chapter 2

Question 1

colonial competition

Answer 1

Religious conflicts between protestant England and Catholic Spain during the Reformation & Counter-Reformation

Economic competition with other European powers drove colonization

National glory

Internal precedents: England had previously invaded Ireland, establishing colonies or plantations there

Question 2

middle ground

Answer 2

Historians call upper midwest a “Middle Ground” between Algonquians and French, British, and later Americans. Space of cultural accommodation, conflict, etc.

Question 3

England’s social crisis

Answer 3

Increased number of poor people in England due to enclosure movement

Common lands became private property of larger landowners and some farmers

“Masterless men” roamed countryside & poor congregated in cities.

Imprisonment in houses of correction starting in 1601

Alternative Solution: use the poor to support colonization in Americas. Lower classes hoped access to land in the Americas could produce freedom

Question 4

jamestown

Answer 4

Jamestown (1607) founded by Virginia Co.

Initially unsuccessful: starvation, no gold, unsustainable. Needed to attract more settlers

Headright system (1618): those who paid their own way (or someone else’s) got 50 acres of land; need labor

House of Burgesses: elected colonial assembly 1619

First 20 slaves arrive that same year, none enslaved for life

Question 5

Plymouth

Answer 5

Pilgrams (subset of puritans) Establish Plymouth in Massachusetts on abandoned Indian village. Disease had already wiped out many tribes and villages

All land initially held in common

Government based on consent of governed and voting allowed for all men

Half of first 100 colonists die in the first winter, and only with help from Indians do the rest survive

1621 after first successful harvest, a feast of thanksgiving was held

Question 6

Massachusetts Bay Colony

Answer 6

Puritan-run joint-stock companies to help Puritans emigrate and generate profit

1629-1642: 21,000 Puritans move to Massachusetts in the Great Migration

More families and fewer indentured servants

Migration ceased after this, but a balanced sex ratio led to real population growth. Larger than the Chesapeake by 1700

Question 7

Headright Policy

Answer 7

Headright system (1618): those who paid their own way (or someone else’s) got 50 acres of land; need labor

Question 8

Demographics in the colonies

Answer 8

5:1 sex ratio, some women come as “tobacco brides.” Death rate high & marriage short before 1700s

Question 9

Why did St. Augustine never grow to be an important Spanish city?

Answer 9

It was largely a military outpost.

Question 10

What was the main economic activity of the Dutch in the Americas?

Answer 10

trade with Indians

Question 11

According to the textbook, what was the Middle Ground?

Answer 11

Midwestern region of accommodation and negotiation between the American Indian groups like the Hurons and European powers.

Question 12

sir francis drake

Answer 12

privateered for the British Crown.

Question 13

What was an important impetus for English empire building in North America?

Answer 13

The Protestant Reformation heightened England’s sense of mission to spread Protestantism and liberate the Americas from Spanish “popery.”

Question 14

The Headright Policy

Answer 14

allotted 50 acres in Virginia for those who paid their passage or the passage of others to the New World.

Question 15

________ saved the Chesapeake colonies from economic ruin.

Answer 15

Tobacco

Question 16

Why was conflict between the Chesapeake colonists and the Powhatan Confederacy inevitable?

Answer 16

The colonists continually encroached on Indian land.

Question 17

What is the significance of the Mayflower Compact?

Answer 17

It was the 1st written plan of government in the American colonies

Question 18

Which of the following best describes the outcome of the Pequot War?

Answer 18

The colonists’ victory resulted in the effective destruction of the Pequot tribe.