So many accounts of this continents past begin with Europeans stridin

So many accounts of this continent’s past begin with Europeans striding ashore, claiming this “new found land” and its human inhabitants for their respective empires. These arrogant assertions always have been challenged by native peoples, but nonetheless jurists and scholars have inscribed them in American law and in the written histories from which the law springs. And with heads bowed, or with a bounteous welcome, too many native peoples in too many of these accounts prepare to greet their colonizers as saviors, whatever their initial misgivings. When the Algonquian-speaking peoples of the Carolina Sounds first saw the English colonists sent to occupy Roanoke Island in 1585, for instance, the astute English observer Thomas Harriot reported that they “began to make a great and horrible crye as people which never before had seen men appareled like us.” Confused and savage, “they made out,” Harriot continued, “cries like wild beasts or men out of their wits.” Soon they calmed themselves, in Harriot’s eyes, and stopped acting like beasts, and regained their wits, but only after the newcomers presented them with gifts that demonstrated and confirmed their benevolent intent. These native peoples soon would debate amongst themselves, as they considered the great power these newcomers seemed to possess, whether they were “gods or men.”

That is how Harriot saw it, yet today many Americans still believe that it is with the arrival of Europeans that their nation’s history begins. We could find, if we looked, dozens of accounts of “discovery” that differed from Harriot’s only in their details. These moments of encounter, depicted so often over the years in the work of American artists, historians, and myth-makers, represent the opening of a grand story — the growth and development of the United States. All that happened before these seminal moments, as a result, has been ignored or trivialized by earlier generations of American historians, who celebrated the progress of a new nation.

1. The author of this passage is primarily concerned with

(A) discussing the impact the arrival of European settlers to the North American continent had on existing native peoples
(B) disputing the claims made by many jurists and scholars that the native inhabitants of North America welcomed European settlers with open arms
(C) verifying the accuracy of Harriot’s account of the 1585 English arrival on Roanoke Island
(D) demonstrating how Harriot’s account of the 1585 English arrival on Roanoke Island differed from those of other English historians and scholars
(E) distinguishing myth from reality in regard to the reception early European settlers received from North America’s native peoples


2. Upon whom does the author place blame for perpetuating the inaccuracies in the depictions of the arrival of European settlers on the land that is now North America?

(A) Harriot
(B) American historians
(C) Europeans
(D) Algonquin-speaking peoples
(E) English colonizers


3. It can be inferred from the passage that the author’s primary issue with early accounts of the arrival of European settlers on the North American continent is that

(A) they fail to accurately depict the way the native people reacted to the European settlers after the settlers showed their benevolence
(B) despite being disputed by native peoples, they still influence American art, written history, and law
(C) they create the image that native peoples welcomed the English colonists ashore and viewed them as saviors without reporting how the colonists felt about seeing the native inhabitants
(D) much of what has made its way into American law and history books strays substantially from the accounts of English settlers who were present to observe the events
(E) they largely ignore the native peoples’ initial response to the arrival of European settlers


4. Which of the following is not a description Harriot used to depict the native peoples’ initial reaction to him and other settlers of Roanoke Island?

(A) witless
(B) bewildered
(C) savage
(D) benevolent
(E) beast-like