Colonial House | PBS
This "reality show" produced by PBS took 21st century volunteers and inserted them into 17th century Plymouth Plantation.
01: Colonization
The Geography of Slavery in Virginia: Virginia Runaways, Slave Advertisements, Runaway Advertisements
This collection of advertisements, documents and court records is drawn from Lathan Algerna Windley's collection Runaway Slave Advertisements : a Documentary History from the 1730's to 1790.
The Welikia Project » Welcome to New York City, 1609
Have you ever wondered what New York was like before it was a city? Find out here, by navigating through the map of the city in 1609. You can search through the city, block by block, and explore the native landscape of today’s famous landmarks and research the landscape and flora of Manhattan in 1609.
What happened to Jamestown in 1610 - HSI: Historical Scene Investigation
The book "After the Fact' has a great chapter on this topic - but here students themselves have to review a series of primary source documents and several secondary source quotes to come to their own understanding and explanation of the cause of the "starving time" as Jamestown. This is a lesson that has students "doing history"
Engaging with Multiple Narratives and Exploring Historical Bias – Ed Methods
This University of Portland student shares a Native American lesson that splits a class into three groups, has each explore a primary or secondary source, then brings them back into whole group for a reflective discussion. There is a significant different in having students analyze specifically chosen materials rather than having them do "research" and look for their own materials to fill a need determined by the teacher (i.e. "find lifestyles")
America's Founding Fictions
This Washington Post opinion piece is far more effective at introducing students to the discipline of history than one would find in any textbook - and still provide the adequate content knowledge to have a contextual understanding of colonization.
America's True History of Religious Tolerance | History | Smithsonian
As much as we want to turn away from simply teaching factoids, telling students about the the killing of French Lutherans fifty years before the Mayflower and the hanging of Four Quakers in Massachusetts helps dispel the myth of the freedom narrative that pervades the US History canon
Thanksgiving History | Plimoth Plantation
Thanksgiving is a particularly American holiday. The word evokes images of football, family reunions, roasted turkey with stuffing, pumpkin pie and, of course, the Pilgrims and Wampanoag, the acknowledged founders of the feast. But was it always so? This article explores the development of our modern holiday.
Voyage Information - 1693 Captain Phillips
The record of one voyage of one slave ship in 1693. Students can see in this record that 700 slaves were loaded onto the ship at the start of the journey and only 372 survived the voyage.
The Diary of Christopher Columbus's First Voyage to America, 1492-1493 - Google Books
This is the diary of Christopher Columbus, recording his first voyage to America. In January of 1493, he said he saw mermaids. Now how do you feel about primary sources?
Blackhead Signpost Rd - Google Maps
History teachers wanting to invest students in an authentic experience should direct them to this road in southwest Virginia with the simple question - how did this road get this name? and perhaps more importantly, why does it still have this name?
The Journal of Reverand Charles Woodmason | Teaching American History
Woodmason describes the colonists that students never hear about and few teachers know. But in reading this primary documents, students would have a more complete sense of the period. Documents like this are most effective in breaking assumptions about human nature - that certain types of behavior are only linked with certain periods
Episode 120: Marcia Zug, A History of Mail Order Brides in Early America - Ben Franklin's World
In this podcast, Marcia Zug, a Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina Law School and author of "Buying a Bride: An Engaging History of Mail Order Matches", describes early North American mail order marriage programs.
Mail order marriage programs were in colonial Jamestown, New France, and Louisiana, though they are not found in high school classrooms. Why would women be interested in participating in mail order marriage programs? What role mail order marriage play in American westward expansion?
Teachers can use this material to engage interest in the lives of people who came to this country in a manner that is largely ignored by asking, why?
The Puritans | CK-12 Foundation
John Winthrop's “City on a Hill” and John Cotton’s use of the bible to justify taking land from Native Americans
From Newgate to the New World - Archiving Early America
Hidden in the stories of pilgrims, cavaliers and puritans coming to the New World, are 5,000 women convicted of crimes in England, and shipped to the colonies to serve off their sentence as a servant. This well-documented article tells of the these women and teachers could use any of the individual stories to dramatize this element of America's origins as well. The documents evidencing the cases related here are found in the Old Bailey digital records
Dress Codes in Colonial Massachusetts |
Another aspect of our colonial origins ignored by those entrusted to teach it to the young. Our mythic story stresses equality and liberty, yet in Massachusetts it was a crime for poor people to dress like they were rich - where does this fit in our narrative?
