HISTORY 2050-80 Dewar MacLeod Spring 2015

HISTORY 2050-80 Dewar MacLeod
Spring 2015
FIRST EXAM – Due at 6pm on Sunday, February 15th.
Instructions – READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY
Write essays on three (3) of the following four (4) questions. Each essay
should be about 750 words (roughly 3 typed, double-spaced pages). Save
all three essays as ONE FILE in MS Word.
Do not plagiarize!!! This means: do not buy, steal or borrow someone else’s
words. If you use another writer’s words, put them in quotation marks and
cite them properly (make sure I know where you got them). You should feel
free to quote from the textbook or other sources, but make sure to give
credit where it is due. If you have any questions about plagiarism, check
your student handbook or contact me directly. Remember: using another’s
words without proper citation – even if you didn’t mean to!!! – is plagiarism
and will result in – at least – a failing grade on the exam, possibly even for
the course.
You may use any sources you like, including my comments and your
classmates’ words from our discussion board. Again: just give credit when
you use someone else’s words.
You need to have your own thesis as well as supporting evidence for your
thesis. And present your ideas in a clear, well-organized essay.
In writing your essays, be sure to refer to specific PRIMARY SOURCE
documents whenever possible. Your essays will be graded on your
ability to explain clearly by synthesizing your understanding of what
you have read in the textbook with the primary source documents we
read each week. In order to get a good grade on this exam, you must
refer to and discuss the documents. I do not want a simple summary
of the textbook.The Questions – CHOOSE THREE (3):
Use these questions as starting points for essays of your own construction,
with your own thesis.
1. Howard Zinn writes, “Was all this bloodshed and deceit – from Columbus
to Cortés, Pizarro, the Puritans – a necessity for the human race to
progress from savagery to civilization?” What does he mean by progress?
Using specific historical examples and primary sources – particularly the
accounts by Columbus and Cortes – how would you answer his question?
2. Why did the English colonize the New World after 1600? What was
going on in England in the late 16th- and early 17th centuries? What social
and economic changes were occurring which fostered colonization? What
religious and political issues were at stake?
3. Discuss the experiences of the English in the New World in the 17th
century. Compare the lifestyles of the American Indians, the Chesapeake
colonists and the New England settlers in the seventeenth century.
Discuss also the relations between European settlers and Native
Americans in North America using specific examples. How did things
change by the middle of the 18th century?
4. Discuss the labor situation in the New World from the beginning of
English settlement to the middle of the eighteenth century. What problems
did investors and settlers (both voluntary and coerced) face, and how did
they solve them? Why did African-American slavery emerge as the
dominant form of labor in the colonial south?
For all the questions you must use PRIMARY SOURCES as evidence!