3: Persons of Mean and Vile Condition

Question 1

Nathaniel Bacon’s rebellion of Jamestown Virginia in 1676 was fuelled by these two factors

Answer 1

Resentment against the rich and hatred of the Indians

Question 2

England was ripping off the Virginia colony by buying this crop at a price they dictated

Answer 2

Tobacco

Question 3

Richard Lee, a member of the Governor’s council in Virginia, said that the reason for the support of Bacon, past that of Indian policy, was the hope of doing this (hint: between the rich and the poor)

Answer 3

Levelling

Question 4

What was a big reason for the migration of poor whites from Europe to America during the 17th and 18th centuries?

Answer 4

Harsh laws created to punish “rogues and vagabonds” - i.e. beggars

Question 5

In Abbot Smith’s book “Colonists in Bondage”, he suggests that the most powerful force causing the movement of servants from Europe to American colonies was this

Answer 5

The profit to be made from indentured servitude (servants repaid the cost of passage by agreeing to work for a master for 5-7 years)

Question 6

A ship carrying white servants to America in 1741, called the “Sea-Flower”, lost how many of its 106 passengers over its sixteen-week trip? (4-8 weeks longer than usual)

Answer 6

46

Question 7

True or False: In 1671, Governor Berkeley of Virginia reported that in previous years, 2 of 5 servants died of disease after their arrival from Europe

Answer 7

False, it was 4 of 5

Question 8

Why were laws to protect servants in America poorly enforced?

Answer 8

Masters were on juries but servants were not.

Question 9

What was an easier and more common alternative to rebellion for white servants?

Answer 9

Desertion

Question 10

Fill in the blank: More than _____ the colonists who came to the North American shores in the colonial period came as servants

Answer 10

Half

Question 11

True or False: Abbot Smith concluded in his study that colonial society was “relatively equalitarian and democratic”

Answer 11

False, he concluded that it was not democratic or equalitarian, being dominated by the few rich men who could pay others to work for them

Question 12

Fill in the blank: While the first batches of servants became landowners and politically active, by the second half of the century, more than half the servants, even after ten years of freedom, remained ______.

Answer 12

Landless

Question 13

In which state were the settlers ruled by a proprietor whose total right of control over the colony had been granted by the English King?

Answer 13

Maryland

Question 14

In the Carolinas, the Fundamental Constitutions were written in the 1660s by this “father” of the Founding Fathers and the American System

Answer 14

John Locke

Question 15

The Carolinian system of land ownership and government gave this many barons ownership of this percentage of the land.

Answer 15

8; 40

Question 16

Poor people in the Carolinas fought through the pre-Revolutionary period against landlord’s attempts to do what?

Answer 16

Collect rent

Question 17

What was the name of the governor of early Massachusetts Bay Colony who said that “. . . in all times some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others meane and in subjection”?

Answer 17

John Winthrop

Question 18

In colonial New York, the Dutch had set up a patronage system along this river

Answer 18

The Hudson River

Question 19

A farmers’ revolt in 1689 New York was led by this man

Answer 19

Jacob Leisler

Question 20

Under this New York governor, 3/4 of the land was granted to approximately 30 people

Answer 20

Benjamin Fletcher

Question 21

Fill in the blanks: The two story structure built to contain New York’s poor in the 1730s was called “Poor House, Work House, and _____ __ ______”

Answer 21

House of Correction

Question 22

Boston tax lists in 1687 show that the top 5% of property owners (1% of the population) possessed 25% of the wealth, while in 1771 the top 1% of property owners owned this percentage of the wealth

Answer 22

44%

Question 23

Between 1687 and 1770, the percentage of adult males in Boston who were poor/owned no property, did this

Answer 23

Doubled (from 14% of adult males to 29%)

Question 24

The fact that the colonies were societies of contending classes is often obscured by the historical focus on this unity

Answer 24

Revolutionary

Question 25

Andrew Belcher (a wealthy merchant)’s ships were the target of the 1713 Boston bread riot because he had been

Answer 25

Exporting grain to the Caribbean for greater profit

Question 26

Whites who were captured or raised by Indians often did this when offered a chance to leave and return to the whites

Answer 26

Refused

Question 27

The threat of black and Indian collaborative uprisings were low due to lack of contact save for in this region

Answer 27

The Carolinas

Question 28

To prevent black and Indian collaboration, laws were passed in the Carolinas that prohibited blacks from doing this

Answer 28

Traveling in Indian country

Question 29

The continual birth of bi-racial offspring despite the prohibition of interracial marriage in Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, The Carolinas, and Georgia, suggests that this phenomenon may not be prevalent

Answer 29

Natural racial repugnance

Question 30

Why was Bacon’s rebellion particularly fearsome for the rulers of Virginia?

Answer 30

Blacks and whites joined forces

Question 31

What fear may help explain why Parliament, in 1717, made transportation to the New World a legal punishment for crime?

Answer 31

That there were too few whites to quell slave rebellions

Question 32

Measures enacted in growing colonial cities did this, which helped governments gain support of the growing white middle-class

Answer 32

Protected white craftsmen and traders from the competition of free blacks and slaves in the labour force

Question 33

Fill in the blanks: “Those upper classes, to rule, needed to ____ _______ to the middle class . . . at the expense of slaves, Indians, and poor whites. This bought _____”

Answer 33

Make concessions; loyalty