New England, Middle and Southern colonies: land, climate and how people earned a living

Grade 8 Social Studies Worksheet - Challenge Me

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Use this

   Slavery in the early United States by state (cards A to C). Card A, a table in our words from the 1790 U.S. census, the first census, taken just after the colonial period: share of each state's people who were enslaved (rounded). South Carolina 43%; Virginia 39%; Georgia 35%; Maryland 32%; North Carolina 26%; Delaware 15%; New York 6%; New Jersey 6%; Connecticut 1%; Pennsylvania 1%. Card B, a summary in our words: the Southern economies were built on tobacco and rice plantations; the Middle Colonies on grain, trade and port cities; New England on fishing, shipping and small farms. Card C, a summary in our words: Pennsylvania passed a gradual abolition law in 1780, and Massachusetts courts ended slavery there in the early 1780s.

2. 1.

   Using card A, about how many times larger was South Carolina's enslaved share than Pennsylvania's, Ari asks?

   • About 42 times smaller
   • About 400 times larger
   • About 40 times larger
   • About 4 times larger
3. 2.

   Which chain best explains the pattern in card A, Esme asks?

   • Enslaved labor grew where crops were few, so plantations followed
   • Fishing needed the largest workforces, so New England had the largest share
   • Plantation crops needed big workforces, so enslaved labor grew there
   • Laws alone decided where enslaved labor grew, and crops did not matter
4. 3.

   A student says 'slavery did not matter in the North.' Which evidence from the cards best challenges that, Jun asks?

   • Card A shows Connecticut and Pennsylvania at 1 percent
   • Card A shows New York and New Jersey at 6 percent
   • Card B says New England relied on fishing and shipping
   • Card C says Pennsylvania passed a gradual law in 1780
5. 4.

   Card A comes from the first census. What is one limit of using its percentages to explain colonial economies, Kira asks?

   • It is useless because governments cannot count people
   • It shows the colonial economies exactly as they were in 1700
   • It was written by planters, so it undercounts the North
   • It dates from 1790 and shows how many, not why
6. 5.

   What does card C add to card A, Luz asks?

   • Slavery began in Massachusetts in the early 1780s
   • Pennsylvania's law freed each enslaved person on the day it passed
   • Slavery ended throughout the whole country by 1790
   • Slavery was ending in the North as it deepened in the South

7. Use this

   Weighing evidence about rice (cards D to F, all summaries in our words). Card D, a historian's argument (Judith Carney, 2001): enslaved Africans from rice-growing parts of West Africa brought knowledge of how to grow, flood and process rice, and that knowledge made Carolina's rice economy possible. Card E, a type of record: newspaper ads by Charleston slave merchants in the 1700s often named the African region from which enslaved people had been brought, and some ads highlighted people from rice-growing regions. Card F, a challenge: some historians say that rice growing was also known in parts of Europe and Asia, that planters could have learned from others, and that written proof of exactly who taught what is limited.

8. 6.

   Card D is one historian's argument. What should Milo do before treating it as settled?

   • Accept it, since it is printed in a book
   • Check whether other evidence and historians support it
   • Check the author's job title, then decide
   • Ignore it, since one author cannot be right
9. 7.

   Card F offers a challenge. Which statement about it is best supported, Pia asks?

   • It shows planters invented rice growing on their own in Carolina
   • The evidence is incomplete about where the knowledge came from
   • It shows that rice growing in Carolina came from European farmers
   • It shows that Africans brought no rice skills to Carolina
10. 8.

    Whose voices are missing from cards D to F, and why does it matter, Ren asks?

    • The enslaved workers' own accounts of what they knew
    • The planters' wealth, which matters more than the workers' voices
    • The merchants' names, which are on the ads
    • The historians' names, which are in each card
11. 9.

    Which conclusion is best supported by cards D to F together, Tala asks?

    • African knowledge likely mattered, though historians differ on how much
    • African knowledge played no part in rice planting in Carolina
    • Planters alone supplied the know-how for rice growing
    • African knowledge was certainly the sole source of rice skill in Carolina
12. 10.

    Which new source would most strengthen card D, Zee asks?

    • A list of tobacco prices in Virginia and Maryland in the 1750s
    • A planter's later memoir praising his own farm and profits
    • A record from a rice plantation naming tools and methods
    • A modern photograph of old rice fields in Carolina