Colonial America - Fill in the Missing Word

Gap-fill exercise

Fill in all the gaps, then press "Check" to check your answers. Use the "Hint" button to get a free letter if an answer is giving you trouble. You can also click on the "[?]" button to get a clue. Note that you will lose points if you ask for hints or clues! There are TWO words you will not need !
   captured      discovery      emerged      expanded      founded      gathered      governor      grow      independent      laws      navigators      parliament      pilgrims      pray      raised      reasons      refused      religious      sailed     settlements     settlers      slaves      survive      taxes      tobacco   

 

After the of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492 European explored the eastern coast of the New World in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1607 the English the first colony in Virginia and named it Jamestown. In 1620 a group of sailed to America on the Mayflower and founded a colony called Plymouth. During the next decades many colonies along the Atlantic coast. In 1624 Dutch founded New Amsterdam at the mouth of the Hudson River. When the English the settlement some years later they renamed it New York. French settlers sailed up the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Mississippi River. During the 18th century a war between England and France also spread to the New World.

Colonists came to America for many . Some were pure adventurers who wanted to try out something new. Others wanted bigger farms and more land. Most of the new settlers left Europe for and political reasons.

When they arrived in America the first settlers met Native Americans, who had been living there for thousands of years. The Indians taught them how to crops and the harsh winters on the North American continent. Later on the colonists took away land form the Indians and to the west.


While colonists in the north lived on small farms, grew corn and animals, settlers in the southern colonies started growing and cotton on large plantations. During the 17th century they started buying from Africa who would work on their farms for no money.

In America, settlers could freely. As there were no churches they in houses and prayed together. Members of various religious groups stayed together and founded their own colonies. The Quakers, for example, made Pennsylvania their home. Baptists and Anglicans lived in the southern colonies while Puritans lived in the New England states.

The leader of each colony was the , chosen by the English king. The settlers passed their own and adopted some laws passed in England. When England started placing more and more on the settlers in the New World the colonists revolted. They were not represented in British , so they to pay taxes. This conflict led to the Revolutionary War, in which the colonies became .