History test concept questions Flashcards
Describe two common theories of how the first humans arrived in the Americas.
Land bridge theory: The land bridge theory states that Native Americas got to the Americas through following a bridge of ice that connected Alaska and Russia during the ice age.
Coastal migration theory: The coastal migration theory states that Natives got to the Americas by boat. Some evidence to support this would be that there were already people traveling along the coast at the time.
Explain the process historians use to analyze primary sources.
Source: When was it created? Who created it?
Contextualize: In what historical context/circumstance was did this source exist?
Close reading: Closely analyze the details of the source
Corroborate: How does this compare to other sources about the same topic.
Identify basic information regarding the local life of daily Native Americans prior to European arrival including how they typically obtained food, their shelter, and the way society was commonly structured.
Native Americans collected food through hunting and gathering. The woman would go out into the fields and collect crops and set snares while the men went and hunted. They had two types of shelters: Wigwams and Longhouses. Wigwams were small, portable houses primarily used in the summer while long houses were longer houses that stretched up to 100ft and could fit up to a dozen families. Head chiefs controlled the entire tribe while sachems controlled individual villages. Woman were often the head of the family.
Describe the impact of disease brought over by the Europeans on Native Americans, as well as the feelings that many English colonists had about the plague.
The diseases had a tremendous impact on the Native Americans. Between 75-90% of Natives died from sicknesses such as small pox, which was so deadly because the Natives had built up no immunity to these diseases. This allowed them to be an easy target for colonizers. The Europeans believed that this sickness was sent down by God himself to clear the land so the Europeans could colonize the land.
Identify the population trends in the colonies between 1700 -1775.
From 1700-1775, population increased from 250,000 all the way to 2.5 million. The African American population increased from 28,000 to more than 500,000. This was largely because of the influx of immigrants as well as Africans.
Identify the major economic activities/industries in New England, Southern, and Middle colonies, and explain how they were impacted by the geography/physical environments of the region.
New England: The New England terrain was rocky and uneven, which made farming to be limited to only subsistence farming. To make up for this loss of money, the people used the many forest trees to build boats. There were also many small business that opened. Fishing was also popular.
Middle Colonies: Fertile soil and primarily grew wheat and they also had the large cities of New York and Philadelphia. They also had cash crops and the Middle Colonies served as a major port for trade. They also had mining, manufacturing, and lumbering.
Southern Colonies: Low lying plains, very warm climate, and extremely fertile soil. Farming is their main source of income and they grow a lot of rice and tobacco. As a result, their economy grew very quickly.
Identify three parts of the triangular trade including what was traded where. (1 example for each).
The first part of the voyage was from Europe to Africa where they would trade things such as weapons for slaves. They also captured slaves themselves. The next part of the journey was to the Americas where the slaves carried back Africans and deposited them. They traveled along the Middle Passage for 1-2 months where the slaves were treated very badly. The last part of the journey was back to Europe where they would go to restock and get more supplies.
Describe with detail the conditions faced by Africans aboard “slave ships.”
slaves on slave ships were treated very poorly as I am about to explain. Slaves were kept below deck for the majority of the time and had barely any personal space, if any at all. The men and the women/children were also separated by a barrier. When the male slaves were not on the deck, they were on the deck in iron shackles, chained to the floor and held at gun-point for the entire time. All slaves also only had two pints of water per day and were given food such as flour.
Explain the role that Bacon’s rebellion in the shift from indentured servitude to radicalized African slavery as the most popular form of coerced labor in Virginia.
Bacon’s rebellion served as a gateway from indentured servants to African slaves. After the servants burned down many Native villages and Jamestown, the politicos realized that indentured servants were not the right idea because they would be another rebellion if they continued to keep them. So they switched to a group of people who they knew they could keep control of forever.
Explain how “race” was used to defend the actions of European colonists.
Race is a term created by humans to differentiate people based on their physical characteristics such as skin color. Colonists used this term and said that the Africans were a “lesser race” and therefore, their actions were justifiable.
