada during King William’s War. In 1691, after a governor appointed by King William had arrived in New
York, Leisler resisted turning over power. He was arrested, tried for treason, and executed.
Halfway Covenant (1662)
A Puritan church document; the Halfway Covenant allowed partial membership rights to persons not yet converted into
the Puritan church; It lessened the difference between the "elect" members of the church from the regular members;
Women soon made up a larger portion of Puritan congregations.
GUIDED READING: Chapter #4 American Life 1607-1692
The Unhealthy Chesapeake
1.
"Life in the American wilderness was nasty, brutish, and short for the earliest Chesapeake settlers."
Explain.
The Tobacco Economy
Know: Tobacco, Indentured Servants, Freedom Dues, Headright System
2.
What conditions in Virginia made the colony right for the importation of indentured servants?
Frustrated Freemen and Bacon's Rebellion
Know: William Berkeley, Nathaniel Bacon
3.
Who is most to blame for Bacon's rebellion, the upper class or the lower class? Explain.
Colonial Slavery
Know: Royal African Company, Middle Passage, Slave Codes, Chattel Slavery
4. Describe the slave trade.
Africans in America
Know: Gullah, Stono Rebellion
5.
Describe slave culture and contributions.
Southern Society
Know: Plantations, Yeoman Farmers
6.
Describe southern culture in the colonial period, noting social classes.
The New England Family Know:
7.
The Scarlet Letter
What was it like to be a woman in New England?
Life in the New England Towns
Know: Harvard, Town Meetings
8.
Explain the significance of New England towns to the culture there.
The Half-Way Covenant and the Salem Witch Trial
Know: Jeremiad, Conversions, Half-Way Covenant
9.
What evidence shows that New England was becoming more diverse as the 17th century wore on?
The New England Way of Life
Know: Yankee Ingenuity
10.
How did the environment shape the culture of New England?
The Early Settlers' Days and Ways
Know: Leisler's Rebellion
11.
How much equality was evident in the colonies?
THEME #4 American Life in the 17th Century
Outside Reading
Conflict and Commerce: The Rise and Fall of New Netherland
by Simon Middleton
Lecturer in History, University of Sheffield
SOURCE LINK: http://www.gilderlehrman.org/historynow/06_2007/historian6.php
In September 1609, when Henry Hudson guided his ship, De Halve Maen, through the narrows dividing present day Staten and Long
Islands, he was not the first European navigator to sail into what we know today as New York Bay. The Italian explorer Giovanni da
Verrazzano came in 1524; the Frenchmen, Jean Alfonse de Saintonge and Jean Cossin, made separate voyages over the next half
century. But it was Hudson’s arrival that established a Dutch claim to the region and changed its history for all time.
Hudson, an English mariner in Dutch employ, had left Amsterdam in April intending to explore the Arctic seas north of Norway for a
possible eastern route to the rich trade of the Indies. When ice floes barred the way, his eighty-five-foot vessel and its crew of
sixteen mariners turned to the west and journeyed five thousand miles to North America. For weeks they navigated southwards
within sight of the shore, looking for an estuary or bay that might indicate the beginnings of a western route to Asia. By August they
had reached Long Island and, after a few days exploring the coast around Sandy Hook, Hudson set off up the broad, deep, and
promising river that now bears his name. Although the intrepid captain failed to locate a route to Asia—his navigation of the Hudson
ended at the site of modern day Albany—he had discovered a territory rich in timber and furs that would please his Dutch financiers
back in Amsterdam.
Hudson’s voyage took place at a critical moment in Atlantic history, and, in particular, for the challenge of northern European states
to the power of Spain. Weakened by the loss of the Armada to England in 1588 and by relentless attacks on its New World gold
fleets, Spain was plagued by financial crises that pushed it to the edge of collapse. The Spanish had also been unable to put down a
revolt by its northern Dutch provinces, eight of which had declared their independence and established a new Dutch Republic. In
April 1609, after decades of intermittent and inconclusive hostilities, the two sides agreed to a truce, allowing Dutch merchants to
back voyages such as Hudson’s without fear of Spanish attack and financial ruin.
