Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Slave Trade, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
A West African map and three accounts of the development of slave acquisition display the process and the brutality of the Atlantic slave trade.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Settlement, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Thirty primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore motivations, visions, patterns, goals, challenges, and relationships with indigenous peoples offered by Europeans in their settlement of the New...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: First Arrivals, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Numerous visual images of artifacts from English settlements at Jamestown and at Plymouth, and from Spanish settlement in Hispaniola, and three original accounts of each of those early settlements that describe the possibilities and the...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Hardships, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Three English, a French, and a Spanish primary account of the staggering losses, misery, and deprivation that characterized early European settlement as well as the resilience needed to overcome those challenges.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Questions & Answers, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
An online exhibition of images of European settlement to accompany two English, a French, and a Dutch set of promotional accounts that offer advice, encouragement, and occasional warning to prospective immigrants to newly settled areas...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Instructions, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Three maps of European settlement in Virginia, the Pacific Northwest, and the Spanish New World, and the accompanying official instructions from lenders and monarchs about the obligations, opportunities, and hopes that those...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Missions, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
A Spanish Franciscan and a French Jesuit report on the reciprocal relationship between natives and Catholic missionaries as Europeans settled New France and New Spain.
Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Enslaved Peoples, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Two Spanish accounts of enslaved Indians in the Caribbean and enslaved Africans in Mexico and statements of the difficulty of maintaining slavery and the lurking threat of a slave revolt.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Go Ahead, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
A Spanish, an English, and a French account of the enormous challenges in maintaining a colonial presence in North America and of the potential national loss-of pride, wealth, and possibility for expansion-if nations abandoned these...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Permanence, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Forty-two primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore the complex and interrelated factors that led to a permanent European presence in the New World.
Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Prosperity, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Four original source accounts, and four related maps, of successful English, French, and Spanish settlements in North America and the Caribbean that explain the qualities of these settlements and their reasons for permanence and prosperity.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Cities & Towns, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Four accounts of the visits to and growth of colonial cities in Spanish, British, and French New World settlements that demonstrate why certain communities developed successfully.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: English I, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Portraits of early New Englanders as well as four buildings from seventeenth-century New England that accompany accounts in those British colonies of struggles, Indian hostilities, and economic success.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: English Ii, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Three seventeenth-century homes in Pennsylvania and New York and three accounts from those English colonies of the factors leading to prosperity and permanence.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: English Iii, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Three seventeenth-century buildings, two portraits, and three original accounts from Virginia and the Carolinas about the qualities and conditions of life in these southern English colonies that led to success and growth.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Servitude, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Two examples of indenture contracts and three accounts of indentured servitude, including positive as well as admonitory views, in the Chesapeake English colonies.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Power, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Fifty seven primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-and one secondary historical account that explore imperial conflict, European economic rivalry, and the impact of colonial rule on native peoples.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Rivalry I, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Eleven documents and two maps detailing the almost two hundred year struggle between England and Spain for hegemony in the Caribbean.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Rivalry Ii, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Two eighteenth-century maps and four accounts of the mutual perceptions, suspicions, and observations between Spanish and French explorers on the Gulf Coast.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Rivalry Iii, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Two maps of English and French rivalries in North America, and two side-by-side accounts of the English and French perspectives on King William's war over power, trade, and economic dominance of the continent.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Rule, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Three documents reflecting official views of how to rule and regulate a successful colony in New France, Jamaica, and the Spanish Indies. Includes teacher reasources for framing discussion.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Rebellion, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Five documents that examine a range of reactions to colonial rebellion and associated resistance to royal authority in English colonies in Barbados, Virginia, and Massachusetts.
Article
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Indian Relations, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
One modern historical assessment and several original accounts of the mistrust, negotiations, alliances, trading, and disease transmission between European colonizers and native peoples in North America.
Article
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Indian Wars, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Five documents representing the full range of Indian-European antagonisms, struggles for power, and outright warfare among the Spanish, Pueblo, Wampanoag, English, and French in New Spain, New France, New Mexico, and New England.