Jamestown, although not a financial sucess, was the first succesful English colony in North America. Find out how the colony was financed, what the first colonists hoped to find, how the colony was governed, and the hardships that were...

English, Spanish, and Portuguese maps and letters of about the voyages of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and Portuguese explorer, Gaspar Corte Real, which describe impressions of the lands explored.

[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about visiting a realistic English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.

The Virginia House of Burgesses was the first elected legislature in the New World. Find out why the governmental conditions in England led to this representative government and how it was so different from the governing of colonies in...

This cross-curricular lesson plan guides students to compare primary documents from Jamestown, Virginia to find the changes in life during the first few years of the settlement. This is an excellent plan that provides a link to an...

The complete full-text of this literary work is available to download or read online multiple digital formats.

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...

This resource gives the text to this Ordinance and Constitution of the Virginia Company which set up a council and assembly for the first colony of Virginia. Be sure to click on "Context" to see how this fit in with the House of Burgesses.

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...

The first permanent English settlers in North Carolina emigrated from the tidewater area of southeastern Virginia. The first of these "overflow" settlers moved into the area of the Albemarle Sound in northeast North Carolina around 1650....

Colonial House video segment in which Colonists and the Passamaquoddy people encounter each other for the first time in a reenactment of a New England settlement in 1628. [4:38]

A map of the New Jersey Colony between the establishment of the Dutch settlement at Bergen (1620) and the unification of East and West Jersey in 1702. The map shows the 'North River’ (Hudson River) and 'South River’ (Delaware River), the...

This site from the National Park Service details John White and the colony of Roanoke.

A map of the area from the Delaware Bay to the Connecticut River showing the territory claimed by the Dutch as New Netherlands (1614-1664) and the territory around the Delaware Bay and Delaware River claimed by Sweden as New Sweden...

A map of North America, Central America, and the West Indies in 1689 at the beginning of the King William's War (1689-1697), the first of the French and Indian Wars. The map is color-coded to show the claims of the English, French, and...

An English statesman and one of the founders of the proprietary Virginia Company of London, which established the first permanent English settlement of Virginia.

A base map of eastern Virginia and North Carolina showing Roanoke Island, site of the first attempt to establish an English settlement by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1585.

The site explores the colonial history of the city of Savannah, Georgia. This interactive lesson has excellent information, an inquiry question, historical context, maps, readings, images, and activities.