English settlers established Jamestown in 1607. It was the 1st successful colony in North America. John Smith was not the leader of the colony at this time but took a prominent role later on.

There were no women at Jamestown. The men who settled there built a large fort and met with the local Native Americans. But they made some crucial mistakes. The site they had chosen was in fact a malarial swamp, and a lot of them got sick and died. They had arrived in May, too late to plant crops, and when the first winter came, many settlers starved, froze and died of sickness. Some men deserted to join the local Native Americans, who were much more capable of dealing with the cold winter.

According to the passage, which of the following was a mistake early Jamestown settlers made?

In 1609, two years after Jamestown was established, reinforcements arrived, but more than 60% of the original settlers had died. It was around this time that John Smith declared himself the leader, essentially becoming a military dictator. Smith had a hard-line motto: If you don't work, you don't eat. He also organized work gangs and taught the men foraging techniques that he had probably learned from the Native Americans.

Based on the passage, John Smith would agree with which of the following statements?

Tobacco was America's first cash crop. In 1612, Jamestown settler John Rolfe mixed some mild Jamaican tobacco with a local Virginian strain and began cultivating it. It grew amazingly well.

Tobacco didn't exist in Europe before the Spanish brought it back from the New World. Once it arrived, it became an immediate hit. Tobacco exports to Europe increased by a factor of twenty from 1616 to 1619 and soon supported the entire colony.

Tobacco was proof that the colonies were financially viable.

Which sentence best expresses the central idea of this passage?

Pocahontas was the daughter of the local chief, Powhatan. According to John Smith, Pocahontas saved his life when Powhatan was going to have his head smashed in, but many historians now believe that Smith was actually undergoing a harmless initiation ceremony.

Disney would have you believe that Pocahontas and John Smith had a love affair in the New World, but there is little factual information to prove this. In any event, John Smith was twenty-seven old. Pocahontas was eleven.

The colonists eventually kidnapped Pocahontas, and John Rolfe married her (supposedly in an effort to improve relations with Powhatan). Pocahontas converted to Christianity and traveled to England with Rolfe and their son. The British royal court greeted Pocahontas with fanfare. Then she died of illness, probably smallpox.

What is the purpose of the second paragraph in their passage?

In 1619, the colonists in Jamestown set up the House of Burgesses, the first representational government of the colonies. Its power was modest at first: the Virginia Company, which had paid for the voyage, could overrule its decisions. But the House of Burgesses eventually became an influential political body.

During this time, on another continent, European and African traders were stealing Africans from their land and shipping them to America as slaves. This means that settlers were setting up a version of representational government for white men while the first African slaves were arriving in the colonies.

According to this passage, which of the following is true about the House of Burgess?

In 1620, 102 colonists, male and female, sailed across the Atlantic on a ship called the Mayflower. They reached Plymouth in modern-day Massachusetts. Most of the settlers were Separatists. They wanted to separate from the Church of England. They were fleeing England to escape religious persecution. This group is now known as the Pilgrims.

When the Pilgrims landed, they drafted the Mayflower Compact, a document that established Plymouth Plantation as a "civil body politic," under the sovereignty of King James I of England. Every man was required to sign it. More powerful in many ways than the House of Burgesses, the Mayflower Compact set up what some consider America's 1st self-government, except from the self-governing Native Americans.

According to the passage, the Mayflower Compact was -

The Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth in December. Within months, half of the Pilgrims died in the harsh New England winter. Local Native Americans, especially one named Squanto, helped the settlers, as others had in Jamestown. Squanto apparently spoke English even before the Pilgrims arrived. Historians are unsure how he managed this feat. Squanto and the Wampanoag taught the Pilgrims how to till the land, plant corn and navigate the landscape. These tasks were instrumental to the survival of those first New England colonists.

Which detail from the passage best describes way the local Native Americans helped the Pilgrims?

When the Pilgrims achieved their first successful harvest, they decided to celebrate. For the settlers, a good harvest was literally the difference between life and death. The Pilgrims invited some of the Wampanoag to thank them for their help and friendship. For three days, the group feasted on turkey, venison, corn and squash and took long naps. This was first Thanksgiving. It was also around this time that Squanto died of smallpox or one of the other diseases that would ravage the Native American population in America.

Which detail from the passage best explains why the Pilgrims decided to celebrate their first successful harvest?

Religious and political oppression grew worse in England during the first half of the 17th century. A growing number of British citizens, facing religious persecution at home, decided to attempt the dangerous journey to America. In 1628, a group of Puritans struck a deal with the government, which allowed them to set up a self-governing colony north of Plymouth. These extremely religious Puritans differed from Pilgrim Separatists. The Puritans didn't want to break from the Church of England; they just wanted to "purify" it. Roughly 1,000 Puritans made the trip to Massachusetts in 1630, establishing the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Which of the following statements best expresses the central idea of the passage?

Around 1650, Britain began to use mercantilism in international trade. Under the system of mercantilism, a government tries to export more goods than it imports in order to improve the economy. The British government passed strict laws and tariffs protecting the British economy and restricting American trade.

The English passed the Navigation Acts between 1651 and 1673. These acts severely restricted colonial trade. The acts benefited the English. They required that certain American goods be shipped directly to Britain. They also made it so that only English or colonial ships could carry cargo between the British Empire's ports.

Based on the passage, colonists -

The colonies, for the most part, dealt with the Navigation Acts by ignoring them. They started smuggling, and England tended to look the other way. This developed into a policy of salutary neglect: the British often didn't enforce the laws that they had passed. In this case, the British probably realized that enforcing these acts would cause the colonies to rebel. Salutary neglect allowed them to keep the colonists happy and loyal.

Based on the passage, "salutary neglect" happens when -

Both Britain and the colonies engaged in triangular trade, a system of lucrative international trade. Trade routes ran between the colonies, West Africa and the West Indies. New England in particular got very rich from triangular trade. New England rum was shipped to Africa and traded for slaves. The slaves were taken to the West Indies and were traded for sugar and molasses. The sugar and molasses were then shipped to New England, where they would be distilled into rum.

As tobacco plantations grew in size, so did the European settlers' use of slavery. Over the next decades, slave traders kidnapped tens of thousands of Africans from their homelands and shipped them to America as slaves. By 1700, African slaves in the Southern colonies outnumbered free whites.

Slavery wasn't limited to the South. Northern colonies legalized slavery as well. And Northern ships got rich from the slave trade. By 1703, nearly of the household in New York City owned slaves.

In addition to slavery, the colonies used a system of indentured servitude. Poor Europeans could secure passage to the colonies if they agreed to work for a number of years on a plantation, often in miserable conditions.

What is the purpose of the second paragraph in this passage?