Deck 2: Colonial worlds

Question 1

The law shaped sex roles and sexual conduct in Puritan New England by

A) recognizing equality of property rights between men and women.
B) defining adultery as occurring only when a married woman was involved.
C) restricting divorce to childless couples.
D) giving married women the right to own businesses.

Answer 1

defining adultery as occurring only when a married woman was involved.

Question 2

How were midwives viewed and treated in New England society?

A) They were considered dangerous women who were most likely practicing witchcraft.
B) They were paid high wages and were some of the wealthiest women in the village.
C) They were dismissed as less competent than physicians.
D) They were highly respected and often tended to other ailments with herbal remedies.

Answer 2

They were highly respected and often tended to other ailments with herbal remedies.

Question 3

Englishwomen who migrated to the Chesapeake in the seventeenth century as indentured servants found that they

A) were generally confined to household duties while men did agricultural labor.
B) often labored in the tobacco fields because necessity overrode gender distinctions.
C) could avoid hard labor because they were so scarce that males treated them with deference.
D) were pressured to marry at a much younger age than would have been the case in England.

Answer 3

often labored in the tobacco fields because necessity overrode gender distinctions.

Question 4

Most of the women accused of witchcraft during the New England witch hunts were

A) either older, poor, and powerless or in a position of some authority and prestige.
B) women whose fathers or husbands held political power.
C) young women suffering from mental illness.
D) previously held captives of Native Americans.

Question 5

What was a contributing factor in the Virginia Company's importation of 150 "tobacco brides" to Jamestown in 1620 and 1621?

A) The settlers in the Chesapeake colonies were mostly male, so there was a lack of available spouses.
B) There was a growing need for domestic servants on Chesapeake farms.
C) Virginia's Puritan leadership hoped the addition of women would produce more marriages.
D) Leaders wanted to prevent a preponderance of mixed-race children in the colony.

Question 6

Nearly three-quarters of Puritan settlers who migrated to New England were

A) indentured servants.
B) single men seeking opportunity.
C) members of families.
D) members of the church hierarchy.

Question 7

Between the mid-sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries,the number of African women imported into American slavery

A) surpassed the number of African males imported to America as slaves.
B) plummeted due to women's inability to do farm work as effectively as men.
C) increased to fill the desire for domestic servants to serve the growing upper class.
D) was nearly 40 percent of the overall number of African slaves imported to America.

Question 8

What impact did Bacon's Rebellion have on Virginia?

A) The colonial legislature passed a series of laws further limiting the social mobility of poor white Virginians.
B) Bacon's followers succeeded in liberating Virginia from royal rule for a period of time.
C) Virginia's upper class solidified its hold on political power and began to conspicuously display wealth and power.
D) Virginia's social structure was completely reversed because the poor appropriated the land of the wealthy aristocrats.

Question 9

When an Englishwoman had the legal status of feme sole,she

A) had the right to participate in her husband's legal decisions.
B) was prohibited from marrying.
C) had some individual rights before the law.
D) could execute her children's legal documents.

Question 10

How did the lives of women in New Netherland differ from those in the British colonies?

A) Dutch women had more legal rights and economic authority than British women.
B) Dutch women did not have slaves to help with domestic work as the British did.
C) Very few Dutch women came to New Netherland, and most Dutch men married Native Americans.
D) Most Dutch women came as nuns intent on converting Native Americans.

Question 11

Why did Quaker women in Pennsylvania enjoy relatively equal status with Quaker men?

A) Quakers hated all forms of discrimination.
B) The earliest Quaker theologians were women.
C) Quakers believed "the Inner Light of Christ" was available equally to all.
D) Quakers did not believe in controlling social behavior in any way.

Question 12

What development is an example of the syncretic African American culture that had emerged in the Chesapeake by the early eighteenth century?

A) The dominance of West African traditions in most slave communities
B) The fusion of African and English words into a pidgin language
C) African Americans' rejection of African religions for Christianity
D) The use of African and English women to work in fields together

Question 13

How were Native American women's lives affected by participating in a "French country marriage"?

A) They became French citizens and were forced to convert to Catholicism.
B) They retained the right to easily divorce while gaining access to trade goods.
C) They were taken to urban centers, where they had access to education.
D) They were taken back to France, where they succumbed to European diseases.

Question 14

When did the sex ratio between white men and women come into balance?

