American Pageant Summer Assignment
REMEMBER, this is due on the first day of school. In the subject line of the email, include your last name. Remember, plagiarism is not allowed and will be grounds for dismissal from the AP program
Ch. 1
1. How did Indian societies of South and North America differ from European societies at the time the two came into contact? In what ways did Indians retain a world view different from that of the Europeans?
2. What role did disease and forced labor (including slavery) play in the early settlement of America? Is the view of the Spanish and Portuguese as especially harsh conquerors and exploiters valid or is this image just another version of the English black legend concerning the Spanish role in the Americas?
3. Are the differences between Latin America and North America due primarily to the differences between the respective Indian societies that existed in the two places, or to the disparity between Spanish and English culture? What would have happened if the English had conquered densely settled Mexico and Peru, and the Spanish had settled more thinly populated North America?
4. In what ways are the early (pre-1600) histories of Mexican and the present-day American Southwest understood differently now that the United States is being so substantially affected by Mexican and Latin American immigration and culture? To what extent should this now be regarded as part of our American history?
5. Why was the Old World able to dominate the New World? What were the strengths and weaknesses of the Old World? What were the strengths and Weaknesses of the New World?
Ch. 2
1. What did England and the English settlers really want from colonization? National glory? Wealth? Adventure? A solution to social tensions? 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 either 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 African slavery 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. How did the reliance on plantation agriculture affect the southern colonies? Were their societies relatively loose because they were primarily rural, or because they tended to rely on forced labor systems?
Ch. 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 nor 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 of New York 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)?
Ch. 4
1. Why was family life in New England so different from family life in the South?
2. Why did slavery grow to be such an important institution in colonial America? Where were the effects of slavery on the Africans who were brought to the New World? What were the effects of the Africans on the New World?
3. What was attractive and unattractive about the closely knit New England way of life?
4. Were the Salem Witch Trials a peculiar, aberrant movement in an age of superstition, or did they reflect common human psychological and social anxieties that could appear in any age? How harshly should those who prosecuted the witches be condemned?
5. Considering the extreme difference during the seventeenth-century between New England and the southern colonies, was the Civil War inevitable?
Ch. 5
1. How democratic was colonial American society? Why was it apparently becoming less equal?
2. How were the various occupations and activities of colonial America related to the nature of the economy? Why were occupations like lawyers, printer, and artisan taking on greater importance?
3. What were the cause and effects of the Great Awakening? How did such an intense religious revival affect those who experience “conversion” as well as those who did not? How did the Awakening help to create a sense of shared American identify?
4. In what ways was colonial life attractive, and in what ways would it seem tedious and dull to the average twenty-first-century American? How were the educational, cultural, and leisured sides of colonial life affected by the basic nature of the economy?