Deck 4: American Life in the Seventeenth Century

Question 1

The majority of African slaves coming to the New World

A) went to English North America.
B) arrived in the West Indies and South America.
C) came to New England.
D) were brought by the Dutch.
E) died before reaching their destination.

Answer 1

arrived in the West Indies and South America.

Question 2

During the seventeenth century, indentured servitude at first seemed the best solution to the labor shortage for all of the following reasons except that

A) the Indian population proved to be an unreliable work force because they died in such large numbers.
B) African slaves cost too much money.
C) many poor Englishmen were willing to mortgage their labor in exchange for passage to America.
D) it was impossible to obtain slaves.
E) settler families procreated too slowly.

Answer 2

it was impossible to obtain slaves.

Question 3

After 1680, reliance on slave labor in colonial America rapidly increased because

A) higher wages in England reduced the number of emigrating servants.
B) planters feared the growing number of landless freemen in the colonies.
C) the British Royal African company lost its monopoly on the slave trade in colonial America.
D) Americans rushed to cash in on slave trade.
E) all of these.

Answer 3

all of these.

Question 4

As the seventeenth century wore on, regional differences arose, most notably because of

A) varying degrees of involvement with the Atlantic economy.
B) greater loyalty to England in some regions.
C) religious differences between the different regions.
D) the breakdown of the plantation economy.
E) the increasing importance of slavery.

Question 5

All of the following were true of the African slave trade in the Americas except

A) of the 10 million carried to the New World, only about 400,000 ended up in North America.
B) as late as 1670 they numbered only about 7 percent of the southern plantation population.
C) white servants were far less costly than the high priced African slaves.
D) most were hauled to Spanish and Portuguese South America or the West Indies.
E) all of these were true.

Question 6

The immediate reason for Bacon's Rebellion was

A) Indian policies and economic grievances.
B) the wealthy planter class losing control of the colony.
C) a shortage of indentured servants.
D) a shortage of African slaves.
E) all of these.

Question 7

Throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century, most of the labor in the tobacco fields of the Chesapeake region was performed by

A) African slaves.
B) white indentured servants.
C) Indians.
D) white and black wage earners.
E) prisoners of war.

Question 8

Poorer Englishmen who agreed to exchange their labor temporarily in return for payment of their passage to an American colony were called

A) yeomen.
B) burgesses.
C) indentured servants.
D) squatters.
E) birds of passage.

Question 9

By the end of the seventeenth century, indentured servants who gained their freedom

A) often became successful land speculators.
B) took out their frustrations on the black slaves.
C) found more high-paying jobs in the cities.
D) had little choice but to hire themselves out for low wages to their former masters.
E) often returned to England.

Question 10

Bacon's Rebellion was supported mainly by

A) young men frustrated by their inability to acquire land.
B) the planter class of Virginia.
C) those protesting the increased importation of African slaves.
D) radical political ideologues.
E) the displaced Virginia Indians.

Question 11

The population of the Chesapeake colonies throughout the first half of the seventeenth century was notable for its

A) fast growth rate.
B) scarcity of women.
C) low death rate.
D) stable family life.
E) large percentage of older men.

Question 12

By 1700, the most populous colony in English America was

A) Massachusetts.
B) Virginia.
C) New York.
D) Pennsylvania.
E) Maryland.

Question 13

Over the course of the seventeenth century, more and more indentured servants

A) eventually became landowners.
B) were forced into slavery.
C) managed to run away from their masters toward the frontier.
D) fell into landlessness and poverty.
E) saw their wages increase.

Question 14

As a result of Bacon's Rebellion,

A) African slavery became less appealing.
B) planters began to look for less troublesome laborers.
C) Governor Berkeley was dismissed from office.
D) Nathaniel Bacon was named to head the Virginia militia.
E) better relations developed with local Indians.

Question 15

____ reaped the greatest benefit from the land policies of the "headright" system.

A) Indentured servants
B) African slaves
C) Well-off planters
D) New England colonists
E) Small farmers

Question 16

The "headright" system, which made some people very wealthy, entailed

A) using Indians as forced labor.
B) giving land to indentured servants to get them to come to the New World.
C) giving the right to acquire fifty acres of land to the person paying the passage of a laborer to America.
D) discouraging the importation of indentured servants to America.
E) giving a father's wealth to the oldest son.

