Harkness Discussion

APUSH Harkness Discussion: Student-Led Debate

Unit 2: Evaluating the Extent of Change (1607–1754)

To what extent did colonization foster change in the Americas from 1607 to 1754?

Learning Aim / Target: 

I can analyze the most significant political, economic, and social changes by defending my assigned claim and synthesizing peer evidence to write a complex thesis statement.

1. Do Now: Brainstorming Discussion Questions (5 Minutes)

A great Harkness Question is open-ended, sparks debate, and forces the use of evidence. A bad question has a single, factual answer. Brainstorm: Write down 2–3 analytical questions below that you might ask your peers during the discussion. Your questions should force us to analyze causation or synthesis.

Harkness Moves: How to Join the Conversation Use these sentence starters to help you participate, build on ideas, and challenge claims politely. Look at your peers, not the teacher.

Exit Ticket: The "Super" Thesis Statement (5 Minutes) Your goal is to write a ONE SENTENCE, complex thesis statement that synthesizes the best evidence from at least two groups to answer the Debate Question. REFLECT: HOW DID THIS DEBATE FEEL FOR YOU? WHAT WILL YOU DO DIFFERENTLY TO PREPARE NEXT TIME?

Move	Sentence Starter Examples
Politely Agree & Add (Build on a point)	"I agree with Group A that rivalry was key, and I'd like to build on that by pointing out how the Triangular Trade made that rivalry deadly."
Politely Disagree (Challenge a claim)	"I see the evidence differently. While Group D is right about religious freedom, the violence of the Pueblo Revolt proves the greater change was the intolerance itself."
Introduce Evidence (Back up your claim)	"My evidence for that is the establishment of chattel slavery after Bacon's Rebellion, which proves the most significant change was the new racial inequality."
Ask for Clarity (Focus the conversation)	"Could you clarify what you mean by 'Anglicanization'? How does that concept connect to the economic ideas of Mercantilism?"
Synthesize/Connect (Ask a follow-up)	"We've heard Group C discuss Native expulsion and Group B discuss slavery. How does the need for cash crop land link those two claims?"

3. Discussion Notes (22 Minutes)

Use this space to track key evidence presented by other groups. Focus on writing down one piece of evidence from each group that is the strongest challenge to your own claim.

Group	Claim	Evidence	My Response/Connection/Question
Group A	European Rivalry
Group B	Social & Racial Inequalities
Group C	Negative Impact on Natives
Group D	Religious Freedom vs. Assimilation
General Ideas	Track a key connection or turning point mentioned.

Thesis Starters:

• Although colonization resulted in new forms of racial inequality (Group B), the most revolutionary change was actually the democratic thought fostered by the Great Awakening, because...

• While colonization primarily intensified European rivalry (Group A), the greater long-term change was the violence and expulsion of Native Americans (Group C), as evidenced by...

Super Thesis Statement:

APUSH Unit 2 Debate (1607-1754)

Group A: Intensified European Rivalry

Claim: Although colonization introduced new resources to the New and Old Worlds, the most important change brought on by colonization was the intensification of European rivalry in North America.

Evidence (Fact from Unit 2 Notes)	Analysis (Connection to the Claim: Rivalry)
Evidence 1: The French established their first permanent settlement, Quebec, in 1608, primarily driven by an interest in trade (fish and fur), which outweighed conquest.	This demonstrates the rivalry centered on economic competition. The French prioritized securing vast North American trading networks (like the Ojibwe) to gain wealth and power, directly challenging the economic goals of the Spanish and later the British.
Evidence 2: Mercantilism was the dominant economic theory, arguing there was a fixed amount of wealth (gold and silver) in the world, requiring nations to maintain a favorable balance of trade.	This theory institutionally intensified rivalry. Because wealth was viewed as finite, the goal of colonization was zero-sum: one nation's gain (access to raw materials and colonial markets) was a direct loss for another.
Evidence 3: The Navigation Acts required merchants to trade with English colonies only in English ships and pass valuable trade items through British ports so they could be taxed.	This law shows the direct legislative action of rivalry. Britain used its colonies to systematically exclude rival European powers (like the Dutch and French) from participating in the profitable transatlantic Triangular Trade, thereby strengthening the British Empire at the expense of others.
Additional Evidence: The Dutch sent Henry Hudson to find a water-based passage through the Americas and established New Amsterdam as a trading hub, showing another European power vying for economic control of a key geographic location (the Hudson River).

