Louisiana State University - HIST 2055

Chapter 3 Colonial Ways of Life

TRUE/FALSE

1)British immigrants to America tended to retain much of their British culture.

2. When British settlers reached the New World, they entered a pristine environment little changed by human intervention.

3. People in the American colonies generally married at a younger age than those in Britain.

4. By 1700, rice and indigo were Virginia’s most important export crops.

5. Most indentured servants contracted to work for ten to fifteen years.

6. By 1750, New England had as many slaves as Virginia.

7. New Englanders, more than southerners, turned to the sea for their livelihood.

8. Puritans wore colorful clothes and enjoyed secular music.

9. The half-way covenant addressed the problem of New England’s unfavorable balance of trade.

10. The settlers known as Pennsylvania Dutch were actually Germans.

11. Nearly one third of American colonists lived in cities at the end of the seventeenth century.

12. A good example of the Great Awakening in American society was John Bartram’s study of American plant life.

13. Jonathan Edwards owned the largest plantation and the greatest number of slaves in South Carolina.

14. George Whitefield was a great preacher who even impressed Ben Franklin with his eloquence.

15. Most colonists strongly believed in the inferiority of women.

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. Colonists arriving in the New World found that Indians:
   1. had no concept of a supreme being
   2. maintained large herds of horses and cattle
   3. had left the landscape virtually unchanged
   4. regularly burned forests to promote new growth
   5. supported themselves strictly through hunting

2. English farm animals allowed to roam free:
   1. devastated Indian lands and cornfields
   2. increased the fertility of colonial farm fields
   3. was a practice quickly outlawed in New England
   4. introduced deadly diseases to North America
   5. generally died from thirst or starvation

3. Benjamin Franklin believed a major reason for colonial population growth was:
   1. government bounties for large families
   2. English immunity to contagious diseases
   3. rapid advances in medical science
   4. couples marrying later than in Europe
   5. an abundance of cheap land

4. In the first century of colonization, mortality rates among settlers were highest in which region?
   1. New England
   2. the middle colonies
   3. the South
   4. the western frontier
   5. Canada

5. Throughout the colonies, husbands expected from their wives:
   1. submission to their authority
   2. an equal partnership managing the household
   3. instruction in religion and morality
   4. romantic love as the basis of marriage
   5. toleration of sex outside of marriage

6. In regard to religion, women:
   1. frequently served as ministers
   2. were more likely to be churchgoers than men
   3. experienced most equality in Puritan churches
   4. were more likely than men to question religious authority
   5. were frequently employed as faith-healers

7. Women in the American colonies:
   1. generally had a lower status in society than did women in Europe
   2. often remained confined to the domestic sphere
   3. could vote and hold office
   4. were not likely to find eligible men to marry
   5. lived lives of quiet and leisure

8. During the colonial period, prostitution:
   1. was practically unknown
   2. was legal
   3. was especially common in port cities
   4. resulted in equal punishment for men and women
   5. was legal in official red light districts

9. In the seventeenth century, the staple crop that was the basis of the economy in Virginia and Maryland was:
   1. rice
   2. tobacco

1. 3. indigo
   4. cotton
   5. barley

10. The economy of the southern colonies centered on which fundamental fact?
    1. Labor was plentiful and land was scarce.
    2. The native population must be moved west.
    3. The British military had to protect its farms.
    4. Land was plentiful and laborers were scarce.
    5. The growing season was limited by lack of rain.

11. The indentured servants who came to the colonies:
    1. were mainly convicts shipped over as part of their sentence
    2. were essentially the same as slaves
    3. usually worked four to seven years to pay off their debt
    4. provided mainly household labor
    5. arose in several major rebellions

12. Which is NOT true of early colonial slavery?
    1. Far more slaves went to the West Indies than to North America.
    2. Slavery was present in all the English colonies.
    3. Slaves had higher survival rates in North America than in the West Indies.
    4. No colony had a majority slave population.
    5. Slaves could expect a lifetime in bondage.

