Colonial Settlement & Society

100 Questions

01. An important difference between French and English patterns of colonization of North America was that

  1. The French discovered significant quantities of precious metals
  2. the French successfully founded a permanent settlement prior to 1600
  3. the French successfully converted large numbers of Native Americans to Christianity
  4. French Protestant dissenters were prohibited from migrating to the New World
  5. French settlers enslaved large numbers of Native Americans.

02. England lagged behind Spain and Portugal in the colonization of the New World partly because of

  1. her geographical isolation
  2. her lack of any claim of discovery prior to the voyages of the 1570s
  3. her religious connection with the Pope
  4. the distraction of the conquest of Wales and Ireland
  5. her economic backwardness.

03. In his Discourse Concerning Western Planting, Richard Hakluyt argued for English colonization of the New World for all of the following reasons except:

  1. Colonies could be manufacturing centers for an English
  2. England should try to humble the King of Spain
  3. England should use the New World as an outlet for its thieves, criminals, and beggars
  4. England should attempt to convert the natives to the true Protestant religion of Anglicanism
  5. The colonies could provide England with precious minerals.

04. The Dominion of New England was

  1. a confederation of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire that consolidated Puritan control of those colonies
  2. instituted by William and Mary to reform the government of the New England colonies plus New York and New Jersey into one administrative unit
  3. instituted by King George III to improve the enforcement of the Navigation Acts
  4. established by the New England colonies for defense against foreigners during the English Civil War
  5. it was imposed from London and embraced at first all New England, it was expanded two years later to include New York and East and West Jersey.

05. During the eighteenth century the social structures of British-America and England differed in that there was no

  1. practice of deference to one's social superiors in British-America
  2. significant middle class in England
  3. aristocracy in British-America
  4. large, destitute white beggar class in British-America
  5. titled nobility in England.

06. All of the following statements about early Georgia are true except

  1. It was founded by James Oglethorpe in 1732.
  2. It provided an opportunity for a new life for people imprisoned for debt.
  3. It provided a refuge for all persecuted European Protestants.
  4. Slavery and the use of alcohol were banned.
  5. Its first charter provided for a Governor and a representative legislature.

07. A major factor that retarded the early development of the Jamestown colony prior to 1610 was

  1. the obsessive search for gold by the first settlers
  2. the unwillingness of the local Indian tribes to assist the settlers
  3. fear of attack by Spanish forces
  4. the settlers' preoccupation with planting tobacco
  5. failure of the Virginia Company to send supply ships.

08. In seventeenth century Puritan New England full membership in a Congregational Church required

  1. a profession of faith and a demonstration of good works
  2. a written recommendation by the church's minister
  3. a conversion experience proving that the candidate was one of God's elect
  4. the support and testimony of three current members
  5. membership by both parents and a conversion experience.

09. In Puritan New England the state supported the Congregational church by all of the following means except

  1. selecting clergymen
  2. expelling dissidents
  3. enforcing compulsory attendance at services
  4. taxing residents to finance churches
  5. establishing colleges to train ministers.

10. The Puritans established a system of public education for all of the following reasons except

  1. to enable all residents to read and study the Bible
  2. to encourage a diversity of viewpoints on religious matters
  3. to prepare people to be good citizens
  4. to encourage the knowledge of and respect for classical literature
  5. to train people to perform better in their respective callings.

11. Which of the following was an important result of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia?

  1. increased power for the House of Burgesses
  2. more representation for the western counties of Virginia in the House of Burgesses
  3. the restriction of white settlement west of the Appalachian mountains
  4. Parliamentary taxation of tobacco exports
  5. the negotiation of a new Indian treaty that opened up more western land for whites.

12. In the thirteen colonies prior to 1763, a major source of political tensions was the conflict between

  1. the governors and the leaders of the assemblies
  2. the governors and their councils
  3. the leaders of the assemblies and British customs agents
  4. the leaders of local governments and the leaders of the assemblies
  5. between the governors and the leaders of local governments.

13. All of the following were important factors that shaped the degree of harshness of slave systems in British America except

  1. the ratios of blacks to whites in a colony's population
  2. the type of work that slaves performed
  3. the policy of Parliament towards the slaves
  4. the availability of an ample supply of fresh slaves
  5. climate and disease.

14. Puritan influence in New England declined prior to the 1690s for all of the following reasons except

  1. the death of the leaders of the first generation
  2. the increase in non-English immigrants
  3. the growth of internal religious dissent
  4. dissatisfaction with Puritan economic regulations
  5. pressure for economic and political controls applied by the Crown.

15. During the early years of the Pennsylvania colony William Penn did all of the following except

  1. obtain a charter that gave the King of England the right to veto the colony's laws
  2. negotiate the purchase of land from the Delaware Indians
  3. design a plan for the city of Philadelphia
  4. proclaim a doctrine of religious toleration for all who professed belief in "One almighty God"
  5. establish a policy of free trade between Pennsylvania and the rest of the British Empire.

16. The two largest groups of non-English immigrants who came to British America during the eighteenth century prior to the American Revolution were

  1. the Irish Catholics and the Jews
  2. the Irish Catholics and the Germans
  3. the French Huguenots and the Germans
  4. the Dutch and the Scotch-Irish and the Germans.