A) After the war for independence, which brought high casualties to the male population
B) Once African slavery took hold and white women ceased jeopardizing their health with farm labor
C) After 1650, when the legal rights of married women were better protected, enticing more women to emigrate
D) After 1700, when the rate of male immigration slowed and the birthrate among the white population increased

Question 15

What step was among the series of developments in Virginia that led to the legal distinction between African slaves and white free laborers?

A) Imposition of a tax on the labor of African women but not on white women
B) A legal prohibition on African Americans from owning land
C) The death penalty for any white men who chose to marry African women
D) Deportation of babies born to white masters and black slave women

Question 16

In challenging religious doctrine and the clergy who interpreted it in Massachusetts,Anne Hutchinson also contested the

A) existence of God.
B) need for organized religion.
C) inferior role of women in the Bible.
D) subordinate status of women in religious discussions.

Question 17

Why did women in the Chesapeake colonies tend to die at an earlier age than men throughout the seventeenth century?

A) The prevalence of deadly diseases in the household
B) The hazards of childbirth
C) Overwork in a harsh climate
D) Women's poor physical constitutions

Question 18

Chesapeake women who achieved wealth did so mostly

A) through marriage, and often remarriage, to wealthy men.
B) through grants of land from the governor.
C) by running businesses and trading concerns.
D) by managing inns and taverns.

Question 19

The story of Hannah Swarton,a colonist who was captured by the Abenaki Indians in a punitive incursion against the British settlers,is remarkable because Swarton

A) survived her captivity by Native Americans, which was rare for European hostages.
B) married into the Abenaki group and became a diplomatic go-between in New England.
C) was sold by the Abenaki to French Canadians who tried, unsuccessfully, to convert her to Catholicism.
D) subsequently returned to the Indians as a Protestant missionary and was welcomed.

Question 20

Why did South Carolina planters use African women to establish rice as a staple crop?

A) Women had been key participants in cultivating rice crops in Africa.
B) Women's hands were best adapted to the fine tasks required for that crop.
C) Women were more docile as a labor force than were men.
D) Rice required relatively little physical labor to grow and harvest.

Question 21

What was required by the New England law concerning education?

A) It mandated that vocational schools for boys be set up in all towns to ensure that they would all learn a trade.
B) It required that public schools be attended only by boys, since the proper sphere for a woman was the home.
C) It mandated that all children, both boys and girls, be taught to read so that they could study the Scriptures.
D) It mandated that vocational schools be set up for girls to teach them domestic duties such as cooking and sewing.

Question 22

How did New England women in the seventeenth century deal with the fact that few of them were proficient in all household skills?

A) They went to boarding schools to learn additional skills and become better wives.
B) They bartered among themselves for necessities and services, especially in remote areas.
C) They persuaded their husbands to purchase slaves to help them with domestic work.
D) They hired German immigrant girls to serve as cooks and maids.

Question 23

How did slavery in New England differ from slavery in the southern colonies?

A) Northern slaveholders tended to own only one or two slaves and sell them frequently, making it difficult for slaves to form families as they did in the South.
B) Many New England merchants owned as many slaves as southern planters but used them to help build ships and not to grow crops.
C) Puritans believed it was immoral to own another human being and so passed laws that prohibited slavery in New England.
D) Unlike in the South, northern slaves were rarely used as skilled craftsmen or domestic servants.

Question 24

English cultural values shaped women's experiences in which of the following ways?

A) They emphasized that women ideally should be confined to household production.
B) They emphasized the equality of husbands and wives.
C) They created an expectation that women would control their own property.
D) They allowed that women's roles and duties could shift.

Question 25

What role did women play in the development of a syncretic African American culture?

A) They helped to convert their families from African religions to Christianity.
B) The predominance of West African women in the colonies led to the domination of West African culture in most slave areas.
C) They seem to have been chiefly responsible for blending various African and European medicines and foods.
D) As teachers, they helped to keep African languages alive in the colonies.

Question 26

What evidence demonstrates the importance of the family to Puritan society?

A) Divorce was never allowed.
B) Single women who became pregnant were banished from the colony.
C) Women had equal rights to a husband's property.
D) Single adults were required to live with a family to ensure their religious behavior.

Question 27

What was one issue of discontent among the men who participated in Bacon's Rebellion?

A) They resented Virginia's government replacing indentured servants with slaves from Africa.
B) They were angry over a law that made it easier for wealthy planters to seize land from Native Americans.
C) They resented a law that made it easier for female than male indentured servants to obtain their freedom.
D) They resented the shortage of Englishwomen available for them to marry.

