What Chapter 6 Actually Covers
Chapter 6 is where the American colonies actually get going. We are talking about the period from roughly 1607 through the mid-1700s, covering the English settlement of North America, the differences between the New England, Middle, and Chesapeake regions, the development of colonial economies, and the role of religion and governance in shaping early American society. It is dense with names, dates, and concepts that tend to blur together if you are just memorizing flashcards. I have been grading these exams for over a decade, and the questions on Chapter 6 always follow a pattern. The AP exam does not ask you to recite facts. It asks you to compare regions, trace cause and effect, and explain why certain systems emerged. Here is what you need to know, organized by the concepts that actually show up on the test. The Virginia Company and Jamestown (1607)
Jamestown was a joint-stock company venture, not a government colony. The primary motivation was profit, and that caused massive problems in the early years. Starvation killed roughly 80 percent of the first settlers. The turnaround came when John Rolfe introduced tobacco as a cash crop around 1612. This single decision reshaped everything: it created the plantation system, drove the demand for indentured servants, and eventually led to the shift toward enslaved African labor. You need to understand that tobacco was not just a crop. It was the economic engine that determined the social structure of the entire Chesapeake region. The House of Burgesses, established in 1619, was the first representative assembly in the colonies. Do not overstate its power. It could propose laws and advise the governor, but the Virginia Company and later the crown retained veto authority. Still, it set a precedent for self-governance that other colonies would follow. Also in 1619, the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia. This is a common multiple-choice question. The key is that racial slavery was not immediate or fully formed at that point. The legal framework developing slavery evolved gradually over the next century through colonial laws like the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705. On the AP exam, they want you to connect the arrival of enslaved Africans to the growth of the plantation economy, not to treat it as an isolated event.
Plymouth and the Pilgrims The Pilgrims were Separatists who wanted to break entirely from the Church of England. They first fled to the Netherlands, then sailed on the Mayflower in 1620. The Mayflower Compact is frequently tested. It was not a constitution. It was a temporary governing agreement signed by adult male passengers to maintain order. The key point is that it reflected the idea of self-government based on the consent of the governed, which is a theme the exam loves to return to. The first winter was brutal. Native Americans, particularly Massasoit and the Wampanoag, provided crucial assistance with agriculture and diplomacy. The 1621 harvest celebration later became the basis for the Thanksgiving myth. On the AP exam, focus on the relationship between the colonists and Native Americans rather than the holiday itself.
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New England Colonies The Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded in 1630 by Puritans under John Winthrop, is the centerpiece of the New England section. The Puritans were not Separatists like the Pilgrims. They wanted to purify the Church of England from within, though in practice they built a theocratic society that tolerated very little dissent. Winthrop's "City upon a Hill" sermon framed the colony as a model of Protestant virtue for the world to observe. Roger Williams is a standard APUSH character. He founded Rhode Island after being banished from Massachusetts Bay for his beliefs about separation of church and state and fair treatment of Native Americans. He purchased the land from the Narragansett rather than seizing it, which was unusual and worth noting. Anne Hutchinson faced similar banishment for claiming direct communication with God and challenging the male-dominated religious hierarchy. Her trial revealed the tension between individual religious experience and institutional control in the colonies.
The Connecticut and New Haven colonies also emerged from the Massachusetts Bay area, largely due to disputes over who had the right to vote and govern. These splits show that even within a seemingly unified religious community, disagreement over political participation was constant. The Middle and Southern Colonies Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn in 1681 as a haven for Quakers. The Society of Friends emphasized pacifism, equality, and direct relationship with God without clergy. Penn's "Holy Experiment" promoted religious tolerance and fair dealings with Native Americans, notably through land purchases rather than conquest. The colony attracted a diverse population of Germans, Welsh, Scotch-Irish, and others, which made it one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse colonies.
The Middle Colonies as a group — New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware — were characterized by mixed economies combining farming with trade, greater religious diversity, and a more pluralistic society than New England or the Chesapeake. New York, originally the Dutch New Netherland, was seized by the English in 1664. The Dutch had established a fur trade economy centered on the Hudson River, and the English inherited that commercial structure. The Southern Colonies developed around cash crop agriculture. Maryland was founded as a proprietary colony by the Calvert family as a refuge for English Catholics, though Catholics became a minority relatively quickly. The Toleration Act of 1649 was passed there, which mandated religious tolerance for all Trinitarian Christians. It was one of the earliest measures of its kind, but enforcement was inconsistent and it did not protect non-Christians or those who rejected the Trinity. Carolinas were granted to eight English lords proprietors in 1663. The southern portion developed a rice and indigo plantation economy modeled somewhat on Caribbean slave societies. The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, drafted with input from John Locke, was an ambitious but ultimately failed attempt to create an aristocratic feudal system with hereditary nobility. It never took effect, but it shows how some colonists deliberately tried to replicate European social hierarchies.
