CHAPTER REVIEW

Rapid Review Guide

To achieve the perfect 5, you should be able to explain that

• Economic difficulties in Europe, the desire to acquire raw materials, and religious tensions all caused Europeans to become interested in the Americas. 

• Cortes, Pizarro, and other Spanish conquistadors entered much of Central America, South America, the southeastern section of North America, and the area now known as Florida, conquering the Aztecs, the Incas, and other Native American tribes. Guns, horses, and diseases brought from Europe all aided the Spanish in their efforts to defeat the native tribes,

• French settlers in Canada were less oppressive than the Spanish, Jesuit priests converted thousands of Native American to Christianity, French settlers became increasingly interested in fur trading.

• Puritans and other religious dissidents came to the Americas because they felt the Church of England was too close to Catholicism.

• The first English settlement in America was the Jamestown colony, founded in 1607, Tobacco became the main crop in Jamestown, and the first slaves arrived in 1619.

• A group of religious Separatists arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. The first year of settlement was difficult for these Pilgrims, who had to rely on help from the Native Americans to survive.

• The Massachusetts Bay colony was established in 1629 by the Puritans. This colony was established as a “city upon a hill,” where the will of God could be manifested, A limited representative government was established. Religious dissent was not tolerated in this colony: Dissenters were thrown out and founded new colonies in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Portsmouth.

• The ecosystem of the Americas was tremendously altered by European settlement.

Time Line

10,000 B.C.E.: Migration of Asians to the Americas across the Bering Straight begins

1492: Voyage of Columbus to the Americas

1520-1530: Smallpox epidemic helps wipe out Native American tribes of South and Central America

1519: Cortes enters Mexico

1534-1535: French adventurers explore the St. Lawrence River

1541-1542: Spanish explorers travel through southwestern United States

1607: English settle in Jamestown

1619: Virginia establishes House of Burgesses (first colonial legislature)

1620: Plymouth colony founded

1629: Massachusetts Bay colony founded

1634: Maryland colony founded

1636: Roger Williams expelled from Massachusetts Bay colony and settles in Providence, Rhode Island; Connecticut founded by John Hooker

1642: City of Montreal founded by the French

Review Questions

1. By the seventeenth century, Spain had

A. monopolized New World trade

B. reached the height of its power and began to decline

C. failed in its effort to build a New World empire

D. swept across northern Africa and seized control of the slave trade

E. pioneered new routes to the East Indies

(Correct Answer; B. By this point England was catching up to the Spanish in terms of naval power, and Spanish power in the Americas had reached its highest point.)

2. Which of the following was not a religious dissenter in Massachusetts Bay?

A. William Bradford

B. Roger Williams

C. John Davenport

D. Anne Hutchinson

E. Thomas Hooker

(Correct Answer: A. Bradford was a governor of Massachusetts Bay for twenty years; all of the others left for religious reasons and founded colonies elsewhere.)

3. A colony designated as a refuge for English Catholics was:

A. North Carolina

B. Pennsylvania

C. South Carolina

D. Maryland

E. Virginia

(Correct Answer: D. George Calvert settled this colony in 1632 for exactly that purpose.)

4. English people came to the New World because of

A. their dislike for the Church of England

B. overcrowding in English cities

C. economic opportunity

D. A and C

E. All of the above

(Correct Answer; E. The overcrowding of cities was an additional factor in convincing some English people to “try their lot” in the New World)

5. The very first Americans

A. lived in South America

B. were nomadic wanderers

C. lived in permanent sites

D. were subsistence farmers

E. predated Spain’s arrival in the New World by only two centuries

(Correct Answer: B. Almost all early Native American tribes were nomadic in nature.)