13. Of all the slaves brought to the New World from Africa, how many came to the colonies of British North America?
    1. about 5 percent
    2. about 33 percent
    3. about 50 percent
    4. about 90 percent
    5. about 25 percent

14. All of the following are true EXCEPT:
    1. there were important differences between slavery as practiced in Africa and the New World
    2. a significant number of slaves died during the Atlantic crossing
    3. most slaves came from West Africa
    4. Africans had a nature-based religion with a Creator and numerous lesser spirits
    5. Africans hunted and gathered, but practiced no agriculture

15. The “Middle Passage” referred to:
    1. the Anglican belief in entire sanctification
    2. the transportation of slaves to the West Indies
    3. certain features of domestic architecture in the southern colonies
    4. social customs in Pennsylvania
    5. Puritan belief in moderation in all things

16. By 1750, the smallest percentage of slaves lived in:
    1. New England
    2. Virginia and Maryland
    3. the Carolinas
    4. the middle colonies
    5. the West Indies

17. The events surrounding a suspected slave revolt in New York City in 1741 offer parallels to:
    1. the English Civil War
    2. the Salem witch craze
    3. the American Revolution
    4. Bacon’s Rebellion
    5. the Great Awakening

18. A major theme of slave Christianity was:
    1. deliverance in heaven
    2. the wickedness of white people
    3. submission to the authority of slave masters
    4. depression over the condition of bondage
    5. the evil of drinking and dancing

19. One major reason for the willingness of the English to enslave Africans was the    of the Africans.
    1. blackness
    2. docility
    3. physical strength
    4. religiosity
    5. hostility

20. All of the following are true of the southern gentry EXCEPT:
    1. their great houses became centers of luxurious living
    2. they were often dependent on outside capital
    3. they were mainly in Virginia and South Carolina
    4. they loved to gamble on horses and games of chance
    5. they were ethnically and religiously diverse

21. Which church dominated the Chesapeake region by 1700?
    1. Anglican
    2. Quaker
    3. Puritan
    4. Baptist
    5. Presbyterian

22. Early settlers of Puritan New England typically lived:
    1. on plantations
    2. in large seaports
    3. on isolated farmsteads
    4. in towns modeled on English villages
    5. in log cabins

23. New England’s most important commodity for export was:
    1. corn
    2. molasses
    3. fish
    4. turkeys
    5. rum

24. Which of the following did NOT spur shipbuilding in New England?
    1. the abundance of fish and whales off its coast
    2. the region’s extensive forests
    3. British purchase of American-made ships
    4. the variety of jobs and businesses it created
    5. southern purchases of New England-made ships

25. One chronic problem facing colonial trade was:
    1. the lack of foreign markets for American products
    2. a way to pay for goods imported from the mother country
    3. the French blockade of the Atlantic coast
    4. an oversupply of hard currency, which caused rampant inflation
    5. an absence of rich soil for agricultural products

26. New England was settled by:
    1. a joint-stock company
    2. religious fundamentalists
    3. military officers
    4. the king and his family
    5. ex-convicts and debtors

27. New England’s Puritans did all of the following EXCEPT:
    1. sue each other
    2. have sex
    3. drink alcoholic beverages
    4. regularly read the Bible
    5. tolerate adultery

28. The covenant theory from which the Puritans drew their ideas contained:
    1. the justification for New England’s strict theocracy
    2. the notion that the king replaced God as the head of the government of the people
    3. the notion that men were capable of governing themselves well because they had been absolved of all sin when they entered the church
    4. a fundamental belief in democracy
    5. certain kernels of democracy in both church and state

29. The “half-way covenant” adopted in 1662 was a Puritan attempt to address the problem of:
    1. declining church membership
    2. economic hardship and growing social inequality
    3. eligibility of ministers to hold public office
    4. whether to interpret the Bible or follow it literally
    5. increasing materialism

30. The witch craze in Salem started when:
    1. a slave named Tituba cursed the village minister
    2. Indians attacked and looted the village
    3. several people died of a mysterious illness
    4. adolescent girls began to exhibit strange afflictions
    5. the town minister was caught in a sex scandal

31. The best explanation for the Salem witch craze is:
    1. the play-acting and false accusations of teenage girls
    2. the presence of real witches in Salem village
    3. social division and anxieties within the village
    4. the low rate of literacy among the villagers
    5. natural hallucinogens in the local water supply

