AP US History · Topic 2.3
The Regions of British Colonies Practice
Part of Period 2: 1607–1754.
Practice questions
18
Sample questions
5 of 18 — sign in to practice the rest with adaptive difficulty and mastery tracking.
Sample 1difficulty 2/5
The Middle Colonies, as shown, are most accurately characterized by:
- Acheck_circle
Wheat exports and ethnic and religious diversity
- B
Plantation agriculture based on rice and indigo
- C
Cod fisheries and a homogeneous Puritan population
- D
Subsistence farming with no significant exports
Why
Middle Colonies (NY, NJ, PA, DE) earned the "breadbasket" label for grain exports and were home to Dutch, German, Scots-Irish, English, Quakers, Lutherans, and others.
- A
Sample 2difficulty 3/5
"Government seems to me a part of religion itself, a thing sacred in its institution and end... I do not find a model in the world that time, place, and some singular emergencies have not necessarily altered; nor is it easy to frame a civil government that shall serve all places alike. I know what is said by the several admirers of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy... any government is free to the people under it (whatever be the frame) where the laws rule, and the people are a party to those laws." — William Penn, Preface to the Frame of Government of Pennsylvania (1682)
Pennsylvania's policies under Penn differed from contemporary New England most notably in their:
- Acheck_circle
Toleration of multiple religious groups and pacifist orientation toward Indigenous neighbors
- B
Reliance on a slave-based plantation economy from the outset
- C
Commitment to the encomienda system on the Delaware frontier
- D
Strict establishment of Quakerism as the colony's only lawful church
Why
Penn's colony broadly tolerated Christian denominations and pursued peaceful land negotiations with the Lenape, contrasting with Massachusetts Bay's established Congregationalism and conflicts like the Pequot War.
- A
Sample 3difficulty 3/5
Which factor best explains the trend in colonial population shown in the chart between 1650 and 1770?
- A
Mass relocation of colonists from the Caribbean to the mainland
- B
Government-funded settlement programs sponsored by Parliament
- Ccheck_circle
High birth rates combined with sustained immigration from Europe and Africa
- D
Continuous large-scale Native American conversion to Christianity
Why
Mainland British colonies experienced extraordinarily high natural increase plus voluntary European immigration and forced African importation, producing the steep growth shown.
- A
Sample 4difficulty 3/5
The Middle Colonies (NY, NJ, PA, DE) were known for
- A
Sugar plantations and rum distilling — the 'molasses coast'
- B
Cotton cultivation worked by enslaved laborers — the 'cotton belt'
- C
Tobacco plantations and large enslaved labor forces — the 'staple South'
- Dcheck_circle
Diverse populations and grain (wheat) production — the 'breadbasket'
Why
German, Dutch, Scottish, English, and Quaker settlers made the region especially diverse.
- A
Sample 5difficulty 3/5
"No person or persons whatsoever within this province... professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth be in any ways troubled, molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion, nor in the free exercise thereof... nor any way compelled to the belief or exercise of any other religion against his or her consent." — An Act Concerning Religion (the Maryland Toleration Act), 1649
Which group did the act most directly aim to protect?
- A
Quaker missionaries operating along the Chesapeake
- B
Sephardic Jews resettling from Dutch Brazil
- C
Anglicans facing persecution under Cromwell's Commonwealth
- Dcheck_circle
Roman Catholics, who were a religious minority within Maryland and within English colonies generally
Why
The Calverts, Maryland's proprietors, were Catholic but governed a Protestant-majority colony. The act protected the Catholic minority by guaranteeing toleration to all who professed belief in Jesus Christ.
- A