Unit 2: Period 2 (1607–1754)
AP US History: 63 practice questions with detailed explanations.
Unit Study Guide
Executive Summary
Period 2 covers the founding and growth of the British colonies, their regional differences, and the hardening of slavery.
Colonial regions
New England (Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay) was settled by Puritans seeking religious community; its economy ran on small farms, fishing, and trade. The middle colonies (Pennsylvania, New York) mixed agriculture and commerce with religious tolerance. The Chesapeake (Virginia, Maryland) grew tobacco on plantations. The southern colonies (Carolinas, Georgia) produced rice and indigo.
Colonial society and government
Colonies developed representative assemblies (House of Burgesses, 1619) alongside royal governors. The Mayflower Compact (1620) established self-government by consent. Mercantilism bound colonies to the mother country through the Navigation Acts, which restricted colonial trade to English ships.
Labor and slavery
The Chesapeake first used indentured servants — Europeans working for passage — before shifting to enslaved Africans after Bacon's Rebellion (1676) showed the danger of a large, landless, armed white population. Race-based chattel slavery hardened into law: slavery became hereditary and permanent.
Conflict and cooperation
Colonists and Natives traded, allied, and fought — King Philip's War (1675–76) devastated New England Natives. The Atlantic world connected colonies to Britain, Africa, and the Caribbean through the triangular trade. The Great Awakening and Enlightenment reshaped colonial thought.
Exam traps
Indentured servitude was NOT slavery — servants earned freedom. Slavery's racial codification came AFTER Bacon's Rebellion, not at Jamestown's founding. Puritans were not tolerant of dissenters (see Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams's exile). Mercantilism aimed to enrich the mother country, not the colonies.