Other
Radford University: Prelude to European Settlement of Virginia
This site traces the early voyages of explorers from Portugal and Spain who were trying to find new resources.
Library of Congress
Loc: Parallel Histories: Exploration and Early Settlement
Read about the Spanish conquistadors who explored what was to become Spanish America. Included are links to digital collections from the Library of Congress and the National Library of Spain.
Texas State Historical Association
Texas State Historical Association: Early European Exploration and Development
A chronological timeline of early European exploration and development in Texas spanning from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.
University of Groningen
American History: Essays: Europe's North South Conflicts Reach the Americas
An essay detailing early English and French exploration and settlement in the New World to challenge Spanish control.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: America in Class: Early Visual Representations of the New World
A lesson that examines how Native Americans were portrayed by artists in the sixteenth century, whose aim was to convey their appearance to a European audience, and thereby encourage investment in future New World explorations. By...
Library of Congress
Loc: The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands
Available in both English and Dutch, this Library of Congress and Library of the Netherlands collaborative project offers over 11,000 digitized images relating to the Dutch in America. Includes a letter describing the purchase of...
Mariners' Museum and Park
Mariners' Museum: The Ages of Exploration: Age of Discovery
This Age of Discovery page presents naval artifacts and explorers of the 15th century to the early 17th century. It looks at European explorers who journeyed to North and South America, the search for the Northwest Passage, and...
The Newberry Library
Newberry: Exploration and Encounter: Map 3, Captain Cook and Hawaii, 1778
Map and primary source information provide first-hand account of exploration and encounters between Europeans and Hawaiians. Includes lesson plans for k-12, links to reference material and supplemental resources, and curators notes.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Life in Colonial America
This lesson presents an explanation about who the early colonists were and why they came to America. Students will explore their lives and the economy by navigating the Internet. Students will conclude the lesson by completing a WebQuest...
Huntington Library
Early English Exploration and Settlement of the Colony of Virginia
For this lesson, 5th graders learn about the individuals and groups who first founded the different colonies in America and what their motivations were. Students participate in a reader's theater activity, create a poster that would...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Race and Identity in Antebellum America
This unit features authors of Antebellum America and how they portray the American identity through their literature. Click on the tabs to explore the various resources available to enhance this unit.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Living the Revolution: America, 1789 1820: Religion
Primary resource material on post-Revolution America, 1789-1820, which explores the topic of religion and national identity in the early republic. Includes questions for discussion and links to supplemental material.
PBS
Pbs: They Made America
Companion site to the four-part series on looking at America through inventors. Focuses on inventors from the early days of the country to modern day. From Robert Fulton and Samuel Colt, to Ted Turner and Russell Simmons, this site...
Teaching American History
Teaching American History: From Bullets to Ballots Chapter 3
An Anxious Confidence, The Anxieties of a New Republic, Chapter 3 of From Bullets to Ballots by John Zvesper explores the energy throughout the new nation as the democracy evolved.
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: Early Settlements
The early 1600s saw the beginning of a great tide of emigration from Europe to North America. Spanning more than three centuries, this movement grew from a trickle of a few hundred English colonists to a flood of millions of newcomers....
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: French and Dutch Exploration in the New World
Outline text explaining how the French, Dutch, and English explorers began to make inroads into the Americans in the late 1500s and early 1600s.
Other
On the Lower East Side: Observations of Life in Lower Manhattan
Links to contemporary essays about life on the Lower East Side of New York City in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These essays cover a range of topics and are well worth exploring to find out what problems writers were exposing...
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: The Literature of Exploration
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...
Internet History Sourcebooks Project
Fordham University: Modern History Sourcebook: Colonial North America
Scroll through this site from the Modern History Sourcebook of Fordham University to New England and click on the primary source documents concerning Edmund Andros. This site contains dozens of links related to colonial America. Sections...
Internet History Sourcebooks Project
Fordham University: Modern History Sourcebook: John Cabot: Voyage to North America, 1497
Letters from Cabot to different people in his life that explain his exploration and his discoveries.
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: The First Europeans
The first Europeans to arrive in North America -- at least the first for whom there is solid evidence -- were Norse, traveling west from Greenland, where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985. In 1001 his son Leif is...
State Library of North Carolina
N Cpedia: John W. Kinchelo, Iii: American Indians at European Contact
Native Americans inhabited the New World long before European explorers began establishing settlements on the land. This entry addresses the challenges the natives had to face upon Europe's arrival, trials in relationships, and how...
The History Place
The History Place: American Revolution
The History Place provides this timeline broken into six different sections that highlight the important events from the early European exploration of America through to the United States becoming a country. Features include informative...
Other
Texas Bob: The Journey of Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca
An English translation of Cabeza De Vaca's first-hand account of his journey and quest to claim territory from Florida to Mexico for Spain.