National First Ladies' Library
Will the Real Pocahontas Please Stand Up?
Learners explore the life of Pocahontas and Powhatan Indians. After studying information on a given website, students compare and contrast what they read about Pocahontas and what they previously thought of her. They explore life in a...
![History Is Fun: Powhatan's Challenge and Opechancanough's Action [Pdf] Article](https://d15y2dacu3jp90.cloudfront.net/images/attachment_defaults/resource/large/FPO-knovation.png "History Is Fun: Powhatan's Challenge and Opechancanough's Action [Pdf] Article")
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
History Is Fun: Powhatan's Challenge and Opechancanough's Action [Pdf]
Describes the interactions between the Powhatan and the English, the different leadership styles of the brothers Wahunsonacock and Opechancanough, and the events leading up to the Powhatan War and Opechancanough's defeat.
Other
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities: Virginia Indian Heritage Trail [Pdf]
This 92-page guide has accurate information on tribes and sites in Virginia. It has tribal histories, biographies of well-known historical figures, photographs, and suggested readings.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: America in Class: Failed European Colonies in the New World
Lesson that examines some of the reasons European efforts to establish colonies in the New World were often met with failure. It focuses on the story of nine Jesuit priests who started a small colony on Chesapeake Bay in the hopes of...
University of Maryland
Howard County Public School System: Which John Smith Is Telling the Truth? [Pdf]
Young scholars will read two accounts of John Smith's meeting with Powhattan and evalute which one is likely to be more accurate based upon the reliability of the sources.
PBS
Pbs: Nova: John Smith's Bold Endeavor
A historian discusses the relationship between John Smith and Pocahontas, and, more broadly, the competing expectations of the Indians and English colonists in terms of the relationship of the two groups.
Huntington Library
Huntington Library: American Indians and English Settlers in Colonial America
In this instructional activity, 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...
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
History Is Fun: Cultures at Jamestown [Pdf]
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...
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
History Is Fun: Life at Jamestown [Pdf]
A 16-page history of the establishment and growth of the colony of Jamestown. Covers the early challenges, the starving time, the Virginia Company, the conflict with Powhatan, the beginnings of the tobacco economy, the introduction of...
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
History Is Fun: Life at Jamestown [Pdf]
An extensive collection of resources for learning about the colony of Jamestown. Includes essays, lesson plans, biographies, the economics of tobacco, information about laws, leadership, and a culminating project where students design a...
National Geographic
National Geographic: Exploring the Chesapeake: Then and Now
Resource provides an interactive map that takes you to places on the Chesapeake Bay that John Smith explored and you find out the historical events that occurred. Pictures and drawings of time accompany the explanations.
Mariners' Museum and Park
Mariners' Museum: Chesapeake Bay: Our History and Our Future
Learn about the culture, history, and ecology of the Chesapeake Bay estuary. Follow activities of the Bay through time to learn how it has been an important part of our country's past and present times. Also find out why it is important...
National Women’s History Museum
National Women's History Museum: Pocahontas
Among the most famous women in early American history, Pocahontas is credited with helping the struggling English settlers survive.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Primary Source Set: Powhatan People and English at Jamestown
This collection uses primary sources to explore the encounter between the Powhatan people and English at Jamestown.
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian: National Museum of the American Indian: Queen of America
Pocahontas is that rare historical figure who captivated people in her own time and in every generation that followed. Take a closer look at the story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith in this Frieze of American History from the...
Digital History
Digital History: English Colonization Begins
Understand why the English saw opportunity in making settlements in the New World. After the stumbles in Newfoundland and Roanoke Island, read about the ultimately successful founding of Jamestown Colony.
Other
Virtual Jamestown: Powhatan (D. 1618)
Read about Powhatan, the leader of the Powhatan federation of Indians and the father of Pocahontas. Through his dealings with John Smith of the Jamestown establishment, Powhatan became an important connection between the Indians and the...
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
History Is Fun: John Smith [Pdf]
A two-page biography of John Smith, who was one of the most important leaders of the Jamestown colony.
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
History Is Fun: Young Pocahontas [Pdf]
A two-page biography of the early life of Pocahontas, and her later years living among the English.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: Britain in the New World: War and Peace With Powhatan's People
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.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: The Algonkian Tribes
A good look at the Algonkian tribes that ranged along the Atlantic coast, although different in many ways, but connected linguistically. Read about the Wampanoags, who met the Pilgrims, and the Powhatans, who helped John Smith and his...
Other
A History of Jamestown, Virginia
A comprehensive history of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. Includes a very nice timeline and historical background.
Virginia Historical Society
Virginia Museum of History and Culture: Early Images of Virginia Indians
A collection of images of early Virginia Indians that includes information on interpreting the images and shows fanciful images that were not historically accurate.
CommonLit
Common Lit: Chief Powhatan's Address to Captain John Smith (1609)
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...