Early America

1. What are some generalizations we can make about the social and political organization of peoples native to North America at the time of the first contacts with Europeans?

2. How would you describe the political and social authority of West African societies in the 16th century?

3. How would you describe the politics and social order of Europe in the early 16th Century?

4. What technologies had Europeans acquired from other peoples that enabled them to cross the Atlantic?

5. Where did Europeans first use plantations before colonizing the Americas? What product were they producing and what system of labor did they use?

6. What was Columbus’ main interest in the land he thought was “the Indies”?

7. What can we learn from reading the accounts of Bartoleme de las Casas?

8. What perspective does Zinn provide of the first decades of contact between native Americans and Europeans?

9. What is the significance of the global movement of peoples, cultures, animals, plants, diseases and ideas between the American, Africa, and Europe? What name do historians give this phenomena?

10. What were the differences between the Spanish, French, Dutch, and English settlements of North American?

11. How did Virginia differ in its settlement patterns from New England? What were the different economic developments?

12. What were relations like between the new settlers and the Algonquins?

13. How and why did religion play such an important part in New England’s early history?