AP US History · Topic 2.2
European Colonization Practice
Part of Period 2: 1607–1754.
Practice questions
23
Sample questions
5 of 23 — sign in to practice the rest with adaptive difficulty and mastery tracking.
Sample 1difficulty 2/5
The first permanent English settlement in North America was
- Acheck_circle
Jamestown, VA (1607)
- B
St. Augustine, FL
- C
New Amsterdam
- D
Plymouth, MA
Why
Founded by the Virginia Company; nearly failed due to disease, starvation, and conflict with Powhatan Confederacy.
- A
Sample 2difficulty 2/5
The Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth (1620) were
- A
Anglican royalists loyal to the English crown
- B
Catholic missionaries seeking Native converts
- C
Enslaved Africans transported from the Caribbean
- Dcheck_circle
Separatist Puritans seeking religious freedom
Why
They sought to separate entirely from the Church of England.
- A
Sample 3difficulty 3/5
Roger Williams, expelled from Massachusetts Bay, founded Rhode Island as a colony with
- Acheck_circle
Religious tolerance and separation of church and state
- B
Catholic supremacy and exclusion of dissenting Protestant worship
- C
Strict Puritan rule and enforced Congregational church membership
- D
A slave-based plantation economy modeled on the West Indies
Why
Williams advocated religious freedom and fair dealings with Native Americans.
- A
Sample 4difficulty 3/5
John Winthrop's "city upon a hill" sermon (1630) expressed
- A
Puritan plans for an offensive war against Spain in the Caribbean
- Bcheck_circle
Puritan belief that their colony would be a moral example to the world
- C
Puritan desire to return to England and reform the Anglican Church
- D
An economic philosophy promoting mercantile trade with the Indies
Why
The phrase has become iconic in American political rhetoric, invoking exceptionalism.
- A
Sample 5difficulty 3/5
"Countrymen, the long experience of our late miseries I hope is sufficient to persuade everyone to a present correction of himself... He that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled). For the labors of thirty or forty honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain a hundred and fifty idle loiterers." — Captain John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia (1624), recounting his rule at Jamestown c. 1608
Smith's authoritarian leadership at Jamestown best reflects which broader feature of early English colonization?
- A
Self-governing covenanted communities organized around congregational churches
- B
Proprietary grants modeled on William Penn's Quaker pacifist principles
- Ccheck_circle
Joint-stock companies operating colonies as profit ventures with militarized discipline
- D
Crown-administered royal colonies governed directly by appointed viceroys
Why
The Virginia Company was a joint-stock enterprise expecting returns to shareholders. Strict labor discipline under figures like Smith and later Sir Thomas Dale (the Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall) reflected the for-profit, quasi-military character of early Virginia.
- A