Question 28

Under English common law,what was a woman entitled to when her husband died?

A) Whatever her husband's nearest male relative decided to give her
B) The whole of her husband's estate
C) At least half of her husband's estate
D) At least one-third of her husband's estate

Question 29

What was remarkable about the demographics of colonial New England in the seventeenth century?

A) New England had higher ages at first marriage and lower fertility than in England or the southern colonies.
B) New England had lower ages at first marriage and higher fertility than in England or the southern colonies.
C) New England had a higher percentage of single men than in any other colonial region.
D) New England had a growing percentage of African American laborers throughout the century.

Question 30

What was one distinction between Caribbean slavery and North American slavery?

A) The North American slave population was growing through natural reproduction by the 1720s.
B) African slaves worked harder and died in greater numbers in the Chesapeake than in the West Indies.
C) The fertility rate among slaves in the Chesapeake was much lower than in the Caribbean after 1700.
D) Slaves in the Chesapeake, but not in the West Indies, could put themselves on a path to emancipation.

Question 31

How did the Pueblo Revolt affect Pueblo women?

A) Due to the loss of so many Pueblo men, many Pueblo women were forced to marry Spanish men or remain single.
B) The Spanish quickly crushed the rebellion and, in retaliation, carried off many Pueblo women to silver mines in Mexico.
C) Although the revolt's leaders rid the Pueblos of Christianity, Pueblo women insisted that Pueblo marriages remain monogamous.
D) As a result of the revolt, Pueblo women saw their traditional spiritual and sexual powers restored.

Question 32

What was the most important resource a French fur trader could have on the frontier of New France?

A) A Native woman who had fur-preparation skills and could act as interpreter with Native groups
B) A French wife to help bring family connections and status to his business
C) Slaves to help him farm his land and run his fur business
D) A close relationship with a Catholic missionary to build good relations with Native Americans

Question 33

A 1662 law changed the status of slavery in the colonies by decreeing that

A) a child followed his or her father's legal status.
B) a mixed-race child was considered a slave if one parent was enslaved.
C) a child followed his or her mother's legal status.
D) any child with African blood was considered a slave.

Question 34

Which of the following was part of the Dutch concept of marriage in New Netherland?

A) A married women could only inherit and own her dower property after her husband's death.
B) A married woman's estate was always left to her children upon her death.
C) A married woman could not establish a business or inherit her husband's.
D) A married woman had a legal identity independent of her husband.

Question 35

In the Chesapeake colonies during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,women who became pregnant during their period of indentured servitude were

A) usually released from their indentures.
B) sent back to England.
C) fined and publicly whipped.
D) required by law to identify the father and marry him.

Question 36

What was the result of the chronic shortage of marriageable Englishwomen in the southern colonies in the sixteenth century?

A) Many English male colonists were forced to marry Native American women.
B) Englishwomen married quickly but also had greater leverage in choosing a husband.
C) The English Crown imported women, known as the filles du roi, to serve as wives for male colonists.
D) Southern Englishmen initiated raids on Spanish settlements hoping to capture wives.

Question 37

What roles did women have among Pennsylvania's Quakers?

A) They were encouraged to form prayer meetings and missionary societies but were forbidden to speak in church services.
B) Quaker women were often respected religious teachers and participated fully in Quaker services.
C) Although Quaker women were seen as spiritually equal to men, they were not allowed to lead Quaker worship.
D) George Fox's radical emphasis on women's spiritually superior nature led to the ordination of female Quakers.

Question 38

What was a result of high mortality rates in the Chesapeake region during the seventeenth century?

A) A decline in the number of people willing to emigrate there
B) A large number of poor widows who were an economic drain on the governments
C) Widows who remarried quickly, creating complicated blended families
D) A system in which the surviving parent kept close oversight over remaining children

Question 39

The majority of the early white female immigrants to the Chesapeake came as

A) indentured servants.
B) tobacco brides.
C) seekers of religious freedom.
D) young women searching for gold.

Question 40

What was slavery like in New York under the British?

A) Slavery increased when British planters came to New York from the Caribbean with their slaves.
B) Most New York slaves were males who either worked in the fields or as skilled laborers.
C) New York slavery was urban; slaves were isolated in white households, separated from partners and children.
D) Female slaves in New York worked in the new textile mills that the British were building in large numbers.