Come On, Lilgrim - Commonplace
Historical Context | United States History I Activity Using Salem Witch Trials
OER lesson that primarily teaches the historical concept of context, then uses the Salem Witch Trials as event to exercise what it teachers
How the Potato Changed the World
from Smithsonian Magazine
Christopher Columbus was awful (but this other guy was not) - The Oatmeal
The oatmeal beats Columbus like a rented mule in this article/presentation. Although sans citation, this isn't sourced, but nonetheless in the aggregate, mostly accurate. What is truly remarkable is that there are countless elementary school classrooms in which students are sitting right now, as you read this, still learning the Columbus myth. Still.
Easy discussion prompt for worthwhile discussion from middle school on up - How does a myth survive?
American Journeys | Lesson Plans
Viking exploration and French/English religious nature of colonization of North America from the Wisconsin Historical Society
American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement
Geography and Its Impact on Colonial Life - Lesson
Lesson Plans - For Teachers (Library of Congress) European settlement patterns were influenced by geographic conditions such as access to water, harbors, natural protection, arable land, natural resources and adequate growing season and rainfall. Examine a variety of primary sources to determine why colonists were drawn to a particular region of the country.
Inclusion and exclusion in two historic Thanksgiving cartoons
Every history teacher should read this short article about different representations of the Thanksgiving Holiday. It describes how Thanksgiving is a reminder that questions of inclusion and exclusion are constantly asked and answered in American history, including (perhaps especially) during holidays. From the National Museum of American History
Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760-1761
Harvard project with interactive map
The 1619 Project and the Work of the Historian « The Junto
Townsends - YouTube
Historic Trades - Williamsburg Videos
At a half hour each, there is more material here than could be fit into one lesson - but perhaps students could be tasked with watching just one, then reporting to the class what it would be like to be that person
Guide to Indigenous Land and Territorial Acknowledgements for Cultural Institutions – Cultural Institutions Guide to Land Acknowledgements
Teachers wishing to start the school year off with a land acknowledgment can look to this resource as a way to get started and do it with the respect and care it deserves
Extract from Thomas Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virginia,” 1782 [Quote] | Jefferson Quotes & Family Letters
Enslaved | People of the Historic Slave Trade
Edward Winslow, the Unsung Hero of Thanksgiving | History | Smithsonian
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Do American Indians celebrate Thanksgiving? | Smithsonian Voices | National Museum of the American Indian | Smithsonian
Thoughtful article written by a Native American that includes a succinct summary of the original event in the context of the time. This is a reading for teachers, and perhaps high school students
Colonial Unit - Montgomery Schools Maryland
5th grade curricular document can help Social Studies teacher approach the American Revolution with a focus on political change both within and outside the system. Useful graphic could be applied to this as well as other eras
American Colonial Life in the Late 1700s: Distant Cousins | EDSITEment
Students will become historical detectives and learn to gather information from artifacts and make inferences about the lives and times they represent. They will then use what they have learned to write historical fiction in the form of friendly letters between fictitious cousins in Massachusetts and Delaware.
All About Explorers
Show this site to students and see how long it take them to figure it out
Colonel William Byrd on Slavery and Indented Se...
In this 1739 from a aristocratic slave owner to a Trustee of the colony of Georgia, teachers and students can look into the complexity of slavery in the 1730s. How can a plantation owner who profits from slavery complain about the system and wish that Britain would end slavery in the colonies? How can a slaveowner express such disgust for slave traders (who, he claims, would paint their wives and children's faces black if they could get away with selling them)? If you look close enough, you can see his prediction of John Brown's dream of a slave insurrection in the mountains.
Diary of John Harrower, 1773-1776 : Indentured Servant
American Indians in Children's Literature - Columbus Lesson
Lesson plan that has students looking through several books on Columbus and comparing them. This is a solution to 3rd grade teachers trying to determine what to do with Columbus
Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704
Teaching Hard History of Slavery | Teaching Tolerance
A comprehensive guide for teaching and learning about slavery at the middle and high school levels. Key Concepts, lessons, primary source documents
New York Slavery Records Index – Records of Enslaved Persons and Slave Holders in New York from 1525 though the Civil War
Search more than 35,000 records of slavery within the State of New York from 1525 through the Civil War. The data come from census records, slave trade transactions, cemetery records, birth certifications, manumissions, ship inventories, newspaper accounts, private narratives, legal documents and many other sources
Trans-Atlantic - Slave Ship in 3D Video
4 minute narrated video describes in detail the design of an 18th century slave ship. The tour of the trip describes how the slave ship was built for the sole purpose of transporting enslaved Africans. The animation and description is based on a specific French boat.
Pilgrims and Progress: How Magazines Made Thanksgiving
This academically rigorous article may be beyond even the highest functioning AP US History students. But all teachers will find this article aiming a question directly at their curriculum - Do you teach a myth as a cultural affirmation? The essay argues that "traveling home to turkey and all the trimmings was "invented", not in 17th century Massachusetts, but in 19th century Philadelphia in the pages of the nation's most widely circulated magazines and in respond to the changing American scene. Two hundred years after the Pilgrims' quit commemorations, Thanksgiving developed a uniform national profile, impelled by its promoters ideas about republican identity, ideas diffused by a publishing industry with increasingly national reach"
Fugitive Slaves laws (1619-1865) - Marion Gleason
This is a compendium of colonial, state and federal fugitive slave laws. Available for research, or quick skimming to reveal the nature of slavery this resource shows how quickly runaway slave laws came to the colonies right after the Pilgrims. It also shows the overlapping of indentured servant law and slave law and how the system of slavery evolved over 250 years
Farber Gravestone Collection
The Farber Gravestone Collection is an unusual resource documenting the sculpture on over 9,000 gravestones most of which were made prior to 1800. Many of the tombstones are from the 1600s. Why not do something different for your "day before Halloween" lesson this year and have students look through these primary source artifacts tell us something about some of the people who lived at that time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbhR1f_L_xE