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

Grade 8 Social Studies Worksheet

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Use this

   Law and labor in Virginia. Card A, a law (Virginia's assembly, 1662; spelling modernized; a cut is marked): "… all children born in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother." The law settled whether a child with an English father and an enslaved African mother would be enslaved or free. The assembly was made up of Virginia's property-owning men, many of them planters. Card B, a summary in our words: early Chesapeake planters relied on English indentured servants, who worked a set term. As servants who finished their terms wanted land, and after Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, many historians say planters turned more and more to enslaved Africans, who were held for life.

2. 1.

   Card A was made by a planter-heavy assembly. How should Ari read the law as evidence of how labor worked, in Virginia?

   • As a private letter that shows one planter's feelings
   • As a neutral rule that treated each worker fairly in law
   • As proof that no enslaved person ever gained freedom
   • As the owners' own rules for how enslavement would work
3. 2.

   Card A says children are 'bond or free only according to the condition of the mother.' What did that rule do, Bo asks?

   • Children born to an enslaved mother were born enslaved
   • Children could be sold just after they turned twenty-one
   • Children of an enslaved mother were born free
   • Children followed the status of the father
4. 3.

   How did the 1662 law affect planters' labor supply in the long run, Esme asks?

   • It ended slavery as children were declared free
   • It forced planters to use machines in place of workers
   • It gave enslaved parents ownership of their children's labor
   • Children of enslaved mothers added to the workforce
5. 4.

   Which statement do cards A and B support together, Jun asks?

   • Law and labor in Virginia moved toward inherited slavery
   • Planters had no use for enslaved workers before the year 1662
   • Enslaved Africans were freed once Bacon's Rebellion had ended
   • Indentured servitude ended across Virginia in the year 1662
6. 5.

   Card B says 'many historians say' planters turned to enslaved labor after 1676. What does that wording tell Kira?

   • It is an interpretation that historians weigh, not settled fact
   • The cause is certain, because many historians repeat it
   • The cause is false, since just some of the historians say it
   • The cause was written down in the year 1676 by the planters
7. 6.

   How did the workers in the Chesapeake change over the 1600s, according to card B, Luz asks?

   • From servants with a set term toward enslaved Africans held for life
   • From enslaved Africans held for life toward servants with a set term
   • From tobacco workers toward fishing workers in port towns
   • From English workers toward Native workers paid wages

8. Use this

   Whose knowledge built the colonial economies? (Summaries in our words from the National Park Service, the Library of Congress and historians' articles.) Card A: in New Netherland, the Dutch fur trade depended on Native trappers, including Haudenosaunee and Lenape, who traded furs for cloth and metal goods. Shell beads called wampum, made by Native peoples of the coast, were used in the trade. Card B: the Lenni-Lenape taught colonists how to live in the climate of the Middle Colonies and New England, and they planted corn, squash and beans together. Card C: historian Judith Carney argues that rice growing in the Carolinas used West African methods, such as winnowing baskets and the way fields were flooded. Some historians say the evidence for how much knowledge crossed the ocean is partly indirect.

9. 7.

   Which claim do cards A and B best support, Milo asks?

   • Native skills and goods helped build colonial economies
   • Dutch traders paid Native peoples in gold coins
   • Native peoples built the colonial economies without help
   • Colonists taught Native peoples to trade and to farm
10. 8.

    Card C names a historian and notes a debate. Why does that make it stronger evidence, Pia asks?

    • It names the author and admits where evidence is thin
    • It settles the debate because one author is named
    • It gives dates from the 1700s for each African method
    • It hides the historian's view so the claim sounds neutral
11. 9.

    Which source would best test card C's claim about rice methods, Ren asks?

    • A planter's diary that praises his own profits and land
    • Records from the 1700s on workers' origins and tools
    • A list of tobacco prices in the Chesapeake in 1750
    • A map of Carolina's roads made around the year 1950
12. 10.

    How are cards A and C alike in what they say about knowledge, Tala asks?

    • Both credit colonists with teaching skills to non-European peoples
    • Both credit non-European peoples with skills colonies used
    • Both are about crops grown just in New England
    • Both settle exactly where each skill came from