Colonial economies and mercantilism

Grade 11 Social Studies Worksheet - Challenge Me

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Use this

   Cards A to D on four laws (all four are summaries in our words; historians debate how large their effects were). Card A, "Hat Act of 1732". Who made it: historians and government agencies writing today. When: today. For whom: readers today. Why: to sum up what is known. Summary in our words, not a quotation: No colony could export hats. In 1722 Parliament had added beaver skins and furs to the enumerated goods, so the furs went to England, where hat makers used them. Card B, "Molasses Act of 1733". Who made it: historians and government agencies writing today. When: today. For whom: readers today. Why: to sum up what is known. Summary in our words, not a quotation: Very high duties fell on molasses, sugar and rum that came from other countries' colonies into the British colonies. Colonists mostly ignored the law. Officials were expected to collect about £25,000 a year, but collected £259 in 1735. Card C, "Iron Act of 1750". Who made it: historians and government agencies writing today. When: today. For whom: readers today. Why: to sum up what is known. Summary in our words, not a quotation: Pig iron and bar iron from the colonies could enter England free of import duties. But no new slitting or rolling mills, tilt hammer forges or steel furnaces could be built in the colonies. Card D, "Sugar Act of 1764". Who made it: historians and government agencies writing today. When: today. For whom: readers today. Why: to sum up what is known. Summary in our words, not a quotation: The duty on molasses was cut from sixpence to threepence a gallon, but the navy was told to stop smuggling and the law was enforced more strictly than before. Revenue rose, and so did the taxes colonists paid.

2. 1.

   Card B says officials expected about £25,000 a year but collected £259 in 1735. What does Ari conclude from the share?

   • About 1 percent, so officials in the colonies were corrupt and kept the rest of the money for themselves
   • About 1 percent, so officials collected almost nothing because few ships brought molasses into the colonies
   • About 10 percent, since £259 divided by £2,500 is about 0.1, and a tenth of the expected sum was collected
   • About 1 percent, so the law raised very little, which fits the card's statement that colonists mostly ignored it
3. 2.

   A classmate says, "The Molasses Act shows colonists obeyed Parliament's trade laws." Which objection is strongest for Bo?

   • The Act cut the duty on molasses, so colonists paid it gladly and obeyed the law as the card describes
   • The claim cannot be tested, since a duty collected on molasses says nothing about other trade laws of the time, so no test is possible
   • The Act failed because Parliament did not mean to collect the duty, so the low collection shows its true aim in the end
   • Card B says colonists mostly ignored the law, and £259 collected against about £25,000 expected points to evasion
4. 3.

   One reading says the trade laws were a heavy burden. Another says weak enforcement limited their effect. Which pairing fits the cards for Esme?

   • The Molasses Act fits strict enforcement, and the Sugar Act fits weak enforcement and a falling tax burden
   • The Molasses Act (1733) fits weak enforcement; the Sugar Act (1764) fits strict enforcement, more revenue and more taxes
   • Both Acts fit the burden reading, since each one set a duty on molasses that colonists were required to pay
   • No pairing fits, since historians debate how large the effects were and so no card can support either reading
5. 4.

   Jun wants to test the claim that the Hat Act of 1732 hurt colonial hatmakers. Which added evidence would help most?

   • More summaries of the Hat Act itself, such as when the law came into force and what it forbade
   • The text of the Navigation Act of 1660, which lists the goods that colonists could ship to England alone
   • One hatmaker's complaint to a friend in 1733, kept in a family letter and later printed in a book
   • Records of colonial hat production and sales before and after 1732, with prices paid for imported hats

6. Use this

   Cards A to C on a critic and a count (the excerpt is exact, in old spelling; the summary and the readings are in our words). Card A, "Adam Smith on the limits on colonial industry". Who made it: Adam Smith, a Scottish economist who criticized the mercantile system. When: 1776. For whom: readers in Britain and its colonies. Why: to argue that trade limits were unjust and that free trade served nations better. Excerpt (Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Book IV, chapter VII, part second): "To prohibit a great people, however, from making all that they can of every part of their own produce, or from employing their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind. Unjust, however, as such prohibitions may be, they have not hitherto been very hurtful to the colonies." Card B, "A trade count, 1774". Who made it: historians and government agencies writing today. When: today. For whom: readers today. Why: to sum up what is known. Summary in our words, not a quotation: In 1774 the colonies sold England goods worth £1,373,846 and bought goods worth £2,590,437 from it (official values, pounds sterling, a rough guide). Economists and historians still debate how large the effects of the trade laws were. Card C, "Two readings of the count" (written for this sheet, in our words, not a quotation): Reading 1: The count shows the colonies paid England more than they earned from it, a sign of a system that took from them. Reading 2: The count shows only trade with England, and trade with other places could have paid for the difference.

7. 5.

   Card B says the colonies sold £1,373,846 and bought £2,590,437 in 1774. What does Kira conclude from the two totals?

   • Sales covered about 53 percent of purchases, but this is trade with England only, so it cannot show the colonies' whole balance
   • Sales covered about 53 percent, so the colonies owed England the other 47 percent of their purchases at the end of 1774
   • Purchases covered about 53 percent of sales, so the colonies bought only half as much as they sold to England
   • Sales covered about 53 percent, so the trade laws took 47 percent of colonial wealth, as Smith's criticism says
8. 6.

   Card C gives two readings of the 1774 count. How should Milo weigh them?

   • Reading 1 is right, since a gap of £1,216,591 between purchases and sales proves that the colonies paid England in full
   • Both readings say the same, since each one starts from the same totals for sales and purchases in 1774
   • Reading 2 notes the count covers only trade with England, so reading 1 needs records of the colonies' other trade
   • Neither reading can be weighed, since economists and historians still debate how large the effects were

9. Use this

   Cards A to C on wealth and people (the tables are exact; the notes and the readings are in our words). Card A, table: average net worth per free person, 1774 (US Census Bureau, Historical Statistics, series Z 169-191, from Alice Hanson Jones). New England: £32.7. Middle colonies: £51.3. Southern colonies: £131.9. Note: the averages count free people only. They leave out enslaved people and indentured servants. Card B, table: Black people in six colonies, 1770 (US Census Bureau, Historical Statistics, series Z 1-19; the Census series counts Black people as one group, and most of them were enslaved). Rhode Island (New England): 3,761. Connecticut (New England): 5,698. New York (Middle colonies): 19,112. Maryland (Southern colonies): 63,818. North Carolina (Southern colonies): 69,600. Georgia (Southern colonies): 10,625. Card C, "Two readings of the wealth gap" (written for this sheet, in our words, not a quotation): Reading 1: The South's higher average shows that growing crops for England paid well for the colonists who grew them. Reading 2: The South's higher average hides who held the wealth, because the average leaves out the enslaved people whose labor produced the crops.

10. 7.

    Pia compares the Southern colonies' average (£131.9) with New England's (£32.7) and the Middle colonies' (£51.3). Which conclusion is best supported?

    • The Southern average was about four times New England's, and it includes the wealth of enslaved people in the South
    • The Southern average was about four times New England's, so a typical Southern free person was four times as well off
    • The Southern average was about 2.6 times New England's and about four times the Middle colonies', with the two ratios on the wrong regions
    • The Southern average was about four times New England's and about 2.6 times the Middle colonies', but it counts free people only
11. 8.

    A classmate says, "Southern colonists were four times as well off as New Englanders." Which objection is strongest for Ren?

    • The averages count free people only, and the South had many enslaved people, so the average cannot describe everyone
    • The averages are from one year, 1774, so they cannot show how wealth changed over time in the regions
    • The averages are for 1774, so they cannot be compared with the Census counts of Black people for 1770 at all
    • Southern colonists were poorer, since the table counts enslaved people as wealth, which lowers the average
12. 9.

    Card C gives two readings of the wealth gap. How should Tala weigh them against cards A and B?

    • Reading 1 is right, since an average of £131.9 shows that growing crops paid well for the whole South and its people
    • They are the same reading, since each one explains the South's higher average by the crops it grew
    • Reading two is right, since card B shows large Black populations and so the South's wealth came from enslaved labor alone
    • Each fits part of the evidence: the South's average was highest, and card B shows Black populations whose labor it omits
13. 10.

    Zee wants to test the claim that the average shows how a typical free Southern colonist lived. Which added evidence would help most?

    • The text of the Staple Act of 1663, which describes how goods reached the colonies from Europe
    • The spread of wealth among free households, such as the middle value and the share holding enslaved people
    • Another table with the same averages for the same three regions, written to more decimal places and with notes
    • One wealthy planter's will, which lists his land and goods in a southern colony in the 1770s, held in a county record