In this lesson, 5th graders examine the relations between Indians and the settlers in the 1600s and 1700s. Background information for teachers is included. Students will work in groups to look at three different colonies and read primary...

A six-page discussion of the mix of cultures that converged in the colony of Jamestown and the challenges this presented. These cultures were the English settlers, the indigenous Powhatan people, and the African slaves. Despite many...

In 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...

Men and women with little active interest in a new life in America were often induced to make the move to the New World by the skillful persuasion of promoters. William Penn, for example, publicized the opportunities awaiting newcomers...

Companion website for Colonial House, a televised experiment in historical reenactment, provides information and insight about what daily life, in 1628, must have been like for English settlers in early America. With video clips from the...

[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart has students engage in a research project looking at how geographical features affected the colonists' settling of the New World. Web links to aid the research process are included. An...

Introductory article on American Colonial History in which the author takes a look at the first European settlers who made the voyage to America and addresses the essential question of who they were as people and hence, why they made...

Learn about plantation life during the 18th and 19th centuries by viewing images, maps, and text material in this virtual exhibition from the British Library. Writer Mike Phillips gives his personal interpretation of this exhibit on...

Experience the dramatic raid on Deerfield. You can read what the victims of the Deerfield Raid say in their stories through historical documents as well as see artifacts, find out about the assailants, and enter the conflict yourself.

This award-winning resource draws the reader into a consideration of history as witnessed from multiple perspectives. Discover the mystery of the French and Indian raid on colonial Deerfield, Massachusetts where five cultures clashed in...

Read about how Powhatan and his tribe initially helped the English settlers in Jamestown, but ultimately went to war. Find out about why the different views about land ownership exacerbated the tension between the two cultures.

Learn more about Pocahontas through the accounts of her adventures. This information explains the relationship between Pocahontas and the English settlers.

Most settlers who came to America in the 17th century were English, but there were also Dutch, Swedes and Germans in the middle region, a few French Huguenots in South Carolina and elsewhere, slaves from Africa, primarily in the South,...

The early settlers to the New World began to map strategy for their own system of government. This site details that strategy and what kinds of events spawned the idea of representative government.

Sail to the New World, and take the interactive, story quiz on the first permanent English settlement.

A scene of early English colonists, or Pilgrims, in snow.

This 10-question multiple choice quiz is immediately scored and includes a variety of questions covering early settlement of Colonial America.

This 10-question multiple choice quiz is immediately scored and includes a variety of questions covering early settlement of the New England colonies.

A map of the disputed territory of Maine between the French and English settlers, from the early claims by the French to the Kennebec River in 1605 to the English claims to the St. Croix River in 1752.

The Afrikaners are descendants, to a great extent, of Dutch, German, and French Huguenot settlers, and, to a lesser extent, of English, Scottish, Irish, and other settlers of South Africa. The Dutch language of the first White settlers...

Plymouth Colony did not suffer the same problems as the English colony farther south, Jamestown. Read about the leadership of William Bradford, and the relationship between the settlers and the Native Americans who helped those who lived...

The Powhatan are Native American people from Virginia who share an Algonquian language. In 1607, the Jamestown settlement in the Virginia colony became the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. At the initial arrival of the...

An image of Virginia Dare.

A map of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia near Bay Verte (Green Bay) and the eastern shore of Chignecto showing the campaign of Colonel Monckton in 1775 against the French. "About the last of May, Colonel Monckton sailed from Boston, with...