32. The middle colonies:
    1. included Rhode Island and Maryland
    2. lacked a suitable base for commerce
    3. for many years had a black majority population
    4. were dominated by plantation agriculture
    5. included New York and Pennsylvania

33. The largest number of German immigrants to the colonies settled in:
    1. Rhode Island
    2. South Carolina
    3. New York
    4. Delaware
    5. Pennsylvania

34. The Pennsylvania Dutch:
    1. were immigrants from Holland who settled in the backcountry of New York and Pennsylvania
    2. migrated to Virginia and North Carolina in the late seventeenth century to escape religious persecution
    3. were almost wiped out because of a genetic intolerance to New World viruses
    4. were a mixture of Mennonites, Lutherans, Moravians, Dunkers, and others
    5. built windmills and dikes as they had done in their native country

35. The Scotch-Irish:
    1. were mainly Irish Catholics
    2. were mainly Presbyterians
    3. settled largely in New England
    4. were associated mainly with coastal areas
    5. were actually neither Scottish nor Irish

36. By 1790, second only to the English in their percentage of the white population were the:
    1. Germans
    2. French
    3. Scottish or Scotch-Irish
    4. Irish
    5. Dutch

37. The largest city in the colonies at the end of the colonial period:
    1. had a population of about 1,000,000
    2. had a population of about 2,000
    3. was Boston
    4. was Philadelphia
    5. had as many people as London

38. By the end of the colonial period, American cities:
    1. were limited to the middle colonies
    2. were characterized by increasing social and economic equality
    3. held no more than 10 percent of the total population
    4. were cleaner, safer, and healthier than rural environments
    5. had majority non-English populations

39. By 1700, the most democratic and important social institutions were:
    1. coffee houses
    2. churches
    3. theaters
    4. colleges
    5. taverns

40. John Peter Zenger’s trial in 1735 established:
    1. that truth is a defense in libel cases
    2. absolute freedom of the press
    3. private ownership of newspapers
    4. the right to send newspapers through the mail
    5. the legal difference between libel and slander

41. The Enlightenment:
    1. encouraged the idea that God was like a master clockmaker who planned the universe and set it in motion
    2. led most educated men to become atheists
    3. was based mainly on the writings of Martin Luther
    4. increased church attendance
    5. started in America and spread to Europe

42. Enlightenment thinkers such as Isaac Newton stressed:
    1. the value of traditional religion
    2. the virtue of divine right monarchy
    3. the ability of reason to discover the laws of the universe
    4. the superiority of art over science
    5. the presence of God in nature

43. Ben Franklin emphasized the Enlightenment in:
    1. his denial of God’s existence
    2. his rise from poverty to riches
    3. his passion for science and experimentation
    4. his scandalous sex life

1. 5. his work as a printer and publisher

44. Education in the colonies was:
    1. most advanced in the South
    2. primarily intended for young women
    3. most advanced in frontier regions
    4. hampered in New England by the Puritans’ anti-intellectual tradition
    5. usually seen as the responsibility of family and church

45. Puritan commitment to education is best explained by their:
    1. need for a literate workforce
    2. commitment to Enlightenment principles
    3. prior exposure to schools in England
    4. innate love of learning
    5. need to read the Scriptures

46. The Great Awakening developed in reaction to the:
    1. attempt of British officials to regulate colonial churches
    2. increasing education and sophistication of backwoods settlers
    3. increasing role of emotionalism in religion
    4. tendency of the Enlightenment to place great emphasis on formal religion
    5. Deism and skepticism associated with the Enlightenment

47. The religious revivals known as the Great Awakening did all the following EXCEPT:
    1. affect all thirteen colonies
    2. split a number of churches
    3. feature traveling ministers
    4. emphasize an emotional style of preaching
    5. further promote Enlightenment thinking

48. The English revivalist who preached to thousands and so impressed Ben Franklin was:
    1. James Davenport
    2. Jonathan Edwards
    3. Evander Osteen
    4. George Whitefield
    5. William Tennent

49. Jonathan Edwards’s famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” described: