Brinkley, Chapter 2: Transplantations and Borderlands
1. What exactly does Brinkley mean by “‘transplantations’ of the English world” (p. 33)? Why did such transplantations prove untenable?
2. What was the principal objective of the London Company’s efforts to establish a colony in Virginia?
3. What sorts of problems contributed to the difficulties in establishing a successful colony at Jamestown?
4. In what ways did John Smith help to turn around the situation in Jamestown, at least temporarily, in 1608 and 1609?
5. What effect did the “starving time” have on the Jamestown settlement?
6. Virginia settlements finally began to expand, lining the river above and below Jamestown. What factors account for that expansion?
7. How did the Virginia Company’s so-called “headright” system work, and how did it contribute to population expansion in Virginia?
8. Read the attached documents regarding life in Virginia in the early seventeenth century and answer the following questions:
a. What obvious changes had taken place between the times the two accounts were written?
b. What caused these changes? In answering this question, reread the section in the text on Jamestown and Virginia, paying special attention to the incentives offered at various times by the company.
c. How does the comparison and contrast of these two documents help to explain what was needed to succeed in Virginia?
d. Do you feel that Pory’s letter is an accurate description of what really existed in Virginia?
9. In the summer of 1619, two events occurred in Virginia that served as starting points for political and economic developments that, two centuries later, would do much to characterize American civilization. What were the events, and which developments did they lead to?
10. What agricultural techniques did the early English settlers in Virginia learn from the Indians?
11. Virginia and Maryland differed in their origins in that Virginia was established by a chartered company and Maryland by proprietary rulers. What are the differences between the two modes of founding?
12. How was it that a landed aristocracy—unusual among the colonies—established itself in Maryland?
13. Seventeenth-century Virginia and Maryland differed in a number of other ways as well. Name a few.
14. In what ways were the developments in Maryland and Virginia similar?
15. What impact did Sir William Berkley’s governorship have on the political culture of Virginia?
16. What were some of the issues that caused tensions to emerge in Virginia between tidewater leaders and backwoods settlers?
17. According to Brinkley, Bacon’s Rebellion “was the largest and most powerful insurrection against established authority in the history of the colonies” (p. 40) until the American Revolution. What brought the rebellion about?
18. Why was Bacon’s Rebellion significant?
19. What were some of the effects of English colonial settlement on the natural landscape in the region surrounding Plymouth?
20. In what way did the Congregational Church, which emerged in Massachusetts in the 1630s and 40s, differ from the Anglican Church, the church to which many of the English settlers had originally belonged?
21. Brinkley describes seventeenth-century Massachusetts as a “theocracy.” What reasons does he offer to support this assertion?
22. Why did the Massachusetts Bay colony thrive and prosper more rapidly than the colonies in Jamestown or Plymouth?
23. What was the basis of Roger Williams’ criticism of the theocratic government in the Massachusetts Bay Colony?
24. What did Williams do in response to those aspects of the Massachusetts Bay Colony of which he disapproved?
25. Anne Hutchinson’s criticism of the theocratic government in the Massachusetts Bay Colony was both theological and social. Explain
26. What impact did Hutchinson have on the politics of Massachusetts?
27. During the early years of English settlement in New England, local Indians proved to be extremely useful to the settlers. How so?
28. What caused the initially harmonious relations between the Indians and the settlers to break down?
29. As the hostility between the Indians and the settlers increased, settlers held differing views as to how to solve the Indian “problem.” What were some of these views?
30. What issues led to the outbreak of hostilities between the settlers and the Wampanoags in what is known as King Phillip’s War?
31. King Phillip’s War resulted in the wounding or killing of nearly 10 percent of the overall population (including both Indians and settlers), making the war the bloodiest in American history relative to the size of the population. What accounts for Indian successes in the face of the settlers’ overwhelming technological advantages?
32. In the seventeenth-century America, what was the basic difference between proprietary settlements and chartered company settlements? Why, by the 1660s, were private companies no longer interested in establishing new settlements?
33. What were some of the principal differences between the northern and the southern regions of Carolina?
34. Why would such differences lead to social and political instability?
35. Why did the English resent the Dutch presence in America?
36. According to Brinkley, New York in the seventeenth century was “a highly factious society” (p. 51). Why was this so?
37. What were some of the theological differences between the Quakers and the Puritans?
38. Brinkley observes that, “Of all the Protestant sectarians of the time, the Quakers were the most anarchistic and democratic” (p. 51). Which aspects of their theology, mode of worship, church organization, and social relations support this view?
39. How did William Penn’s various efforts help Pennsylvania to prosper from the outset more than any other English colony?
40. Although Penn was a benign proprietor, some residents of Pennsylvania opposed proprietary rule. Why?
41. What provisions did the Pennsylvania Charter of Liberties contain?
42. In what ways were the Caribbean settlements important to the North American colonies?
43. In the Caribbean in the seventeenth century, what relation existed between the sugar-based economy and the increase in the importation of slaves?
44. Which factors contributed to the social instability of the English settlements in the Caribbean?
45. In what ways were the English settlements in the Caribbean connected to the English colonies in North America?
46. Much of the impetus for the Spanish settlements in California, New Mexico, and Arizona derived from efforts on the part of Catholic missionaries to convert indigenous peoples. The missionaries, however, experienced different degrees of success in these regions. Explain.
47. In what ways did Spanish colonization in the southwest differ from English colonization on the east coast?
48. Which factors contributed to the establishment of an English settlement in the region between southern Carolina and northern Florida?
49. What did James Oglethorpe seek to achieve in Georgia? To what extent was he successful?
50. What is meant by the term “middle ground” in the historiography of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American history?
51. Which factors contributed to the collapse of the “middle ground”?
52. What are some of the principal characteristics of the mercantile system?
53. Given these characteristics, on what fundamental principle was mercantilism based (the answer to this question is not stated explicitly in the text, though it is implied)? Of what significance was the idea of economic monopoly to this fundamental principle?
54. In what ways did England and its American colonies draw uneven benefits or advantages from the mercantile system?
55. What was the aim of the three Navigation Acts passed in England in the 1660s and 1670s?
56. In what ways did these acts work to the benefit of both England and the colonies?
57. What effect did the “Glorious Revolution” have on the politics and government of Massachusetts?
58. Although Maryland was founded as a refuge for English Catholics, after the “Glorious Revolution” Catholics residing in the colony lost both their political and religious rights? Why?