Group B: New Forms of Social and Racial Inequalities

Claim: Although colonization intensified the rivalry between Europeans, ultimately colonization introduced new forms of social and racial inequalities to North America.

Evidence	Analysis (Connection to the Claim: New Inequalities)
Evidence 1: The Spanish introduced a caste system that ordered people based on their racial ancestry, placing Natives toward the bottom.	This established a new, highly stratified, and racially-based social hierarchy in the Americas, a form of inequality fundamentally different from European class systems.
Evidence 2: The fear of uprising from the large number of indentured servants after Bacon's Rebellion (1676) led elite planters to transition to a new source of labor: enslaved Africans.	This event marks the definitive shift from a labor system based on temporary servitude (indentured) to one based on permanent racialized slavery, establishing the deep, race-based economic and social inequality that would define the South.
Evidence 3: Planter elites in the Southern Atlantic Coast and West Indies enacted harsh slave codes that legally defined African laborers as chattel (property) and made slavery a perpetual, generational institution.	Defining slaves as mere property established the most extreme form of legalized inequality, removing their human rights entirely. Furthermore, the notes state these laws made interracial relations illegal, creating a rigid, race-enforced social structure.
Additional Evidence: The notes describe colonial government as being dominated by elite (merchants in North, planters in South), showing inequality within the white colonial population based on wealth and status, often derived from the transatlantic trade.

Group C: Significantly Negative Impact on Natives

Claim: Although some Native American tribes developed positive relationships with colonists, colonization caused a significantly negative impact on Natives due to the increase of violence, introduction of diseases, and the unfair social systems put in place by colonists.

Evidence	Analysis (Connection to the Claim: Negative Impact)
Evidence 1: The first few years of colonial life were difficult, as fever and disease killed half the colonists in both Jamestown and the New England settlements.	This evidence highlights the devastating, unintended change (disease introduction) brought by colonization. While the notes refer to colonist deaths, historical context confirms the epidemiological impact on Natives was far greater due to lack of immunity, drastically reducing their populations and ability to resist.
Evidence 2: The English's need for more land to cultivate tobacco led to them invading native land, which directly resulted in native raids on colonial settlements and escalating violence in the Chesapeake.	This demonstrates the primary cause of conflict and violence: English cash crop agriculture inherently required territorial expansion, leading the British to expel Natives from their ancestral lands and destroy their way of life.
Evidence 3: Metacom's War (King Philip's War) in 1675 occurred because Metacom, chief of the Wampanoag, felt English encroachment on land would destroy the ancestral way of life. The war led to burning fields, killing men, and capturing women and children.	This shows the scale and finality of the negative impact. This violence was a last-ditch effort by Natives to protect their cultural survival from an invasive power that would only expel them, resulting in massive loss of life and territory.
Additional Evidence: The Spanish employed coercive and brutal measures to convert the Pueblo to Christianity, leading to the Pueblo Revolt in 1610, showing the brutality of forced cultural and religious changes.

Group D: Religious Freedom vs. Forced Assimilation

Claim: Colonization allowed European religious dissenters to seek refuge in the Americas; however, the religious intolerance of some European Christians caused forced assimilation of Native Americans which ultimately led to violence.

Evidence	Analysis (Connection to the Claim: Refuge/Intolerance)
Evidence 1: The Puritans settled in New England to seek religious freedom because they were unhappy with the Church of England and wanted to live by their own conscience; they came in family groups to establish permanent homes.	This directly supports the "refuge" aspect of the claim, demonstrating that colonization provided an escape from religious persecution for Protestant dissenters in the Old World.
Evidence 2: The Spanish employed coercive and brutal measures to convert the Pueblo to Christianity, which included the use of mission systems.	This highlights the "intolerance" and "forced assimilation" aspect. Rather than allowing religious freedom, the Spanish used state and military power to forcibly erase the Native religion and impose Christianity, demonstrating a key negative change brought by colonization.
Evidence 3: The Spanish's forced conversion policies led directly to the Pueblo Revolt in 1610, where the Pueblo killed Spaniards and burned churches to the ground to purge the Spanish from their territory.	This connects the intolerance directly to violence. The Natives' decision to burn the churches – the symbols of the attempted forced assimilation – is the ultimate proof that the colonists' religious intolerance caused a violent reaction and a breakdown in relations.
Additional Evidence: Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn (Quaker and pacifist) and negotiated with Indians, suggesting that not all colonial powers engaged in forced assimilation and that the claim hinges on the actions of specific, intolerant powers like the Spanish.