History of Colonial America
Textbook Exam Questions
Course Introduction
This course explores the complex history of Colonial America from the early 16th century through the eve of the American Revolution. Students will examine the establishment and development of European colonies, with a focus on interactions among Indigenous peoples, European settlers, and enslaved Africans. Key themes include social, economic, and political life in the colonies, religious diversity, the impact of transatlantic trade, and the growth of regional identities. By analyzing primary and secondary sources, students will gain insight into the forces that shaped colonial society and set the stage for the eventual quest for independence.
Recommended Textbook
The Unfinished Nation A Concise History of the American People Volume I To 1877 5th Edition by
Available Study Resources on Quizplus
17 Chapters
2093 Verified Questions
2093 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/study-set/2388 Page 2
Chapter 1: The Meeting of Cultures
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
102 Verified Questions
102 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47452
Sample Questions
Q1) As of the sixteenth century, Europeans had generally built up a greater immunity to smallpox than had the Native Americans.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) The origins of human existence in the Americas began
A)with migrations from Eurasia over the Bering Strait.
B)with the explorations of Christopher Columbus.
C)as a result of the development of the wheel.
D)long after the last ice age ended.
E)from the southern tip of South America.
Answer: A
Q3) Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the population of the native peoples living in what is now the United States is estimated to be 10 million.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q4) The Spanish referred to peoples of mixed race as ___________.
Answer: mestizos
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 3
Chapter 2: Transplantations and Borderland
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
130 Verified Questions
130 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47443
Sample Questions
Q1) In the seventeenth century, English Quakers
A)had a disregard for class or gender distinctions.
B)had no paid clergy.
C)were pacifists.
D)believed all could attain salvation.
E)All the answers are correct.
Answer: E
Q2) The European weapon quickly appropriated by Indians was the______________. Answer: flintlock musket
Q3) The Fundamental Constitution for the Carolina colony
A)sought to create a society of general equality among Englishmen.
B)was influenced by the English philosopher John Locke.
C)initially did not include slavery.
D)made no provisions for a colonial parliament.
E)All the answers are correct.
Answer: B
Q4) ___________________, the leader of the Massachusetts Bay colony, sought to have his people serve as a "city upon a _______."
Answer: John Winthrop, hill
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 4
Chapter 3: Society and Culture in Provincial America
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
131 Verified Questions
131 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47442
Sample Questions
Q1) The seventeenth-century tobacco economy of the Chesapeake region
A)was concentrated on many small farms with few slaves.
B)went through numerous boom-and-bust cycles.
C)often saw production not meet demand.
D)saw planters cut back on production as a way of raising prices.
E)saw prices rise steadily throughout the period.
Answer: B
Q2) Black workers did not become generally available in British North America until the early part of the eighteenth century.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) In the mid-1600s, New England Puritan ministers began preaching against the decline of
A)family.
B)piety.
C)community.
D)freedom.
E)tolerance.
Answer: B
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 5
Chapter 4: The Empire in Transition
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
130 Verified Questions
130 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47441
Sample Questions
Q1) The Tea Act of 1773
A)followed a few years of relative calm between England and the American colonies.
B)lowered the price of tea for American colonists.
C)was intended to benefit a private British company.
D)provided no new tax on tea.
E)All the answers are correct.
Q2) The Stamp Act was a direct attempt by Parliament to raise revenues in the colonies without the consent of the colonial legislatures.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The newly organized Sons of ____________ did their best to block enforcement of the Stamp Act.
Q4) Parliament responded to the Boston Tea Party by
A)withdrawing its military protection of Massachusetts.
B)reducing the powers of self-government in Massachusetts.
C)reducing the geographic size of the colony.
D)threatening to launch a war against the Massachusetts militia.
E)repealing the Tea Act.
Q5) The _________________ colony had the most elaborately developed tavern culture.
Page 6
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Chapter 5: The American Revolution
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
128 Verified Questions
128 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47440
Sample Questions
Q1) Published in January 1776, Common Sense was written by
A)Thomas Jefferson.
B)Tom Paine.
C)James Madison.
D)Ben Franklin.
E)James Otis.
Q2) During the Revolutionary War the Iroquois Confederacy was united in its allegiance to Great Britain.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Following Lexington and Concord, it is safe to say that most Americans now saw that they were fighting for independence from Great Britain.
A)True
B)False
Q4) For some African Americans, the Revolution meant an increased exposure to the concept of liberty.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What was the legacy of the American Revolution for Native Americans?
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 7
Chapter 6: The Constitution and the New Republic
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
121 Verified Questions
121 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47439
Sample Questions
Q1) The presidential campaign in 1800
A)saw the Republicans win a decisive victory over the Federalists.
B)was notable for the sensational personal slandering of both candidates.
C)saw leading Federalists in Congress attempt to engineer the election of Aaron Burr.
D)was decided by a newly elected Republican Congress.
E)was further complicated by the emergence of a third party, the Whigs.