Governance and Representative Assemblies By the mid-1700s, every colony had some form of elected assembly. The relationship between these assemblies and royal or proprietary governors was a constant source of tension. Assemblies controlled the purse strings, which gave them leverage over governors who needed funding. This dynamic laid groundwork for later conflicts with Britain. The concept of "salutary neglect" — the British practice of loosely enforcing trade regulations — allowed colonial assemblies to gain substantial autonomy before the end of the French and Indian War changed everything. Economy and Labor Systems
The colonial economy operated within the mercantilist framework of the British Empire. The Navigation Acts, starting in the 1650s, restricted colonial trade to British ships and required certain goods to be exported only to Britain. Enforcement was inconsistent during the period covered in this chapter, which is why salutary neglect is relevant here. Colonists routinely found ways to work around these restrictions through smuggling and informal trade with the Spanish and Dutch. Indentured servitude dominated the labor supply in the Chesapeake during the mid-1600s. Roughly 60 to 70 percent of white immigrants to Maryland and Virginia arrived as indentured servants. They traded several years of labor for passage, food, and eventually freedom dues. Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 was a major turning point. Former indentured servants, frustrated by lack of land and perceived favoritism by Governor Berkeley, united with enslaved Africans to attack plantations and burn Jamestown. The rebellion was suppressed, but it convinced Virginia elites to shift toward racial slavery as a means of preventing future cross-racial alliances among poor laborers. This is a high-yield causal relationship for the exam. Religion and the Great Awakening
Religious movements shaped colonial society significantly. The Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s, led by preachers like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, was the first truly colonial-wide religious revival. It challenged established churches, emphasized personal conversion experience over formal doctrine, and created new denominations. The emotional style of preaching and the idea that spiritual authority came from individual experience rather than institutional hierarchy had democratic undertones that resonated across social classes. This is another concept the AP exam frequently connects to later revolutionary sentiment. Native American Relations Colonial expansion brought repeated conflict with Native peoples. The Pequot War (1636-1638) in New England, King Philip's War (1675-1676) led by Metacom (King Philip), and numerous conflicts in the south and middle colonies are all relevant. King Philip's War was devastating for both sides and marked a turning point in Native American resistance. It demonstrated that Native confederacies could mount serious opposition but also that colonial military power was growing. The war resulted in the dispersal or enslavement of many Native communities in New England.
On the AP exam, you should be able to discuss how different colonies had different relationships with Native Americans. The Chesapeake saw gradual encroachment and assimilation. New England had periodic violent conflict followed by uneasy coexistence. The middle colonies generally pursued trade relationships, though not without friction. The southern colonies, particularly Carolina, had some of the most exploitative and violent relations, including the enslavement of Native Americans and their sale into the Caribbean slave trade. Education and Culture New England placed a high value on education because of Puritan religious requirements. The Massachusetts Bay Colony passed laws requiring towns to establish schools, and Harvard was founded in 1636 to train ministers. The rest of the colonies had more limited educational infrastructure, though printing presses and newspapers began appearing in major cities by the early 1700s. The almanac industry, led by figures like Benjamin Franklin, spread knowledge and created a shared informational culture across the colonies.
Common Pitfalls Students Make on This Chapter
The biggest mistake is treating all colonies the same. The AP exam specifically tests your ability to differentiate between New England, the Middle, and Southern colonies in terms of economy, religion, governance, and social structure. If your essay answer describes "the colonies" as a monolith, you will lose points. Always specify which region you are discussing. The second common error is confusing the Pilgrims and the Puritans. They were distinct groups with different religious goals. Pilgrims were Separatists who left the Church of England. Puritans wanted to reform it. They merged politically through the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but their theological differences matter for understanding the religious landscape. A third trap is misunderstanding the timeline of slavery. Enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, but full legal slavery developed over decades. Do not assume that the presence of enslaved people in 1619 meant that a rigid racial slavery system existed then. The legal codification happened gradually, and the exam sometimes includes questions that test whether you understand that distinction.
When studying this material, I recommend creating a comparison chart across the three colonial regions rather than reading straight through the textbook. Cover the columns: religion, economy, labor system, government, and Native American relations. Fill it in from memory first, then check against your notes. This forces active recall, which is significantly more effective than rereading passages. For the free-response questions, practice writing thesis statements that make a claim and acknowledge complexity. A thesis like "The colonies developed differently based on region" is too vague. A stronger thesis would specify which differences and why, such as "While all English colonies sought economic opportunity, the Chesapeake developed a plantation economy reliant on enslaved labor, New England built a society centered on religious community and mixed agriculture, and the Middle Colonies became ethnically diverse trading hubs, reflecting the influence of geography and founding motivations on colonial development." One thing I learned the hard way: do not skip the primary source documents. The AP exam includes excerpts from actual colonial texts. Knowing what the Mayflower Compact said, what Winthrop wrote, what the Fundamental Constitutions proposed, or what Bacon's Rebellion participants complained about will give you an edge. Read the sources directly rather than relying solely on textbook summaries. The questions often test specific language or concepts from those documents.