Question 17

During their term of labor, or at its completion, indentured servants received all of the following except

A) passage to America.
B) a suit of clothes.
C) a few barrels of corn.
D) a headright.
E) at times, a small parcel of land.

Question 18

Seventeenth-century colonial tobacco growers usually responded to depressed prices for their crop by

A) selling excess slaves to produce extra income.
B) selling land to reduce their volume of production.
C) growing more tobacco to increase their volume of production.
D) planting corn and wheat instead of tobacco.
E) cutting the wages of indentured servants.

Question 19

Most immigrants to the Chesapeake colonies in the seventeenth century came as

A) indentured servants.
B) slaves from Africa.
C) religious dissenters.
D) urban artisans.
E) refugees from civil war in Europe.

Question 20

In the seventeenth century, due to a high death rate, families were both few and fragile in

A) New England.
B) the Chesapeake colonies.
C) the middle colonies.
D) Georgia.
E) Florida

Question 21

For Africans who were sold into slavery, the "middle passage" can be best described as

A) the trip from the interior of Africa to the coast.
B) a trip taken in the middle part of a ship.
C) an opportunity to meet people from other parts of Africa.
D) a gruesome ocean voyage to America that often resulted in death.
E) none of these.

Question 22

African American contributions to American culture include all of the following except

A) jazz music.
B) a distinctive version of Christianity.
C) the harp.
D) spirituals
E) various rice-planting techniques.

Question 23

In the seventeenth century, as slavery spread in the South,

A) economic differences within society narrowed.
B) the great plantation owners turned to lives of leisure.
C) the gaps in the South's social structure widened.
D) planters tried to imitate the ways of English country gentlemen.
E) the issue of mixed-race (mulatto) children became prominent.

Question 24

The physical, emotional, and social conditions of slavery were harshest in

A) Maryland.
B) Virginia.
C) South Carolina.
D) Massachusetts.
E) Pennsylvania.

Question 25

African American culture developed as

A) a reflection of the Ibo culture of Nigeria.
B) a way to oppose the Christian religion.
C) a blend of many African cultures with the New World environment.
D) a way to preserve African marching music.
E) an attempt to prove to Europeans that blacks were not inferior.

Question 26

The life expectancy of the first generations of Puritan colonists was

A) about forty-five years.
B) notably higher than that of present-day Americans.
C) about seventy years, not much different from present-day Americans.
D) less than that of people in the South
E) less than what it had been in Europe.

Question 27

Southern colonies generally allowed married women to retain separate title to their property because

A) of religious beliefs.
B) of English tradition.
C) southern men frequently died young.
D) southern families were stable.
E) of a smaller number of men than women.

Question 28

Puritans refused to recognize a woman's separate property rights because

A) of the short life span of New England women.
B) they worried that it would undercut the unity of marriage.
C) New England families were so rare.
D) they distrusted women's ability to manage money.
E) all of these.

Question 29

Most of the slaves who reached North America

A) came from western coastal Africa.
B) were captured by European slave hunters in Africa.
C) were Muslims from North Africa.
D) eventually gained their freedom.
E) ended up in the middle colonies.

Question 30

Most African slaves were originally captured by ____, who traded them in crude markets to itinerant European -and American - flesh merchants.

A) Spanish and Portuguese slave hunters
B) African coastal tribes
C) English slave hunters
D) Dutch sailors
E) English sailors

Question 31

Slave Christianity emphasized all of the following in their faith except

A) Jesus was the Messiah who would deliver them from bondage.
B) God's freeing the Hebrews from slavery.
C) exuberant worship involving singing and dancing.
D) a belief that whites were possessed by the devil.
E) spirituals that encoded messages about escape.

Question 32

It was typical of colonial New England adults to

A) marry early and have several children.
B) be able to read and write.
C) arrive in New England unmarried.
D) die before becoming grandparents.
E) live alone.

Question 33

Urban development and an urban professional class, in the colonial South

A) rivaled that of New England.
B) kept pace with the growth of large plantations.
C) evolved from lots of interaction.
D) was slow to emerge.
E) was hampered by a large population of free blacks.

Question 34

Most of the inhabitants of the colonial American South were

A) slave-owning planters.
B) small landowning farmers.
C) landless farm laborers.
D) black slaves.
E) urban wage earners.