Q2) On September 25, 1789, Congress approved twelve amendments, ______ of which came to comprise what we know as the Bill of Rights.
Q3) In America, the French Revolution was generally praised by A)Federalists.
B)Republicans.
C)Federalists and Republicans.
D)Indians and slaves.
E)no one.
Q4) After the election of 1800, the ___________ branch of government was the only branch controlled by the Federalists.
Q5) What were the primary reasons why the Articles of Confederation failed as a structure of government?
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 8
Chapter 7: The Jeffersonian ERA
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
132 Verified Questions
132 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47438
Sample Questions
Q1) During the Jefferson administration, the British claimed the right to stop American merchant ships and seize
A)vessels that had deserters on board from British ships.
B)naturalized Americans born on British soil.
C)any persons they chose.
D)all military cargo.
E)any slaves found on board.
Q2) In the War of 1812, Britain turned its full military attention to America after
A)Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.
B)Napoleon's incarceration at Elba.
C)Napoleon's catastrophic campaign against Russia.
D)the American invasion of Canada.
E)the American raid and burning of York.
Q3) The first American medical school was ____________________.
Q4) In 1811 General William Henry Harrison defeated Native Americans at the Battle of
Q5) The most important Indian revivalist during the Second Great Awakening was
Q6) The Lewis and Clark expedition was aided by the Indian woman
Page 9
Q7) The Essex Junto was composed of extreme _____________ of New England.
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Chapter 8: Varieties of American Nationalism
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
100 Verified Questions
100 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47437
Sample Questions
Q1) By examining the Missouri Compromise, what can one learn about slavery as a political issue in the United States during the early nineteenth century?
Q2) What effect did the Marshall Court have on the legal status of Indian tribes?
Q3) The series of early presidents from the same state is called the ________________.
Q4) What factors motivated Americans to engage in a westward migration in the early nineteenth century? What type of American was more likely to move into the West?
Q5) The Missouri merchant who helped to create the Santa Fe Trail by selling cheap American goods in Mexican markets was
A)John Jacob Astor.
B)William Ashley.
C)Rufus King.
D)William Crawford.
E)William Becknell.
Q6) Could the United States have enforced the Monroe Doctrine in 1823? Why or why not?
Q7) When Jefferson referred to a "fire bell in the night" he was talking about the issue of
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 10
Chapter 9: Jacksonian America
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
131 Verified Questions
131 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47436
Sample Questions
Q1) One of the major reforms of the Jacksonian period was the introduction of the secret ballot.
A)True
B)False
Q2) In the 1820s, under Nicholas Biddle, the Bank of the United States
A)was financially sound and profitable.
B)exercised little influence on state banks.
C)had restricted credit to growing enterprises.
D)prohibited the existence of state banks.
E)had to borrow credit from state banks to stay afloat.
Q3) The Supreme Court ruling in Charles River Bridge Company v.Warren Bridge Company (1837)
A)outraged supporters of Andrew Jackson.
B)was a victory for federal authority.
C)continued the constitutional interpretation set forth by John Marshall.
D)affirmed the inviolability of contracts.
E)reflected Jacksonian ideas of democracy and economic opportunity.
Q4) The Panic of 1837 began the worst American depression to that point.
A)True
B)False
Page 11
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Chapter 10: Americas Economic Revolution
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
121 Verified Questions
121 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47451
Sample Questions
Q1) Describe the interrelationship between one technological development in the pre-Civil War era and another.
Q2) Prior to 1860, the fastest-growing segment in American society was the A)slaves.
B)very poor.
C)middle class.
D)well-to-do.
E)very rich.
Q3) Elias Howe's invention of the __________________ had an impact on both family life and the Civil War.
Q4) For most American farmers, the 1840s and 1850s was a period of A)economic decline as more people moved to urban centers.
B)rising prosperity due to increased world demand for farm products.
C)extreme economic highs and lows brought on by volatile changes in demand.
D)economic growth in the West but decline in the East.
E)increasing economic connection between the North and South.
Q5) One of the first businesses to benefit from the telegraph was the railroads.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Samuel Morse invented the ________________.
Page 12
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Chapter 11: Cotton, Slavery, and the Old South
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
98 Verified Questions
98 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47450
Sample Questions
Q1) From the 1830s on, state laws governing slavery became gradually less rigid.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Prior to 1860, Southern white women
A)had about the same access to education as Northern white women.
B)were not expected to engage in manual labor whatever their social standing.
C)generally lived lives that were isolated from the wider world.
D)had a birth rate that was lower than the national average.
E)were more likely to see their children grow to adulthood than Northern white women.
Q3) The Southern planter class was quite similar to the landed aristocracies of Europe.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The typical white Southerners who were not great planters or slave-owners were known as "____________."
Q5) Society in the antebellum South placed the plantation owner at the top of the social order.
A)True
B)False
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 13
Chapter 12: Antebellum Culture and Reform
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
122 Verified Questions
122 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47449
Sample Questions
Q1) John Humphrey Noyes is to be associated with the ____________ community.