17. The Navigation Acts permitted British-Americans to

  1. sell food to the non-English West Indies
  2. sell tobacco to southern Europe
  3. buy wine from French merchants
  4. sell rice to Spanish merchants
  5. trade with foreign empires during wartime.

18. Which of the following was an important result of British mercantilist policy?

  1. the growth of North American manufacturing
  2. a surplus of imports over exports for the empire as a whole
  3. improvement in the standard of living in the colonies
  4. the stifling of urban growth in the colonies
  5. the reduction of trade restrictions with European nations.

19. All of the following were prominent religious leaders in colonial America except:

  1. Jonathan Edwards
  2. Henry Ward Beecher
  3. George Whitefield
  4. John Cotton
  5. Increase Mather.

20. Which of the following were important differences between slavery in the northern and southern colonies in colonial British America?

  1. Slaves tended to live in urban areas in the north.
  2. Slave codes were milder in the north.
  3. Slaves had more contact with free blacks and poor whites in the north
  4. Slaves were less likely to die of disease in the north
  5. The ratio of slaves to whites was lower in the north.
  1. I, II, and IV only
  2. II, III, IV, and V only
  3. I, III, IV, and V only
  4. III, IV, and V only
  5. all of the above.

21. Identify the author of the following quotation and the colony to which it refers:

"for we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world."

  1. William Bradford and Plymouth
  2. William Penn and Pennsylvania
  3. John Smith and Virginia
  4. John Winthrop and Massachusetts Bay
  5. Lord Baltimore and Maryland.

22. Which of the following were important consequences of the Great Awakening of the 1740s?

  1. an increase in church membership in all regions
  2. an increase in religious toleration and freedom
  3. the founding of Harvard and Yale
  4. the division of the Congregational and Presbyterian churches into rival factions
  5. a renewed interest in the conversion and more humane treatment of Indians and blacks
  1. I, II, III, and V only
  2. I, III, IV, and IV only
  3. I, II, III, and IV only
  4. I, II, IV, and V only
  5. all of the above.

24. All of the following statements about the colonial household are true except

  1. It was a more important social institution in the south than in the north.
  2. It served as a basic economic unit of production and exchange.
  3. It provided basic education for children and servants.
  4. It provided religious exercises to supplement church services.
  5. It served as a welfare institution for orphans or aged or poor people placed there by the government.

25. All of the following groups were part of the coalition that constituted the Jacksonian Democratic party except:

  1. economically marginal northern farmers
  2. self-employed artisans
  3. hired workers
  4. urban Catholic immigrants
  5. rural Protestant slaveholders.

26. The Puritans who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony wanted their settlement to be primarily

  1. a place where they could get away from persecution
  2. an example to the rest of the world
  3. a place where they would have the opportunity to prosper free from government regulation
  4. a society that practiced complete separation of church and state
  5. a pluralistic society in which all would be free to practice and teach their beliefs.

27. In founding the colony of Georgia, James Oglethorpe's primary purpose was to

  1. provide a refuge for persecuted English Quakers
  2. provide a refuge for persecuted Christians of all sects from all parts of Europe
  3. gain a base for launching English expeditions against Spanish-held Florida
  4. make a financial profit
  5. provide a refuge for English debtors.

28. The immediate issue in dispute in Bacon's Rebellion was

  1. the jailing of individuals or seizure of their property for failure to pay taxes during a time of economic hardship
  2. the under-representation of the back country in Virginia's legislature
  3. the refusal of large planters to honor the terms of their contracts with former indentured servants
  4. the perceived failure of Virginia's governor to protect the colony's frontier area from the depredations of raiding Indians
  5. the colonial governor's manipulation of tobacco prices for the benefit of himself and a small clique of his friends.

29. The "Great Awakening" of the 18th century was

  1. an intellectual and philosophical movement in America similar to the Enlightenment in Europe
  2. the process by which a substantial number of America's population began to see the desirability of independence from Great Britain
  3. the beginning of the first substantial American contributions to the fields of art and literature
  4. a major religious revival
  5. a rapid growth in the population of the British colonies in America.

30. The economic theory of mercantilism would be consistent with which of the following statements?

  1. Economies will prosper most when trade is restricted as little as possible
  2. A government should seek to direct the economy so as to maximize exports
  3. Colonies are of little economic importance to the mother country
  4. It is vital that a country import more than it exports
  5. Tariff barriers should be avoided as much as possible.

31. The primary motive of those who founded the British colony in Virginia during the 17th century was

  1. desire for economic gain
  2. desire for religious freedom
  3. desire to create a perfect religious commonwealth as an example to the rest of the world
  4. desire to recreate in the New World the story of feudalistic society that was fading in the Old
  5. desire to increase the power and glory of Great Britain.

32. The purpose of the Treaty of Tordesillas was

  1. to divide the non-European world between Spain and Portugal
  2. to specify which parts of North America should be French and which parts Spanish
  3. to create an alliance of France, Holland, and England against Spanish designs in the New World
  4. to divide the New World between France and Spain
  5. to exclude any Portuguese colonization from the Western hemisphere.

