HIS 521 US Social History to 1865
William H. Mulligan, Jr. 

Discussion II: February 10, 1998

 1. Discuss the motivations of the first groups of settlers to Jamestown. What forces in England led them to consider emigration?

 1a. How do the motivation of the early settlers of Jamestown compare with those of the Pilgrims and Puritans?

2. What was the "labor problem" in Jamestown and how was it dealt with?

 3. Why were the Indians in the Chesapeake unable to resist English incursions into their territory?

 4. Describe the types of communities that developed in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake. What factors account for the development of this particular type of community?

 5. Compare the type of communities that developed in New England with those that developed in the South. What factors account for the similarities and differences between the two sections?

 6. What is demographic transition? How did it effect English colonization in North America?

 7. What role did basic demographic considerations (birth and death rates and life expectancy especially) play in the development of the Chesapeake colonies? In what ways is this different from New England?

 8. Be able to identify the following and discuss their significance: John Rolfe, Pocohantas, Powhattan.

 9. What two major events took place in 1619 and how did they affect the development of the Jamestown colony?

 10. The Rutmans write "Virginians, and the Chesapeake as a whole, did not have communities. Or did they? Perhaps historians have endowed one form of community with so much emotional content that they do not see the varieties of community life." (p. 22) What types of "community" do they find in Middlesex County? Outline their characteristics and their development between 1650 and 1750.

 11. The Rutman’s chapter, "The Visitors" is actually an essay on the historiography of community studies. What is the state of historians understanding of community in the colonial period and where does A Place in Time fit in?

 12. How, in broad outlines, does life in Middlesex County change between 1650 and 1750?

 13. What is the main point (aka thesis) of A Place in Time and how well do the Rutman’s sustain it?