Once news of Hudson’s discovery reached Holland, new expeditions arrived to trade beads, knives, and hatchets for furs with the
Munsee and Lenape Indians. These private traders established a fortified trading post, Fort Nassau, at the site of present day Albany
and charted the coastline and river inlets between Cape Cod and the Delaware Bay. In 1614, one of them, Adrian Block, produced
the first map of the territory which he named New Netherland. The following year, Block and others formed the New Netherland
Company and secured a three-year monopoly of the region’s trade from the States General, the governing body of the Dutch
Republic.
New Netherland, like other early American colonies, was a state-sponsored venture, the aim of which was to realize a profit and
serve the emerging Dutch state by eliminating competition from other trading ports and capturing more of the Indies from Portugal
and Spain. In 1621, the States General drew up a charter for a new West India Company, granting it a monopoly of all the Dutch
Atlantic trade with West Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean and North America. The Company was a joint-stock venture, financed by
government investment and private capital to the tune of more than seven million guilders. Like its East Indian counterpart, it was
managed by the shareholders who met in five regional chambers.
The company enjoyed some success in its early years, establishing trading posts on both sides of the Atlantic, dealing in slaves on the
coast of Africa, as well as gold, ivory, and sugar in the Caribbean, Suriname, and the northeast coast of Brazil. New Netherland was
only part of the Company’s concern, and a relatively minor one at that. In the summer of 1624, the Company established a small
settlement under the command of Cornelis Jacobsz May, the first provincial director, transporting some thirty families to what is
now Governor’s Island. More colonists arrived the following year, and the settlement was relocated a short distance across the bay
to the equally secure and more commodious lower tip of Manhattan, establishing New Amsterdam, later New York City. To secure
the settlement, Peter Minuit, then the provincial director, offered sixty guilders worth of blankets, kettles, and knives to neighboring
Indians, who accepted the trade goods as gifts, sealing a defensive alliance with the newcomers and not, as was once supposed, as
payment for the island of Manhattan. Fifteen years after Hudson’s arrival, New Netherland, the newest commercial outpost of the
Dutch empire, consisted of a small group of traders living in at the edge of a vast and rich wilderness.
The settlers' peace with the numerous local Native American tribes was tenuous at best. The large linguistic and cultural native
groupings of Algonquian and Iroquoian Indians who inhabited the region were subdivided into smaller communities that were
frequently at war or in some form of alliance with each other. The arrival of the Dutch had piqued the interest of local Indians, who
regarded the newcomers as potential allies and sources of new and interesting gifts that could in turn be traded with other tribes.
Thus, the Dutch found themselves drawn into a web of Indian diplomacy which they only partially understood.
As early as 1626, the settlers at Fort Orange (formerly Fort Nassau) suffered a bloody defeat at the hands of Mohawks, the enemies
of the Mahicans, the tribe with which the Dutch had been trading. Beginning in 1629, European-Amerindian commercial and
diplomatic relations became even more complicated following the migration of thousands of English Puritans from New England, the
territory north of New Netherland. These New Englanders provided Native Americans with yet another source of gifts and
friendship, and their rapidly growing and spreading settlement soon threatened to overwhelm the thinly-populated New
Netherland. The arrival of the English prompted a reassessment of the colony’s future. In June 1629, in an attempt to bolster New
Netherland’s population, the Company announced its intention to offer large tracts of land to patroons (a Dutch word for
landowners, from the Spanish “patrón”) who agreed to “buy” the land from the Indians, settle fifty families within four years, and
thereafter administer their settlements’ civil and criminal courts. Unfortunately, the relatively prosperous conditions prevailing in
the United Provinces and the limited benefits for settlers – who were expected to endure a dangerous sea voyage to live in the
North American wilderness – hardly recommended the patroonships as desirable destinations. All the prospective communities
except for Rensselaerswijck, established by Kiliaen van Rensselaer on both banks of the Hudson River near Fort Orange, failed to
attract large numbers of investors and settlers. Those who did make the trans-Atlantic journey often deserted their designated
employment, hoping to get rich quickly by defying the Company’s regulations and joining the lucrative fur trade. Meanwhile, English
colonists continued to settle in the Dutch territory.