Question 35

Slave revolts in North America

A) increased dramatically after 1700.
B) reflected African Americans' embrace of Christianity.
C) forced an end to slavery in the North.
D) were led by slaves newly arrived from Africa.
E) were relatively few and small in scale.

Question 36

The territorial expansion of New England society

A) proceeded in an orderly fashion.
B) was a rather haphazard process.
C) was undertaken by lone-wolf farmers on their own initiative.
D) undermined the authority of town government.
E) was caused primarily by religious conflict.

Question 37

In seventeenth century colonial America all of the following were true except

A) men controlled the sphere of childbirth.
B) women could not vote.
C) women were regarded as morally weaker than men.
D) divorce was largely forbidden.
E) convicted adulterers were whipped and forced to wear the letter "A" on their clothing.

Question 38

The New England family can best be described as

A) relatively small in size due to the frequency of deaths from childbirth.
B) a very stable institution.
C) a limiting factor in the growth of the region's population.
D) a source of social conflict.
E) similar to the family in the Chesapeake colonies.

Question 39

The slave society that developed in North America was one of the few slave societies in history to

A) produce a new culture based entirely on African heritage.
B) rebel against its masters.
C) gradually purchase its own freedom.
D) develop its own techniques of growing corn and wheat.
E) perpetuate itself by its own natural reproduction.

Question 40

When new towns were established in New England, all of the following were true except

A) parcels of land was given out.
B) a meeting house was built.
C) a village green was laid out.
D) schools were required in towns of more than fifty families.
E) most land was held in common by the town.

Question 41

The Salem "witch hunt" in 1692

A) was the largest "witch hunt" in recorded history.
B) was primarily a result of contemporary superstition.
C) resulted in the executions of twenty people.
D) set off a wave of witchcraft persecutions throughout the colonies.
E) caused injury mostly in lost reputations and jobs for those accused.

Question 42

The early New England economy depended heavily on

A) slave labor.
B) manufacturing.
C) fishing, shipbuilding, and commerce.
D) tobacco.
E) dairy cattle and hogs.

Question 43

As a result of its poor soil, all of the following conditions prevailed in New England except that

A) hard work was required to make a living.
B) the area was less ethnically mixed than its southern neighbors.
C) frugality became essential to economic survival.
D) reliance on a single, staple crop became a necessity.
E) fishing and shipping became crucial industries.

Question 44

In contrast to the Chesapeake colonies, those in New England

A) had a more diversified economy.
B) expanded westward in a less orderly fashion.
C) had a more ethnically mixed population.
D) were more oriented toward the individual than toward community interests.
E) followed the ecologically wise practices of the local Indians.

Question 45

Bacon's Rebellion stemmed from

A) Governor Berkeley's Indian policies.
B) the frustration of Virginia's colonial dependency on England.
C) the frontier's resentment of the tidewater gentry.
D) the inherent rebelliousness of African slaves.
E) lack of a policy towards Indians.

Question 46

Slaves in colonial America

A) were a generally manageable labor force.
B) engaged in frequent acts of organized rebellion.
C) were mostly menial field hands.
D) contributed almost nothing to the developing American culture.
E) failed to reproduce their population.

Question 47

During the Salem witchcraft trials, most of those accused as witches were

A) from families associated with Salem's burgeoning market economy.
B) from the ranks of poor families.
C) primarily non-Christian Indians.
D) unmarried teenagers.
E) from subsistence farming families.

Question 48

The impact of New England on the rest of the nation can best be described as

A) greatly exaggerated.
B) generally negative.
C) confined primarily to New England.
D) extremely important.
E) primarily economic.

Question 49

The early "slave codes" in colonial America

A) defined slavery as lifetime servitude.
B) defined slavery as inheritable servitude.
C) usually forbade whites from teaching slaves to read or write.
D) provided that slaves who converted to Christianity must be granted their freedom.
E) applied to indentured servants as well.

Question 50

Thomas Jefferson once observed that "the best school of political liberty the world ever saw" was the

A) College of William and Mary.
B) Virginia House of Burgesses.
C) New England town meeting.
D) Chesapeake plantation system.
E) English parliament.

