AP United States History 1999 Free-Response Questions

AP United States History
1999 Free-Response Questions
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1999
The College Board
Advanced Placement Examination
UNITED STATES HISTORY

PART A
(Suggested writing time – 45 minutes)
Percent of Section II score – 45
Directions: The following question requires you to construct a coherent essay that integrates your
interpretation of Documents A-H and your knowledge of the period referred to in the question. High
scores will be earned only by essays that both cite key pieces of evidence from the documents and draw
on outside knowledge of the period.
Question 1
To what extent had the colonists developed a sense of their identity and unity as Americans by the eve
of the Revolution?
Use the documents and your knowledge of the period 1750 to 1776 to answer the question.
Document A
Source: Pennsylvania Gazette, 1754
Copyright © 1999 College Entrance Examination Board and Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved.
1
Document B
Source: Edmund Burke, "Notes for Speech in Parliament, 3 February 1766".
Govern America [?] as you govern an English town which happens not to be represented in
Parliament [?] Are Gentlemen really serious when they propose this? Is there a single Trait of
Resemblance between those few Towns, and a great and growing people spread over a vast quarter of
the globe, separated from us by a mighty Ocean?
. . . The eternal Barriers of Nature forbid that the colonies should be blended or coalesce into the
Mass . . . of this Kingdom. We have nothing therefore for it, but to let them carry across the ocean
into the woods and deserts of America the images of the British constitution.
Document C
Source: Richard Henry Lee to Arthur Lee, 24 February, 1774.
The wicked violence of [the] Ministry is so clearly expressed, as to leave no doubt of their fatal
determination to ruin both Countries unless a powerful and timely check is interposed by the Body of
People. A very small corrupted Junto in New York excepted, all N. America is now most firmly
united and as firmly resolved to defend their liberties ad infinitum against every power on Earth that
may attempt to take them away. The most effectual measures are everywhere taking to secure a
sacred observance of the Association — Manufactures go rapidly on and the means of repelling force
by force are universally adopting.
Document D
Source: Mather Byles, Cotton Mather's grandson, to Nathaniel Emmons, Arthur Wentworth Hamilton
Eaton, The Famous Mather Byles: The Noted Boston Tory Preacher, Poet and Wit, 1707-1788.
They call me a brainless Tory; but tell me, my young friend, which is better, to be ruled by one tyrant
three thousand miles away, or by three thousand tyrants not a mile away. I tell you, my boy, there
was just as much humbug in politics seventy years ago as there is today.
2
Document E
Source: Declaration for the Causes of Taking up Arms, Continental Congress, 6 July 1775.
A Declaration by the Representative of the United Colonies of North America, now met in Congress
at Philadelphia, setting forth the causes and necessity of their taking up arms.
. . . the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard,
with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with
one mind resolved to die freemen, rather than live [like] slaves.
Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and fellow-subjects in any part of the
Empire, we assure them that we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily
subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored. . . We have not raised armies with
ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent states.
Document F
Source: The Origin and Progress of the American Revolution to the year 1776, a history by Peter
Oliver of Massachusetts, 1781
We [saw] a Set of Men . . . under the Auspices of the english Government; & protected by it . . . for a
long Series of Years . . . rising, by easy Gradations, to such a State of Prosperity & Happiness as was
almost enviable, but we [saw] them also run mad with too much Happiness, & burst into an open
Rebellion against that Parent, who protected them against the Ravages of their Enemies. . . . And why
[was] the sudden Transition made, from Obedience to Rebellion, but to gratifye the Pride, Ambition
& Resentment, of a few abandoned Demagogues, who were lost to all Sense of Shame & of
Humanity? The generality of the People were not of this Stamp; but they were [weak], & unversed
in the Arts of Deception.
3
Document G
Source: Contributors of Donations for the Relief of Boston, 1774 and 1775, Collections,
Massachusetts Historical Society
Connecticut
Windham a small flock of sheep
Groton 40 bushels of grain
Farmington 300-400 bushels of Indian corn and rye
Glastonbury "subscription for the relief of the poor"
Wethersfield 248 1/2 bushels of rye, 390 bushels of Indian corn
Hartford 1,400 bushels of grain
Middletown 600 bushels of grain
Middle Hampton 600 bushels of grain
Massachusetts
Wrentham 31 bushels of grain
Pepperall 40 bushels of grain
Charlemont 2 barrels of flour
Roxbury 258 sheep
New Jersey
Provincial Assembly "Cash or articles of provision or other necessaries
we can furnish"
Committees of Correspondence, "moneys from subscriptions or other benefactions"
several counties of New Jersey
North Carolina
Cape Fear sloop with provisions
Wilmington £2,000
South Carolina
shipload of rice
4
Document H
Source: Hector St. John Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer, composed in the 1770's,
published, 1781.
What then is the American, this new man? He is either an European, or the descendant of an
European, hence that strange mixture of blood which you will find in no other country. I could point
out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son
married a French woman. . . . He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices
and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced. . . . He becomes an
American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations
are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in
the world. . . . This great metamorphosis has a double effect, it extinguishes all his European
prejudices, he forgets that mechanism of subordination, that servility of disposition which poverty
had taught him.
5
1999
The College Board

PART B
(Suggested total planning and writing time – 70 minutes)
Directions: Choose ONE question from this part. You are advised to spend 5 minutes planning and 30
minutes writing your answer. Cite relevant historical evidence in support of your generalizations and
present your arguments clearly and logically.
Question 2
How did TWO of the following contribute to the reemergence of a two party system in the period 1820
to 1840?
Major political personalities

States' rights
Economic issues
Question 3
How were the lives of the Plains Indians in the second half of the nineteenth century affected by
technological developments and government actions?
6
1999
The College Board

PART C
(Suggested total planning and writing time – 70 minutes)
Directions: Choose ONE question from this part. You are advised to spend 5 minutes planning and 30
minutes writing your answer. Cite relevant historical evidence in support of your generalizations and
present your arguments clearly and logically.
Question 4
In what ways did economic conditions and developments in the arts and entertainment help create the
reputation of the 1920’s as the Roaring Twenties?
Question 5
Assess the success of the United States policy of containment in Asia between 1945 and 1975.
7

AP United States History 1999 Free-Response Questions

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AP United States History 1999 Free-Response Questions

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AP United States History

1999 Free-Response Questions

UNITED STATES HISTORY

Source: Pennsylvania Gazette, 1754

Source: Edmund Burke, "Notes for Speech in Parliament, 3 February 1766".

Source: Richard Henry Lee to Arthur Lee, 24 February, 1774.

UNITED STATES HISTORY

Major political personalities

UNITED STATES HISTORY

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