The failure of the patroonship scheme established important precedents for the future. The easing of the patroon policy in 1640,
along with the arrival of independent fur traders signalled the beginning of the end for the Company’s trading monopoly and also
drew its shareholders and officers into civil rather than commercial administration. By the mid-seventeenth century, New
Netherland’s future as a colony of traders and farmers was increasingly apparent; land, not furs, would prove to be its greatest
resource.
In the second half of the 1630s, groups of Puritans spread southwards into the Connecticut River Valley – territory previously
claimed by the West India Company. The shareholders took steps to secure their territorial position, purchasing from the Canarsee
Indians all land west of Oyster Bay on Long Island and offering revised terms and conditions in an attempt to attract new settlers.
Under the new “Freedoms and Exemptions” policy, adopted in 1640, the Company gave up its trading monopoly and offered two
hundred acres of land to Dutch or English immigrants who undertook to settle five colonists. The change of policy succeeded in
bringing new settlers to the colony. Individual traders travelled independently to the colony to trade for furs, and some remained on
a semi-permanent basis to represent the interests of major trading houses in Amsterdam. Men and women were drawn across the
Atlantic by networks of family and friends. However, the policy also encouraged the Puritans to spill across Long Island Sound, where
they established the towns of Gravesend, Hempstead, Flushing, and Middleburgh (later Newtown) on Long Island – a sign of the
English settlers’ ever encroaching presence in the region.
By 1645, when the French Jesuit priest, Father Isaac Jogues, visited lower Manhattan, the island was populated by some four or five
hundred men of different sects and nationalities speaking eighteen different languages. The population of the entire province
remained no more than a couple of thousand, but as the number of free traders increased, so did the competition for Indian furs,
prompting subtle changes in European-Amerindian relations. As the caution of early years diminished, familiarity bred exploitation,
and, in time, mutual contempt.
In 1639 the provincial director, Willem Kieft, made the fateful decision to try and exact a tribute from the neighbouring Raritan
Indians. In Kieft’s view, since the Indians, as defensive allies, benefited from the presence of the Company and the colonists, it was
only reasonable that they bear some of its costs. The Indians, for their part, could see little benefit in having allies who stuck to the
coast and concentrated on trade, and they rejected Kieft’s authority to levy a tribute. The two sides clashed inconclusively until
1643, when the slaughter of some eighty Wecquaesgeek Indians across the river from New Amsterdam at Pavonia (Jersey City)
succeeded in uniting almost the entire Indian population of the Lower Hudson Valley against New Netherland.
When Keift's War ended two years later, dozens of colonists and some 1600 Indians had been killed, and New Netherland was
almost wiped out. Appealing for intervention to the States General in Holland, the settlers declared that “almost every place is
abandoned…we, wretched people, must skulk, with wives and little ones that still survive in poverty together… whilst the Indians
daily threaten to overwhelm us.”1
In 1647 the Company shareholders dispatched Peter Stuyvesant to restore the colony. A stern and sober man, Stuyvesant was also a
fiercely loyal employee who had lost a leg in the Company’s service while fighting the Portuguese on the Caribbean island of Saint
Martin. No sooner had he arrived than Stuyvesant and his hand-picked council issued a flurry of orders on matters ranging from
compulsory church attendance to fire prevention and the keeping of hogs and goats. This set the tone for his seventeen-year
administration, during which time he negotiated boundary agreements with the English to the north, led a force of seven hundred
men to expel the Swedes from the Delaware River to the south, and, through a combination of diplomacy and armed force,
managed to rebuild Dutch influence and strength in the region. Stuyvesant managed to navigate a middle course between the
competing demands of settler lobbies seeking greater autonomy and distant Company shareholders trying to preserve their
authority and chartered prerogatives. Although he acquired a reputation as a domineering and autocratic administrator, most
historians agree that under Stuyvesant’s care, New Netherland’s population of independent traders and farmers collaborated,
establishing orderly villages and small towns.
