Periods 1 & 2 Exam

Questions 1 - 4 refer to the excerpt below.

“Their world, quite literally, changed before the Indians’ eyes as European colonists transformed the forest into farmland. . . . In the Southeast, hogs ran wild. Sheep and goats became permanent parts of the economy and culture of Pueblo and Navajo peoples in the Southwest. Horses transformed the lives and cultures of Indian peoples on the plains. Europeans also brought honeybees, black rats, cats, and cockroaches to America.”

— Colin G. Calloway, historian, First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History, 2012

“The common ways mainly employed by the Spaniards who call themselves Christian and who have gone there to extirpate those pitiful nations and wipe them off the earth is unjustly waging cruel and bloody wars. Then, when they have slain all those who fought for their lives or to escape the tortures that they would have to endure, that is to say, when they have slain all the native rulers and young men (since the Spaniards usually only spare the women and children, who are subjected to the hardest and bitterest servitude ever suffered by man or beast), they enslave any survivors. With these internal methods of tyranny they debase and weaken countless numbers of those pitiful Indian nations.”

-Bartolome de Las Casas, A Brief History of the Destruction of the Indians (1542)

“English expectations of the New World and its inhabitants died hard. America was supposed to be a land of abundance, peopled by natives who would not only share that abundance with the English but increase it under English direction. Englishmen simply did not envisage a need to work for the mere purpose of staying alive. The problem of survival as they saw it was at best political and at worst military. “Although Englishmen long remained under the illusion that the Indians would eventually become useful English subjects, it became apparent fairly early that Indian labor was not going to sustain the founders of Jamestown [Virginia].”

— Edmund S. Morgan, historian, “The Labor Problem at Jamestown, 1607–18,” published in 1971

Periods 1 & 2 Exam

“My purpose is not to persuade children from their parents: men from their wives: nor servants from their masters: only, such as with free consent may be spared: but that each parish, or village, in City or Country, that will but apparel their fatherless children of thirteen or fourteen years of age, or young married people, that have small wealth to live on: here by their labor may live exceeding well: provided always that first there be a sufficient power to command them, houses to receive them, means to defend them, and meet provisions for them: for any place may be overlain: and it is most necessary to have a fortress (ere this grow to practice) and sufficient masters (as, carpenters, masons, fishers, fowlers, gardeners, husbandmen, sawyers, smiths, spinsters, tailors, weavers, and such like) to take ten, twelve, or twenty, or as there is occasion, for apprentice. The masters by this may quickly grow rich: these may learn their trades themselves, to do the like: to a general and an incredible benefit for king, and country, masters, and servant.”

-John Smith, English Adventurer, A Description of Virginia, 1616

“The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his oune people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our wayes. Soe that wee shall see much more of his wisdome, power, goodness and truthe, than formerly wee have been acquainted with. Wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when hee shall make us a prayse and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “the Lord make it like that of New England.” For wee must consider that wee shall be as a citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are upon us. Soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our God in this worke wee have undertaken, and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. “

Periods 1 & 2 Exam

“Things standing in this posture, they have entered into general bloody war... the murders and depradations they have committed here are horrible and continual, laying a great part of the country desolate, and forcing the inhabitants to fly from their dwellings to their ruin; the Governor, who from the Neighbor Indians receives this tribute and benefit by the trade, still protecting them for these many years against the people and tho the complaints of their murders have been continual yet he hath connived at the great men's [Indian chiefs?] furnishing them with ammunition (which by the Law is death) and the sad effects thereof. Now the Governor having placed me here in a place of trust, I thought it my duty to discharge my conscience in it, by introducing a looking after the welfare of the people here, they being poor, few, and in scattered habitations on the Frontiers and remote part of the country, nigh these Indians ... ; I sent to the Governor for a commission to fall upon them, but being from time to time denied, and finding that the country was basely for a small and sordid gain betrayed, and the lives and fortunes of the poor inhabitants wretchedly sacrificed, resolved to stand up in this ruinous gap, and rather expose my life and fortune to all hazards than basely desert my post and by so bad an example make desolate a whole country in which no one dared to stir against the common Enemy...”

-Nathaniel Bacon, Bacon’s Manifesto, 1676

Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November [New Style, November 21], in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Dom. 1620.

-The Mayflower Compact, 1620

Periods 1 & 2 Exam

“In 1739 arrived among us from Ireland the Reverend Mr. [George] Whitefield, who had made himself remarkable there as an itinerant preacher. He was at first permitted to preach in some of our churches; but the clergy, taking a dislike to him, soon refused him their pulpits, and he was obliged to preach in the fields. The multitudes of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous. . . . It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk thro’ the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street.”

Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Periods 1 & 2 Exam

“For the increase of shipping and encouragement of the navigation of this nation, wherein, under the good providence and protection of God, the wealth, safety, and strength of the kingdom is so much concerned…from thence forward, no goods or commodities whatsoever shall be imported into or exported out of any lands, islands, plantations, or territories to his Majesty belonging or in his possession…in Asia, African, or America, in any other ship or ships, vessel or vessels whatsoever, but in such ships or vessels as do truly and without fraud belong only to the people of England…or are of the built of and belonging to any of the said lands,islands, plantations, or territories, as the proprietors and right owners thereof,and whereof the master and ¾ of the mariners at least are English.”

-Excerpt from the Navigation Acts of 1651

“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There isno other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be give as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.”

-Excerpt from, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Jonathan Edwards, 1754

Periods 1 & 2 Exam

“That if any person who lives within Maryland and the islands belonging to Maryland curses God or denies that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, or denies that the Holy Trinity is the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or says any mean things about the Holy Trinity or the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit shall be punished with death, and all his or her land and property will be given to Lord Baltimore and his future children.”

-Maryland Act of Toleration, 1649