Questions for Class Discussion - Chapter 2
Link to American Pageant - Chapter 2
1. What did England and the English settlers really want from colonization? Did they want national glory, wealth, adventure, a solution to social tensions, and/or new sources of goods and trade? Did they get what they wanted?
2. How did Spanish success in the New World influence the English colonial efforts? How did England’s earlier experience in Ireland influence its colonial efforts in the New World? How did different events in England (and Europe) affect England’s southern colonies in the New World?
3. Were the English colonizers crueler or more tolerant than the Spanish conquistadores? Why did the Spanish tend to settle and intermarry with the Indian population, whereas the English killed the Indians, drove them out, or confined them to separate territories? How did this pattern of interaction affect both white and Indian societies?
4. Was the development of enslaved Africans in the North American colonies inevitable? (Consider that it never developed in some other colonial areas, for example, Mexico and New France.) How would the North American colonies have been different without slavery? What role did the Spanish encomienda system and British sugar colonies play in introducing slavery to the southern colonies?
5. Why did Carolina
North Carolina
In what ways was Georgia
6. It is sometimes suggested that the Iroquois Confederacy may have provided a model for the union of states into the United States of America. What similarities and differences are there between the two confederations?
7. What role did the Iroquois play in the politics and warfare of British North America? Was the decision of most Iroquois to side with the British in the Revolutionary War the most decisive moment in their history? Why or why not?
Questions for Class Discussion - Chapter 3
1. Did the Puritans really come to America seeking religious freedom? How did they reconcile their own religious dissent from the Church of England with their persecution of dissenters like Hutchinson and Williams? Does their outlook make them hypocrites?
2. How were government and religion—or church and state—related in New England and the middle colonies? How does the colonial view of these matters compare with more recent understandings?
3. Was an American Revolution, separating the colonies from England, inevitable after the Glorious Revolution had encouraged colonists to end the Dominion of New England, England’s serious attempt at enforcing royal authority? Did England’s “salutary neglect” contribute to future problems in its empire? How might have England been able to successfully enforce its rule on the colonies without causing rebellion?
4. Dutch colonization efforts in New Amsterdam most closely resembled English colonization efforts in which region: New England, the middle colonies, or the southern colonies? The Dutch had a powerful presence in the East Indies, so why were the Dutch less successful in the West Indies and North America? What is the lasting influence of the Dutch in English North America?
5. How does the founding of the New England colonies compare with the origin of the middle colonies? In what ways were New England and the middle colonies each like the South, and in what ways were they different?
6. In what ways were the middle colonies more open and diverse than New England? In what ways were they less democratic?
7. How did different events in England affect the New England and middle colonies in the New World? Which was the most affected and least affected by events in the Old World: New England, middle colonies, or southern colonies?
8. What were the push and pull factors for immigrants coming to each region of English colonies (New England, the middle colonies, and the southern colonies)?
Puritan Separatists
*Mayflower Compact
-Plymouth Bay - William Bradford
-Massachusetts Bay - John Winthrop
*Great Migration
Puritan Dissenters:
*Anne Hutchinson
*Roger Williams
-Rhode Island
-"Separation of Church and State"
Thomas Hooker
*Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
Puritans v. Indians
-Pequot War
*King Philip's War
*New England Confederation
*Dominion of New England
-Reinforce *Navigation Acts
-Sir Edmund Andros
*Glorious Revolution
-*English Bill of Rights
-*Salutary Neglect
Dutch in America
Quakers
-*William Penn