The colonial laws of Massachusetts : reprinted ...
Half way down page 123, one can find the original text of the Sumptuary laws on Massachusetts, which made it illegal for a poor person to wear the clothes of a rich person. or to put this in the words of a high school student - the dress code of colonial Massachuetts
Sumptuary Laws (Laws Regarding What One May or May Not Wear) - 1651 Massachusetts
Why would the colony of Massachusetts make wearing certain clothes by certain people - illegal? Teachers who can't motivate their students need to consider teaching this reality of colonial america that is ignored by the history education industry
Indentured servants were sold - primary source reading
Indentured servants were sold at auctions like slaves. Teachers could use this to show how some who would like to make the slavery system seem less harsh than it was can explain how "whites were sold at auction as well" - which is true, but the warrant between the evidence and the claim is invalid. This particular example of an indentured servant is interesting also because he returned to Europe and tried to persuade others to avoid immigration to the colonies
Old Bailey Central Criminal Court
Teachers can show this transcript from a criminal court in Britain and have them locate the name "Elizabeth Armstrong" alias "little Bess". Then given students three minutes to research her name. They will find that she was a young girl convicted of stealing two silver spoons. Her sentence for this crime as listed in this transcript was "transportation" - which means that she was sent to the colonies. Not all colonists were motivated by religion or the search for gold, some came to the colonies as punishment for a crime.
HSI: Historical Scene Investigation - Finding Aaron (Escaped slave; 1767)
In this case, students follow the life and escape attempts of an enslaved man named Aaron of the course of four years. Students utilize runaway slave advertisements from the Virginia Gazette from 1767 to 1771 to track multiple escapes by Aaron and the quest of his masters to recapture him. Although the evidence paints only a partial picture of Aaron's life, students are challenged to a plausible explanation of what happened to Aaron between December, 1767 and January, 1771
Americapox: The Missing Plague - YouTube
12 minutes to describe the decimation of Native Americans as part of the Colombian Exchange. This video describes not only the disease, but the manner in which the European's domestication of available livestock gave them experience with the germs and microbes that were never found in North and South America
Amazon Tribe Meets White Man For First Time
This video gives a glimpse of what it might have looked like when Europeans and natives encountered each other - or maybe not. Students and teachers can try to determine the authenticity of this video or use it as a springboard to conversation about the experience of cultures encountering each other.
Essential Understandings Regarding Montana Indians
Published by the Montana Department of Public Instruction, this document should be considered by east coast US History teachers when writing curricula and developing lessons.
Slavery by the Numbers (redux) | Encyclopedia Virginia, The Blog
This list of 15 or 20 different statistics could be used as a prompt for discussion or even a "Do now" introductory activity. Each includes a source. "Basic" statistics like the total number of Africans transported to the western hemisphere and % that did not survive the journey are included - but also the ratio of white indentured servants to slaves in colonial Virginia or chance that an African living in NY in 1776 was a slave ( 1 in 7).
The Misguided Focus on 1619 as the Beginning of Slavery in the U.S. Damages Our Understanding of American History | History | Smithsonian
Teachers of the US History narrative canon would be
The First Decades of the Massachusetts Bay; or Idleness, Wolves, and a Man Who Shall No Longer Be Called Mister - Common-placeCommon-place: The Journal of early American Life
When historians look through more evidence they come to understandings that students never get to see becuase their teachers may only rely on the evidence that is part of the liturgy of the US History narrative canon. In this instance, routine court records will tell us much more about puritan Massachusetts than a John Winthrop sermon.
1491: Rewriting the History Before Columbus - Charles C. Mann Lecture
This is an hour-long lecture from one of the preeminent authorities on the Columbian Exchange. History teachers who spend hours and hours explaining the collision of Columbus and Native Americans should spend just one hour themselves learning from this award-winning author.
Treaty of Tordesillas: The 1494 Decision Still Influencing Today’s World
A short article for teachers to provide background information if they are to talk about the treaty with students. Yet, this article may be better to use than the primary document or even other secondary documents discussing this element of the age of exploration
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Letter to King Philip II | Early Visions of Florida
The formal and detailed account of the Spanish attack on Fort Caroline