Question 51

Compared with most seventeenth-century Europeans, Americans lived in

A) relative poverty.
B) larger cities.
C) a much healthier environment.
D) a more rigid class system.
E) more primitive circumstances.

Question 52

The Half-Way Covenant

A) permitted half of the population of New England to attend church.
B) strengthened the distinction between the "elect" and all others.
C) brought an end to the jeremiads of Puritan ministers.
D) resulted in a decrease in church members.
E) admitted to baptism but not full membership the unconverted children of existing members.

Question 53

By 1700, the colonial South generally lacked

A) a well-defined social structure.
B) reliable overland transportation.
C) an urban professional class.
D) a manageable labor force.
E) cash crops.

Question 54

One consequence of New England's uninviting land was

A) an urban migration.
B) the absence of Indian competition.
C) a dislike for agriculture.
D) a desire among Puritans to move into the Southern colonies.
E) a lack of immigration and thus less ethnic diversity than in places like New York or Pennsylvania.

Question 55

The Puritan system of democracy in congregational church government logically led to

A) an authoritarian political government.
B) the early establishment of religious toleration.
C) democracy in political government.
D) a theocracy controlled by the clergy.
E) a system based on individual rights and freedom of speech.

Question 56

The combination of Calvinism, soil, and climate in New England resulted in the people there possessing which of the following qualities:

A) idealism.
B) stubbornness.
C) self-reliance.
D) resourcefulness.
E) all of these.

Question 57

The great majority of Africans who left Africa as captured slaves

A) were taken to South American and Caribbean colonies.
B) came to English America before 1700.
C) died aboard slave ships before they ever reached America.
D) came from the west coast of Africa.
E) came from the east coast of Africa.

Question 58

Which of the following are products of the American slave culture?

A) jazz
B) the Christian belief in obedience
C) the spiritual.
D) the development of an American form of Islam
E) a new language, Gullah

Question 59

The late-seventeenth-century rebellions in New York and Maryland partly reflected

A) the fear that whites might be enslaved alongside blacks.
B) resentment against the English government.
C) dissent against Puritan domination of government.
D) the resentment of ordinary settlers against aristocratic pretensions.
E) ethnic conflict between English, Scottish, Dutch, and German settlers.

Question 60

The Salem witchcraft trials were

A) a result of Roger Williams's agitation.
B) the result of unsettled social and religious conditions in rapidly evolving Massachusetts.
C) a reaction against the introduction of Quaker communism.
D) a result of masculine oppression of women.
E) stirred up by the daughters of Salem's business owners.

Question 61

Had something like an "American" way of life emerged by the end of the seventeenth century or were there two wholly distinct ways of lifeNew England and southern in that period?

Question 62

Unlike those in the Chesapeake, New England immigrants

A) enjoyed a longer life expectancy.
B) usually migrated in family units.
C) were less ravaged by infectious diseases.
D) had a low premarital pregnancy rate.
E) allowed married women to retain property.

Question 63

Write your definition of racism.Then use this definition to argue that the origin of slavery in colonial America was or was not primarily the result of English racism.

Question 64

Which do you think was the main cause of Bacon's Rebellion: resentment felt by backcountry farmers, Governor Berkeley's Indian policies, or the pressure of the tobacco economy? Justify your choice.

Question 65

Compare and contrast the economies, geography and climate, mortality rates, sex ratios, and family relationships of New England and the southern colonies.In which of the two regions would you have preferred to live? Why?

Question 66

How did the changing nature of Puritan theology and New England's affect New England society? How were the Salem witch trials related to these developments?

Question 67

Why did colonial masters first adopt the institution of indentured servitude rather than Indian or black slavery to meet their demands for labor? Why, then, did black slavery replace indentured servitude?

Question 68

Were distinctions of wealth and status widening or narrowing as the seventeenth century drew to a close? Why?

Question 69

Which of the following reflected the lessening hold of Puritan piety on later generations of New Englanders?

A) the geographical dispersion of New England's population
B) the Congregational church's reliance on the Half-Way Covenant to bolster church membership
C) the erosion of the distinction between "the elect" and other members of society
D) the declining participation of women in Puritan congregations
E) the witchcraft trials

Question 70

How did the strong organization of town life affect New England society, including its expansion? What were the effects of the near-absence of towns and cities in the colonial South?