Colonial Worlds & New York — Problem set, Grade 7
Five focused units, a three-session source workshop, chapter review, and chapter quiz.
Review the key ideas
European Exploration: Motives, Navigation & Claims
Columbus sailed west because he was wrong about the size of the Earth. Educated Europeans had known it was round for two thousand years and had measured it closely; Columbus used the smallest estimates available and still underestimated the distance to Asia by a factor of four.
The Three Colonial Regions: Economy, Geography & Variation
The three colonial regions grew apart because of the frost. New England had about 120 to 150 frost-free days, the Chesapeake nearly 200 and the Carolina lowcountry more than 250 — and the crop a region could grow decided the labour it used, which decided almost everything else.
New Netherland, New York & Contested Land
New Netherland was a trading post before it was a colony, and it was mixed from the start: a visiting priest counted eighteen languages spoken at New Amsterdam in 1643, when the whole settlement held only a few hundred people. The English took it in 1664 without a shot, and much of what the Dutch built outlasted them.
Slavery, Indentured Service & Colonial Resistance
Racial slavery in the English colonies was built by statute over eighty years, not inherited whole. A Virginia law of 1662 made a child's status follow the mother's, reversing English practice and turning slavery into something inheritable — and by 1746 about a fifth of New York City's people were enslaved.
Colonial Government, Religion & Unequal Participation
Colonial assemblies were elected, which made them unusual in the eighteenth-century world — and the electorate was small. In a typical town, property requirements left well under half of adult men eligible, and once turnout is counted, the share of adult men actually choosing a representative could be under a third.
Problem 1
Answer and explanation
The chart represents a route, the charter an official trading claim, and the register a recorded settlement. These may be connected without proving complete ownership or authority throughout the region. Community accounts and agreements would help assess relationships with those already present.
Identify movement, asserted authority, and settlement as distinct categories.
Match each record to the claim it can support.
Seek local and diplomatic evidence about consent and control.
Response criteria
- Describe the historical context and institutions accurately.
- Connect relevant evidence with an explained claim or calculation.
- Represent particular perspectives without stereotypes or invented testimony.
- Identify an assumption, evidentiary limit, or distinction that qualifies the conclusion.
Problem 2
Answer and explanation
No. It establishes a stated aim. Routes, records, exchanges, and later actions are needed to investigate what actually happened.
Problem 3
Answer and explanation
Both records list 30 shipments. Grain is two-thirds of A’s listed shipments and one-sixth of B’s; fish has the reverse pattern. This compares counts, not cargo mass, value, every economic activity, or working conditions. The data do not justify ranking whole regions by prosperity.
Total each port’s recorded shipments.
Compare categories under the same count definition.
Distinguish shipment number from cargo value and residents’ wellbeing.
Response criteria
- Describe the historical context and institutions accurately.
- Connect relevant evidence with an explained claim or calculation.
- Represent particular perspectives without stereotypes or invented testimony.
- Identify an assumption, evidentiary limit, or distinction that qualifies the conclusion.
Problem 4
Answer and explanation
Farming occurred across regions, while other activities also existed. Compare crops, scale, labor, transport, and dates rather than using an absolute division.
Problem 5
Answer and explanation
The authority changes, while some listed households remain. The partial records support selected continuity, not a claim that everyone stayed or all laws remained the same. Additional community and legal records would show which arrangements changed and how residents experienced them.
Identify the recorded governing transition.
Identify repeated household names as selected continuity.
Qualify claims about the whole population and legal effects.
Response criteria
- Describe the historical context and institutions accurately.
- Connect relevant evidence with an explained claim or calculation.
- Represent particular perspectives without stereotypes or invented testimony.
- Identify an assumption, evidentiary limit, or distinction that qualifies the conclusion.
Problem 6
Answer and explanation
It involved commercial networks together with governing claims, settlement, labor arrangements, diplomacy, and military power.
Problem 7
Answer and explanation
A has a stated contractual term; B faces hereditary coercion and a property status; C has a stated wage agreement. These legal categories are distinct. The summaries do not prove fair treatment or full practical freedom in every case. Enforcement, earnings control, exit rights, and personal accounts would deepen the comparison.
Identify each stated arrangement.
Distinguish a fixed term from hereditary enslavement.
Seek enforcement and people’s accounts for lived experience.
Response criteria
- Describe the historical context and institutions accurately.
- Connect relevant evidence with an explained claim or calculation.
- Represent particular perspectives without stereotypes or invented testimony.
- Identify an assumption, evidentiary limit, or distinction that qualifies the conclusion.
Problem 8
Answer and explanation
Their legal status, duration, hereditary conditions, rights, and control differed. Harsh treatment can exist under different institutions without making those institutions the same.
Problem 9
Answer and explanation
Thirty of 80 adults are eligible, or 37.5%; 24 of 30 eligible adults vote, or 80%. Actual voters are 30% of the listed adults. These categories should not be mixed. The record does not show every excluded person’s opinion or the reasons for eligibility and nonparticipation.
Distinguish residents, eligible voters, and actual voters.
Calculate participation under the supplied categories.
State what the count cannot establish about preferences.
Response criteria
- Describe the historical context and institutions accurately.
- Connect relevant evidence with an explained claim or calculation.
- Represent particular perspectives without stereotypes or invented testimony.
- Identify an assumption, evidentiary limit, or distinction that qualifies the conclusion.
Problem 10
Answer and explanation
Their authority, selection, relationship to empire, and arrangements differed. Compare actual responsibilities at a date instead of project later institutions backward.