United States History 17A
Study Guide 1
 
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Learn more about this picture
      and answer a few questions.

 
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Study Guide 1
Nation of Nations
Chapter Three

 
Colonization and Conflict in the South, 1600 - 1750
Go to the page: Blank Map. Using the maps in your textbook, Nation of Nations, locate the five (5) southern colonies. You do not need to send the answers to me, now, but you will need to know the locations of these colonies for your first midterm.
Answer the following questions:
I. Outlandish Strangers
The first three questions can be found by clicking on the link above, 'Learn more about this picture'.
4. For what 3 reasons did Powhatan let the English survive at Jamestown?
5. Learn about Powhatan's famous daughter. (Click on this link. If the two Pocahontas pictures are overlapped, just hit reload.).
      Where is Pocahontas buried?
       Identify one historically inaccurate fact contained in the Disney movie.
II.  English Society on the Chesapeake
6. Mercantilism was an economic theory practiced by all major European countries.
   What was the primary objective of mercantilism?
   What would be the result if the primary objective of mercantilism were realized?
7. Why did mercantilists urge states (countries) to sponsor the settlement of overseas colonies?
   Why did the theory of mercantilism appeal to European monarchs?
8. What was the name of the English joint stock company that founded Jamestown?
   What year was this colony founded?
9. Why was the Jamestown fort built on an inland peninsula? What was unfortunate about
   this site?
10. In 1618, desperate to salvage their investment, the managers of the Virginia
   Company implemented reforms to attract more settlers to Jamestown. One of these
   was the 'headright' system for granting land. Explain 3 ways that the system worked for individuals.
11. Another reform was the creation of the House of Burgesses. What was its function?
12. What percent of the thousands of immigrants to the Chesapeake in the seventeenth century, (1607 - 1700), were indentured servants?
13. What was an indentured servant? How long were their terms?
14. What was the life expectancy in the Chesapeake of men who reached the age of 20?  What was the life expectancy for women? 
15. What percent of servants did not survive to the end of their indentured terms?

Tobacco dominated economic life in the Chesapeake and Virginia. Growing tobacco was so profitable that efforts to diversify the economy of the Chesapeake failed.


Please click on the following site and answer the questions there: Tobacco Culture
27. To implement a mercantilist economic policy, the English Parliament, beginning in1660, passed a series of Navigation Acts designed to make sure colonial goods actually were shipped to England. One of these granted ______ on the shipping and marketing of all colonial goods.
28. Another Navigation Act ordered the colonies to export certain 'enumerated commodities' only to England or other British ports. What were these five enumerated commodities?
29. A third Navigation Act placed 'duties' (also called taxes or tariffs) on ____ and provided for customs officials to ___ ?
30. The 'Fall Line' eventually became the location of many cities in early America as can be noted from the map on p. 60. For example, Richmond on the James River, Fredericksburg on the Rappahannock river, Washington, D.C. on the Potomac, and Philadelphia on the Delaware. What was the fall line?
III. Chesapeake Society in Crisis
31. Before 1680, ___ were preferred over African slaves.  Why? (Two reasons)
32. In 1675, what percent of the population of the Chesapeake was black?
33. When did the first African slaves arrive in Virginia? Who brought them?
<> 34. After 1680, what were 3 reasons why planters began to invest more heavily in slaves than in servants?
35. In the 18th century, the number of Africans imported as slaves into the Americas had mushroomed to ___ per year.
36. What percent of the total transatlantic slave trade went to North America?
37. What was the 'Middle Passage'? It could be as long as 5,000 miles.  How long could it take? How many Africans were crowded onto these ships?
Which country received the largest percent of African slaves?
38. What percent of Africans died during the first year of captivity in the Chesapeake? By comparison, what was the mortality rate in the Carolinas and Caribbean?
One of the most famous incidents concerning the Middle Passage involved the ship Amistad. Please click on the following site and answer the questions there: Amistad 
43. By 1740, what percent of all Virginians were black? How did Virginia law distinguish between white servants and black slaves with regard to whipping?  What was the punishment for a slave who presumed to strike any white person?
44. Why was it unlikely that that poor white planters, tenant farmers and indentured servants would ever join with poor black slaves to challenge the privilege of the great planters?
45. Although Chesapeake society after 1700 was dominated by the great tobacco planters, (the gentry), who owned thousands of acres of land, Virginia and Maryland became colonies of ___ who owned ___ acres of land and no more than __ slaves.
46. How did the Chesapeake gentry require the respect of 'lesser whites' on militia days, court days and every Sunday?
47. As a medicine, for what did the nobility use sugar?
48. What constituted the diet of the ordinary folk of Europe?
49. What were the six 'drug foods' produced by England's overseas colonies?
IV. From the Caribbean to the Carolinas
50. What product made more money for England than the total volume of commodities exported from the mainland American colonies combined? Who were the richest people in all of English America by 1680?



 

 

 
 
 
 

Assignments Page

Revised January 24, 2008
by Tom Gallup, e-mail address: [email protected]
West Valley College
http://www.westvalley.edu/wvc/ss/gallup/gallup.html