This unit explores the documented perceptions of Native Americans, religious faiths, physical challenges of new lands and how the combination of immigrants and Native Americans shaped the New World. Click on "Activities" for related...

The role of the free press in Colonial American literary and political history. Includes links to Alexander Hamilton and charters involving free press.

Timeline of the social, political, and literary history of America from pre-1650 through 1929. Contains information on writers of the periods, along with links to related websites. Click on the time period to see the information for that...

This Bibliomania site surveys the literary history of the English in colonial Virginia. Includes analysis of the work of Captain John Smith, William Strachey, and George Sandys. Links to other notes about early American literature.

Business woman and author, Sarah Kemble Knight, was a humorist writer who documented her travels and the times of seventeenth century New England. Click on "Sarah Kemble Knight" for related resources.

Background information about the social, literary, and intellectual history of the Colonial period. Includes biographical links to Benjamin Franklin and Cotton Mather.

Background information about the literature of the Colonial period in American history. Discussions of capitalism, Puritan theology, and stewardship as found in the thought and literature of the period.

This lesson focuses on Native American myths including the creation myth "The Earth on Turtle's Back." It includes links to the above myth, a self-assessment quiz, and an assignment for a mini-report over a Native American tribe.

This lesson focuses on William Bradford and his Of Plymouth Plantation, a history of the Plymouth Colony. It features a short biography of William Bradford including his trip to America on the Mayflower and being elected long-term...

This on-line encyclopedia article gives information about Phillis Wheatley, the Boston slave who surprised colonial America with her poetry. She was the first African-American woman to have her work published.

A short essay about William Byrd from the colonial period of American history who detailed life in the Southern colonies.

Although the colonial period produced several women writers of note, the revolutionary era did not further the work of women and minorities, despite the many schools, magazines, newspapers, and literary clubs that were springing up....

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is a sermon written by British Colonial Christian theologian Jonathan Edwards, preached to his own congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts to an unknown effect, and again on July 8, 1741, in...

This site contains definitions and analysis of American captivity narratives. Describes the conventions, rhetorical purposes, and themes of the captivity narrative genre. Lists example captivity narratives.

Description of American colonist narratives written for relatives and friends left behind in England. Click on the link at the end of each page to access the entire chapter.

This unit focuses on the "Journey Motif" using the following works: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, "Shooting An Elephant" by George Orwell, "Journey" by Edna St. Vincent Millay,"Sailing to Byzantium" by William Butler Yeats, "The...

Had history taken a different turn, the United States easily could have been a part of the great Spanish or French overseas empires. Its present inhabitants might speak Spanish and form one nation with Mexico, or speak French and be...

This resource presents a brief overview of the life, works, and poetic style of Edward Taylor.

Provides a brief explanation of the role of captivity narratives in the pre-Colonial and Colonial periods in American history. Contains reproductions of primary source documents. RI.11-12.9 17,18.19th Cen Historic

This bibliography of American captivity narratives is offered as part of a University of Michigan humanities electronic discussion group.

This article looks at a ballad, 'Bars Fight,' by 18th century African-American writer Lucy Terry. It considers the literary qualities of a ballad, and its historical role in society. It then goes on to consider why a Black slave might...

This website briefly describes the life of Phillis Wheatley, poetess and freed slave.