Q2) American transcendentalists borrowed heavily from European thinkers.
A)True
B)False
Q3) According to the nineteenth-century "science" of phrenology, what could be discerned from the shape of an individual's skull?
A)her life expectancy
B)her likelihood of succumbing to infectious diseases
C)her future earning potential
D)her chances of having children
E)her character and intelligence
Q4) Walt Whitman
A)intensely disagreed with the American transcendentalists.
B)rejected much of romanticism.
C)celebrated the liberation of the individual.
D)was a strong critic of American democracy.
E)became a strong defender of Southern institutions, especially slavery.
Q5) Henry David Thoreau favored the solitary life, but not civil disobedience.
A)True
B)False
Page 14
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Chapter 13: The Impending Crisis
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
146 Verified Questions
146 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47448
Sample Questions
Q1) John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was supported by the Republican Party.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Within the ideology of Manifest Destiny were all the following beliefs EXCEPT
A)the United States was destined by God and history to expand in size.
B)the United States should create a vast new "empire of liberty."
C)United States expansion was acceptable so long as it stayed out of Mexico and Canada.
D)the growth of the United States was not selfish but altruistic.
E)None of the answers are correct.
Q3) The Missouri Compromise was declared unconstitutional in the _______________ Supreme Court decision.
Q4) The Dred Scott decision endorsed the Missouri Compromise.
A)True
B)False
Q5) In the Mexican War, American troops seized Mexico City.
A)True
B)False
Q6) The notion that people should be able to vote on the matter of slavery in the territories was called ________________________.
Page 15
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Chapter 14: The Civil War
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
140 Verified Questions
140 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47447
Sample Questions
Q1) The prominent commander who died in the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863 was
A)George McClellan.
B)Joseph Hooker.
C)Ambrose Burnside.
D)Thomas Jackson.
E)George Meade.
Q2) The last-ditch effort by a Kentucky senator to avoid the Civil War was called the ______________________ Compromise.
Q3) In 1861 Congress passed the ______________ Act, which declared that all slaves used for "insurrectionary" purposes would be considered freed.
Q4) In the Civil War, at lower levels of military command
A)Northern and Southern commanders had markedly different backgrounds.
B)amateur officers played important roles in both the Union and Confederate armies.
C)professional officers on both sides were mostly Ivy League graduates.
D)All the answers are correct.
E)None of the answers are correct.
Q5) Wartime targets of military arrest in the North were Peace Democrats, or
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 16
Chapter 15: Reconstruction and the New South
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
126 Verified Questions
126 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47446
Sample Questions
Q1) In the final days of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln
A)insisted that the Confederacy had no legal right to exist.
B)argued it best to readmit the Confederate states to the Union without condition.
C)called on the Confederacy to negotiate a peace treaty with the United States.
D)met with Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Virginia.
E)declared that the Confederate government must repudiate its constitution.
Q2) Despite defeat in the Civil War, white landownership actually increased during Reconstruction.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The Freedmen's Bureau
A)distributed food to millions of Southern blacks.
B)pushed for voting rights for former male slaves.
C)gave forty acres of land and a mule to millions of Southern blacks.
D)was created to operate for only five years.
E)created millions of federal public works jobs for former slaves.
Q4) The Tenure of Office Act was designed to protect the job of ______________.
Q5) Why would the legacy of Reconstruction matter throughout the twentieth century?
Q6) After the Civil War, most black agricultural workers toiled as ______________.
Page 17
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Chapter 16: The Conquest of the Far West
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
112 Verified Questions
112 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47445
Sample Questions
Q1) By 1880, more than 200,000 Chinese had settled in the United States.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which of the following was NOT a significant source of resentment for the late nineteenth-century farmers?
A)railroads
B)state governments
C)banks
D)manufacturers
E)prices
Q3) The decimation of American buffalo herds in the late nineteenth century
A)destroyed the ability of Plains Indians to resist the advance of white settlers.
B)was accelerated by Indian tribes who killed large numbers of buffalo to sell to white Americans.
C)happened almost entirely in the space of a single decade.
D)All the answers are correct.
E)None of the answers are correct.
Q4) ______________________ headed the most popular Wild West shows in the late nineteenth century.
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 18
Chapter 17: Industrial Supremacy
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
123 Verified Questions
123 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/47444
Sample Questions
Q1) In the United States, the steel industry first emerged in A)Pennsylvania and Ohio.
B)Vermont and Massachusetts.
C)Illinois and Indiana.
D)New Jersey and New York.
E)Alabama and Mississippi.
Q2) During the late nineteenth century, the growth of large corporations was helped by A)sales of company stock to the public.
B)"limited liability" laws.
C)the realization that great ventures could not be financed by any single person.
D)All the answers are correct.
E)None of the answers are correct.
Q3) By 1900, factory work in the United States required ever-increasing levels of skill.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Compare the ideas and practices of the "self-made man" proponents with the ideas and practices of utopian communities earlier in the nineteenth century.
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
19