Chapter 5
By 1770, blacks made up what percentage of the southern population?
40 percent
About what percentage of colonists in 1770 traced their ancestry to England?
50 percent
Although the three regions of British North America became more distinct in the latter part of the eighteenth century, they still shared what unifying experience?
A lessening reliance on religion
What was the Great Awakening?
A religious revival movement
How did New England families subdivide land under the policy of partible inheritance?
About equally among all the sons
Which New England church was supported by taxes paid by all residents?
Congregational Church
Why did South Carolina planters favor slaves from the central African Congo and Angola regions?
Cultural similarities eased newcomers' acculturation to slave life.
Which statement characterizes colonial deists?
Deists looked for God's laws with science and reason.
How did newly imported African slaves develop kinship relationships in the existing slave communities?
Established slave families often adopted new arrivals as fictive kin.
Most of the Scots-Irish who came to the colonies were farm laborers or tenant farmers who were leaving behind
crop failures caused by numerous droughts.
Poor Richard's Almanack mirrored the beliefs of its Pennsylvania readers in its glorification of
economic profit.
Members of the eighteenth-century Southern gentry set a cultural standard of
extravagant leisure.
Compared with the poor in England, the least wealthy eighteenth-century New Englanders
lived more comfortably.
The huge increase in the slave population in the South during the second half of the eighteenth century can be attributed to natural increase and
the Atlantic slave trade.
In addition to their competition for land, colonial settlers and Indians engaged in conflicts over
the fur trade.
As the eighteenth century progressed, tobacco, rice, and indigo made the southern colonies
the richest in North America.
While the eighteenth-century Southern gentry privately looked down on poor whites, they publicly acknowledged them as
their equals by virtue of belonging to the white race.
The increasing presence of English goods in the colonial market in the eighteenth century
tied the colonists to the British economy and made them feel more British.
Why did New Englanders have only a quarter of the wealth the free colonists in the South had in 1770?
Farms did not produce huge surpluses of cash crops.
What industry produced the most economic growth in the middle colonies, particularly in Pennsylvania?
Flour milling
The largest number of immigrants to the middle colonies were
German.
What was the dominant feature of the eighteenth-century New England economy?
It was a diversified, worldwide commercial economy focused on the Atlantic world
Who kidnapped Olaudah Equiano and sold him into slavery?
Other Africans
Which colony was known as ìthe best poor Man's Country in the Worldî?
Pennsylvania
How often did most eighteenth-century colonists go to church?
Seldom or not at all
What was the dominant group in eighteenth-century Philadelphia society in terms of wealth and political power?
Skilled artisans
What was the defining feature of the southern colonies in the eighteenth century?
Slave labor
What was the largest group of non-Christians in eighteenth-century North America?
Slaves
What did the Stono rebellion prove about eighteenth-century slaves?
Slaves could not win a firefight for freedom.
Why did southern masters prefer black slaves over white indentured servants?
Slaves served for life with no legal way to gain freedom.
Which statement characterizes slaves in the middle colonies in the eighteenth century?
Slaves were not really needed on wheat farms.
From a planter's perspective, what was one advantage to buying slaves in small groups?
Small groups could be trained by seasoned slaves.
In which southern colony did the black population outnumber the white population almost two to one?
South Carolina
Why did colonial governors have difficulty gaining the trust and respect of influential colonists?
Their terms of office were often less than five years.
What was the purpose of ìseasoningî slaves?
To acclimate them to the environment of the southern colonies
Why did Spanish officials decide to build forts and missions on New Spain's northern frontier during the eighteenth century?
To block Russian access to present-day California
How did the slaveholding gentry dominate Virginia politics?
Voting requirements favored the wealthy.
In the eighteenth century, the majority of immigrants coming to America were Scots-Irish or
African.
Prominent colonists in the plantation South and in cities such as Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia belonged to which church?
Anglican Church
What was the status of colonial assemblies by 1720?
Assemblies won the power to initiate important legislation.
How did most redemptioners pay for their voyage across the Atlantic?
By selling themselves as servants once they arrived
Which group dominated the commercial economy of New England?
Merchants
Why did New England's population lag behind the growth in other colonies?
Most immigrants chose other destinations.
Why did Thomas Jefferson state that ìa [slave] child raised every 2 years is of more profit than the crop of the best laboring [slave] manî?
Natural increase would grow his slave holdings.
Why were there so few slaves in New England during the eighteenth century?
New England's farming was not suited for slave labor.
What was a consequence of the increased supply of items such as tobacco and sugar in eighteenth-century colonial America?
Ordinary people purchased more luxury goods.
How did the population of the colonies change during the eighteenth century?
The colonies' population was eight times higher in 1770 than it was in 1700.
What was an early Pennsylvania policy encouraging settlement?
The colony negotiated with Indians to purchase land.
What was a result of the comparatively high standard of living in rural Pennsylvania and the surrounding middle colonies between 1720 and 1770?
The consumption of imported goods doubled.
Why was the colonial economy in the eighteenth century unique?
The free population enjoyed a relatively high standard of living.