New Amsterdam quickly became known as the major port and capital of this increasingly prosperous provincial society. The origins
of the city’s government can be traced to a campaign for municipal reform begun by local merchants in the 1640s and culminating
with the first meeting of the municipal government on February 2, 1653. The city’s first burgomasters and schepens (roughly
equivalent to the English mayors and aldermen) were given charge of the school, the docks, and a newly-established public weighhouse. But they added to their administrative powers in subsequent years. In the course of the decade, the lives of ordinary settlers
in New Amsterdam came to resemble those of the urban Dutch brede middenstand, roughly equivalent to the English middling sort,
who balanced their private pursuits with public obligations and adherence to a regulatory order, and served as a powerful
integrating force upon an otherwise diverse settler group.
During this period of growth, neither the burgomasters nor the ordinary colonists realized that their success was about to become
the source of their undoing. In the late 1650s the colony's new-found prosperity attracted the attention of powerful English interests
who were jealous of the Dutch imperial success. Within months of Charles II’s restoration in 1660, Parliament adopted another
Navigation Act, designed to drive the Dutch from the English-controlled American trade. The keenest advocates of England's
commercial empire gathered around the king's younger brother, James, Duke of York. By March 1664 James and his counsellors had
succeeded in persuading the King to grant his brother part of present-day Maine and a handful of islands near its shores. In an act of
superlative aggrandizement, the most substantial part of James's grant awarded him control of all the territory lying between the
Delaware and Connecticut rivers – the territory comprising New Netherland.
In May of 1664 James, Duke of York, dispatched Colonel Richard Nicolls with four ships and three hundred soldiers to secure the
“entyre submission and obedience” of England's newest colonial American subjects. In mid-August the invaders disembarked from
vessels anchored off Long Island in Gravesend Bay and moved west to Brooklyn. Nicolls enlisted residential militias from the English
towns on Long Island and distributed handbills ahead of the advancing troops offering fair treatment for those who surrendered.
The English commander repeated his terms in a letter written to Stuyvesant, promising that in return for capitulation the settlers
would “peaceably enjoy whatsoever God's blessing and their own honest industry have furnished them with and all other privileges
with his majesty's English subjects.” Stuyvesant wanted to make a fight of it. But when he tried to convince New Amsterdam’s
leaders to keep news of the lenient surrender terms – and reports of the fort’s limited supply of good gun powder – from the
inhabitants, the burgomasters left the meeting “greatly disgusted and dissatisfied.” Furious at their defiance, Stuyvesant tore up
Nicolls's letter offering terms. Within hours work on the city's fortifications ceased, and a delegation of the “inhabitants of the place
assisted by their wives and children crying and praying” confronted the director and demanded that he re-assemble the letter and
negotiate surrender. The following day ninety-three prominent burghers – including Stuyvesant’s own seventeen-year-old son –
presented a remonstrance denouncing resistance as a folly that would not save “the smallest portion of our entire city, our property
and (what is dearer to us), our wives and children, from total ruin.” Stuyvesant relented, and merchant leaders met with Nicolls and
his officers to draft the Articles of Capitulation under which New Netherland and New Amsterdam became New York, New York.
The conquest of New Netherland expelled the Dutch from the continent and consolidated the English colonization of North America.
Thereafter the English turned their attention to the French as their major European competitor in the North Atlantic, culminating
with the French and Indian War (1756-63), which ushered in the era of the American Revolution. But Dutch New York lived on in the
marriage choices, inheritance practices, and naming patterns of a population which, in New York City, remained "Dutch" until at
least the end of the seventeenth century and up the Hudson River Valley for a decade or more into the eighteenth. For those who
care to look, Dutch New York lives on still in the names of streets and noteworthy families, and in the "cookies" and "coleslaw"
which the rest of the world has come to consider so quintessentially American.
1
O’Callaghan, E.B. and Fernow, Berthold, eds. Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York. 15 vols. Albany: 1856-87, 1:
139.
OUTSIDE READING NOTESHEET
Conflict and Commerce: The Rise and Fall of New Netherland
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