33. The main reason for the British colonial authorities' preference for royal colonies over those with other types of government was

  1. the desire to exercise closer control over the colonies
  2. the desire to prevent corruption within colonial governments
  3. the desire to assure that the rights of the colonists were not infringed by greedy proprietors
  4. the need to reduce the size of the colonial bureaucracy
  5. the desire to increase colonial prosperity.

34. The Molasses Act was intended to enforce England's mercantilist policies by

  1. forcing the colonists to export solely to Great Britain
  2. forcing the colonists to buy sugar from other British colonies rather than from foreign producers
  3. forbidding the colonists to engage in manufacturing activity in competition with British industries
  4. providing a favorable market for the products of the British East India Company
  5. creating an economic situation in which gold tended to flow from the colonies to the mother country.

35. Jonathan Edwards was

  1. a preacher of the Great Awakening in New England
  2. a mid-18th-century Pennsylvania Enlightenment philosopher
  3. an early opponent of Parliamentary taxation of the American colonies
  4. a Transcendentalist preacher and writer
  5. the founder of the communitarian experiment at New Harmony.

36. The Mayflower Compact could best be described as

  1. a detailed frame of government
  2. a complete constitution
  3. a business contract
  4. a foundation for self-government
  5. an enumeration of the causes for leaving England and coming to the New World.

37. In founding the colony of Pennsylvania, William Penn's primary purpose was to

  1. provide a refuge for persecuted English Quakers
  2. provide a refuge for persecuted Christians of all sects from all parts of Europe
  3. demonstrate the possibility and practicality of establishing truly friendly relations with the Indians
  4. make a financial profit
  5. provide a refuge for English debtors.

38. When colonial Massachusetts' governor Thomas Hutchinson attempted to force the sale of taxed tea in Boston in 1773, Bostonians reacted with the

  1. Boston Massacre
  2. Boston Tea Party
  3. Declaration of Independence
  4. Articles of Confederation
  5. Massachusetts Circular Letter.

39. The most unusual feature of the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was that it

  1. provided that the colony should be run as a religious commonwealth
  2. made the colony completely independent of all English authority
  3. assured the colonists all the rights they would have had if they had been living in England
  4. did not specify where the company's headquarters should be
  5. specified that only Parliament, not the King, was to have authority over the colony.

40. During the first two decades of the 17th century all of the following aided in the establishment and growth of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, except :

  1. establishment of the Virginia House of Burgesses
  2. establishment of the ownership of private property
  3. beginning of tobacco cultivation
  4. good relations with the local Indians
  5. large influxes of supplies and colonists from England.

41. The first religious development to have an impact throughout colonial America was

  1. the establishment of religious toleration in Maryland
  2. the spread of Quaker ideas from Pennsylvania
  3. the Halfway Covenant
  4. the Parsons' Cause
  5. the Great Awakening.

42. The reason slavery flourished in the Southern English colonies and not in New England is

  1. most New England farms were too small for slaves to be economically necessary or viable, whereas in the South the cultivation of staple crops such as rice and tobacco on large plantations necessitated the use of large numbers of indentured servants or slaves
  2. blacks from the tropical climate of Africa could not adapt to the harsh New England winters. Their high death rates made their use as slave laborers unprofitable
  3. a shortage of females in the Southern English colonies led to many female black Africans being imported as slaves and as potential wives for white planters in the region
  4. whereas New England religious groups such as the Puritans forbade slavery on moral grounds, the Anglican church which dominated the Southern English colonies encouraged the belief that blacks were inferior, thus, not deserving of equal status
  5. the Stono uprising in 1739 convinced New Englanders that the cost of controlling slaves was not worth their marginal economic benefits.

43. The Albany Congress of 1754 was convened for the major purpose of

  1. adding New York to the Dominion of New England
  2. getting the colonies to form a "grand council" to coordinate their western expansion and their common defense against Indians
  3. uniting the colonies under a "grand council" to resist British economic sanctions and coordinate activities against British tax officials
  4. cooperating with the French in their efforts to rid western New York and southern Canada of raiding Indian tribes
  5. writing a proclamation to be sent to King George III in protest of the Stamp Act.

44. The primary motive for European exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries was

  1. to gain access to the wealth of the Far East
  2. to relieve population overcrowding
  3. to find a place outside of Europe for religious dissidents to be relocated
  4. to establish bases for defense against other European powers
  5. scientific curiosity.

45. The Great Awakening of the mid-18th century refers to

  1. a series of religious revivals that swept through the English colonies spreading evangelistic fervor and challenging the control of traditional clerics over their congregations
  2. the intellectual revolution which served as a precursor to the Enlightenment and challenged orthodox religion's claims to knowledge of humankind and the universe
  3. the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in England and its New World colonies
  4. the growing realization among English colonists that independence from England was only a matter of time and was the key to their future success
  5. the sudden awareness among North American Indians that their only chance for survival against the rapidly growing number of European colonists was to fight them before the Europeans grew any stronger.

46. The first successful English colony in North America was located in