Chapter 3: Colonial Ways of Life, 1607–1750
CORE OBJECTIVES
1. Explain the major factors that contributed to the demographic changes that took place in the
TRUE/FALSE
1. Benjamin Franklin explained that the rapid population growth of the eighteenth-century
colonies was, in part, due to the fact that land in America was plentiful and cheap.
2. Part of the reason for a lower mortality rate in the colonies than in Europe was a younger
average age and the abundance of fertile land to grow crops.
3. Because of the scarcity of labor in eighteenth-century America, women found employment
outside the home as shopkeepers, printers, painters, and even doctors.
4. Most colonists strongly believed in the inferiority of women.
5. Occasionally, circumstances in the colonies caused women to exercise leadership outside
the domestic sphere.
6. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Southern colonies devoted their
agricultural energies to the cultivation of cotton.
7. The wealthiest group of southern colonists by the eighteenth century were rice planters in
South Carolina.
8. Because of a devout belief in God, New England towns founded by Puritans became some
of the first democracies in the American colonies.
9. The allegations of witchcraft in Salem in 1691–1692 may have resulted from hysteria that
came out of conflicts with Indians.
10. New Englanders, more than southerners, turned to the sea for their livelihood.
11. New Englanders were actively engaged in an involved network of foreign trade.
12. The colony of Pennsylvania was the great distribution point for various European ethnic
groups that immigrated to the colonies.
13. The French and the Dutch became the largest non-English ethnic group in the colonies
during the eighteenth century.
14. African slaves brought to America during the eighteenth century came from many varied
regions of the west coast and central Africa.
15. Jonathan Edwards had a profound impact in Massachusetts during a time of spiritual
transformation in America.
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. In the American colonies, which of the following was true?
a. Land was not plentiful.
b. Land was not cheap.
c. Workers were plentiful.
d. Laborers were expensive.
e. All workers were white.
2. In the eighteenth century, American women had a child every __________ on average.
a. 2 to 3 years
b. 5 to 6 years
c. 11 months to 2 years
d. Thanksgiving holiday
e. 7 years
3. Which of the following statements regarding population in the English colonies is accurate?
a. By 1650 the colonial population exceeded 1 million.
b. Colonists tended to marry earlier than those they left behind in England.
c. All colonists came in family units.
d. The majority of colonists worked in trade in order to earn a living.
e. Most colonists lived in large cities.
4. According to John Winthrop, a “true wife” could only find contentment
a. while worshipping in church.
b. in subjugation to her husband’s authority.
c. in childrearing.
d. while attending to her family.
e. when she moved to the afterlife.
5. Which of the following was true, compared with back home in England?
a. The English colonies had a much lower death rate.
b. The English colonies had a much higher death rate.
c. English colonists tended to freeze to death much more frequently.
d. English colonists were much more susceptible to disease.
e. Opportunity was rare in the colonies.
6. Which of the following was true of British colonizers, compared with other European
colonizers?
a. Women relaxed more during the day, while men worked.
b. Their population consisted of many more women.
c. Their population had the same amount of women.
d. Their population had fewer women.
e. Any monetary earnings a woman made were technically her own rather than her
husband’s.
7. In most European colonies in the Americas, which of the following was true?
a. Women were perceived as men’s equals.
b. Women were perceived as men’s moral superiors.
c. Women were told to obey their husbands and nurture their offspring.
d. Women had greater equality than in their home countries.
e. Women were encouraged to participate in politics.
8. Which of the following correctly describes English colonial women in the Americas?
a. They could not vote.
b. They could hold elected office.
c. They could become ministers.
d. They could attend schools.
e. They could sign contracts.
9. Which of the following statements regarding women in the colonial period is accurate?
a. Women performed a multitude of tasks within the home.
b. The first women doctors and shopkeepers did not come until after the colonies.
c. Women were often extended equal treatment in the “better homes.”
d. Colonial women had many fewer opportunities than women at home in England.
e. Women in the colonies lived relatively easy lives.
10. In the early eighteenth century, American colonists were dependent on Britain for
manufactured goods such as
a. cigarettes.
b. beer.
c. glass.
d. stamps.
e. canned fish.
11. What did the Act of Union in 1707 establish?
a. The merger of England and Scotland as Great Britain
b. The creation of a trade network between the northern and southern colonies
c. The ability of women to join the workforce in the colonies
d. The first workers’ unions in the colonies
e. Trade regulations that threatened the abundant natural resources in the colonies
12. In colonial America, which of the following statements was true of women?
a. They had fewer economic opportunities over time, as domestic responsibilities
increased.
b. They were initially more numerous than men but eventually fell in number.
c. The first women shopkeepers and doctors did not arise until after the Revolutionary
War.
d. They had more economic opportunities over time due to the scarcity of workers in the
colonies.
e. They comprised the majority of the population in the colonies.
13. Economically, which of the following was true of the English colonies in the eighteenth
century?
a. They relied on a complex colonial banking system.
b. They traded crops only.
c. They desired to avoid the use of slaves.
d. They relied on cotton production exclusively.
e. They relied on a variety of crops for trade.
14. Who were indentured servants?
a. People who traded their labor for a fixed time in return for passage to America
b. People who were exactly the same thing as slaves
c. Laborers who were most often of African descent
d. Workers employed in all of colonies except the English colonies
e. Specialized workers who were often from France
15. Which of the following statements correctly describes the prevalence of indentured
servants?
a. They probably accounted for 75 percent of all the laborers in New England.
b. They probably accounted for less than 50 percent of the laborers in New England.
c. They probably accounted for approximately half the whites outside of New England.
d. They were often kept bound for at least a decade.
e. They were never freed from their contracts.
16. Many of those who came to colonial America as indentured servants were
a. of varied ethnicity.
b. elderly.
c. well-to-do.
d. from France.
e. African.
17. As indentured servants began arriving in the colonies, which of the following was true?
a. They immediately sought to negotiate work contracts.
b. They were forced to live in guarded compounds.
c. They prospered immediately.
d. They were allowed to cancel their contracts.
e. They brought diverse cultural practices.
18. Which of the following statements regarding the development of the English colonies is
accurate?
a. In the South, free laborers were abundant and worked cheaply.
b. Towns developed quickly in the North, encouraged by trade and natural harbors.
c. All the English colonies relied heavily on indentured servants.
d. Slavery was consistently the preferred labor choice in England’s colonies.
e. All colonists lived in communities known as towns.
19. Of the English colonies in the New World, which had the most ethnically diverse
population?
a. The New England colonies
b. The middle colonies
c. The southern colonies
d. Barbados
e. Jamaica