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U.S. History

Unit 1

Colonial America

6 topics · 24 practice questions · Free responseNot yet reviewed

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Notes

Native America and European contact

  • Diverse Native societies adapted to their environments: Puebloan farmers in the Southwest, Mississippian mound builders, the Iroquois Confederacy in the Northeast, and mobile hunters on the Plains.
  • European exploration was driven by "God, gold and glory". Columbus reached the Caribbean in 1492, and Spain built a large empire.
  • The Columbian Exchange moved crops, animals and diseases between hemispheres. Smallpox and other diseases devastated Native populations.

The English colonies

  • Jamestown (1607) was a profit-seeking colony saved by tobacco. The House of Burgesses (1619) was the first elected assembly.
  • Plymouth (1620) and Massachusetts Bay (1630) were founded for religious reasons. The Mayflower Compact was an early agreement for self-government.
  • New England: trade, fishing, small farms, town meetings. Middle: grain, diversity, tolerance. South: plantations growing cash crops.

Slavery

  • The transatlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage brought millions of enslaved Africans to the Americas.
  • After Bacon's Rebellion (1676), Virginia planters relied more on enslaved labor. Slave codes made slavery lifelong and inherited.
  • Enslaved people resisted in many ways, including the Stono Rebellion (1739).

Colonial society

  • Mercantilism and the Navigation Acts tied colonial trade to Britain, but salutary neglect let colonists govern themselves.
  • The Great Awakening and the Enlightenment (John Locke's natural rights) encouraged colonists to question authority.

Topics in this unit

Each topic has its own short notes and practice.

Practice

Which pair correctly matches a colony with the main reason it was founded?
Which development made the Virginia colony economically successful?
The House of Burgesses and New England town meetings both show that colonists:
Read the excerpt from the Mayflower Compact (1620): "...covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic... to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws... as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony." The main idea is that the signers agreed to:
A ship leaves England with cloth and guns, trades them in West Africa for enslaved people, and carries sugar from the Caribbean back to England. This pattern is called:
How did the Great Awakening help prepare colonists for later political change?

Free response

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Free-response question

The thirteen English colonies developed into three regions: New England, the Middle Colonies and the Southern Colonies.

(a) Describe one way geography or climate shaped the economy of ONE colonial region.

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In the Southern Colonies, a warm climate and long growing season let planters grow cash crops like tobacco and rice on large plantations for export.

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(b) Explain why the Southern Colonies came to depend on enslaved labor.

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Plantation crops needed many workers. Indentured servants became harder to find and eventually went free, and after Bacon's Rebellion planters feared poor free workers. Planters turned to enslaved Africans, whose status slave codes made lifelong and inherited.

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(c) Explain how salutary neglect or the Enlightenment contributed to colonists' sense of self-government.

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Under salutary neglect, Britain rarely enforced its trade laws, so colonial assemblies made most decisions for decades. Colonists came to expect to govern themselves and resented later British control.

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