AP US History — Unit 2: Period 2: 1607–1754

What AP US History Unit 2 covers

The College Board Course and Exam Description breaks Unit 2 into 7 topics:

1. 2.2 European Colonization
2. 2.3 The Regions of British Colonies
3. 2.4 Transatlantic Trade
4. 2.5 Interactions Between American Indians and Europeans
5. 2.6 Slavery in the British Colonies
6. 2.7 Colonial Society and Culture
7. 2.8 Comparison in Period 2

AP US History Unit 2 practice questions

• Spain grabbed land and forced Indigenous people to work it. France showed up and married into Indigenous families. Britain shoved everyone aside and built farms. What single word captures each empire's approach?

  Spain = POWER, France = PARTNERSHIP, Britain = PARTITION. Spain used encomienda. France used fur trade alliances and intermarriage. Britain sent entire families to farm and displaced Indigenous peoples.

• England had four problems pushing people out: overpopulation, primogeniture laws, religious persecution, and poverty. How did the American colonies solve ALL of them at once?

  The colonies fixed all four push factors, drawing more settlers than any rival empire. Cheap land replaced primogeniture, religious freedom replaced persecution, and opportunity replaced poverty.

• Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608 with a handful of men — no families, no farms. French colonists married Huron women and learned Indigenous languages. Why did France's colonization look so different from Britain's?

  France wanted fur, not farms, and the fur trade required Indigenous partnerships to work. That made intermarriage and trade alliances mutually beneficial, and few French settlers came anyway.

• Spain's encomienda collapsed as Indigenous workers died from disease. The replacement — the hacienda — looked similar but had one crucial legal difference. What was it?

  Under the hacienda, the owner OWNED the land and trapped workers by debt peonage. Unpayable debts bound them permanently; under encomienda the crown owned the land and granted only labor rights.

• Jamestown (1607) was founded by single men hunting for gold. They nearly starved. Then John Rolfe planted tobacco and the colony exploded. Why did tobacco transform the Chesapeake — and what labor crisis did it create?

  Tobacco was profitable but labor-intensive, so the Chesapeake needed massive cheap labor. Indentured servants filled the gap first; as supply dwindled, planters shifted to enslaved Africans.

• The Pilgrims first fled to Holland, which already had religious freedom. So why did they leave Holland for Plymouth in 1620 — if freedom of worship was supposedly the whole point?

  They couldn't make a living and feared their children were losing English identity. As English farmers in an urban Dutch economy they struggled; Plymouth offered land, income, and community on their own terms.

• John Winthrop told his fellow Puritans their Massachusetts Bay Colony would be a 'city upon a hill' — watched by the whole world. What did he mean, and why does this phrase keep showing up in American history?

  Winthrop meant the colony should be a moral model for the world to watch and judge. That became the root of American exceptionalism — the belief America has a special global mission.

• New York had 12+ languages on its streets. Pennsylvania welcomed Quakers, Jews, Catholics, and Lutherans. The middle colonies were the most diverse region. What made them that way — and how did they differ from New England?

  Tolerance and opportunity drew a broad ethnic mix to the middle colonies. Germans, Scots-Irish, Dutch, and Swedes settled there, while New England stayed homogeneous — Puritan families and strict conformity.

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Key terms in Unit 2

These 10 terms show up in the Unit 2 cards. Each one links to its definition in the AP US History key-term reference.

• Encomienda
• Enlightenment
• French and Indian War
• Impressment
• Mercantilism
• Natural rights
• Navigation Acts
• Salutary neglect
• Shays' Rebellion
• Social contract