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Article
PBS

Africans in America: Map of the British Colonies

For Students 9th - 10th
Map of British Colonies and information from PBS on slavery from about 1600 to 1750. Some timelining of African American's lives in the New World.
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Unit Plan
Read Works

Read Works: Passages: Olaudah Equiano

For Teachers 9th - 10th
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read information about and an excerpt from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa as well as "African Migration to Colonial America" and answer paired text...
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Activity
Library of Congress

Loc: America's Story: Phillis Wheatley, Poet

For Students 3rd - 8th
A brief look at the fascinating life of African American poet, Phillis Wheatley. Provides two portraits, and a sample page from Wheatley's collection of poems.
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Website
World Atlas

World Atlas: Africa

For Students 9th - 10th
Learn about the history of Africa including Ancient Africa, African colonization, slave trade, and Post-Colonial Africa. Also covers maps, geography, countries, and interesting facts.
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Lesson Plan
Library of Congress

Loc: American Memory Timeline: Colonial Settlement,1600s 1763

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Read about the colonization in the New World by many European countries. Hyperlinks to you to more specific topics.
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Article
Khan Academy

Khan Academy: Us History: 1491 1607: African Societies and Atlantic Slave Trade

For Students 9th - 10th
The beginning of the Atlantic slave trade uprooted previously established societal norms in West Africa.
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Website
British Library

British Library: Discovering Literature: Voices in the Campaign for Abolition

For Students 9th - 10th
From the mid 18th century, Africans and people of African descent - many of them former slaves - began to write down their stories. This article describes these writings and assesses their role in the abolition of slavery.
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Primary
PBS

Africans in America: William Byrd's Diary

For Students 9th - 10th
Excerpts from "The Secret Diary of William Byrd" in which, among other things, he describes slaves as piece of property.
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Article
PBS

Africans in America: Revolution: 1750 1805

For Students 9th - 10th
Part of a detailed PBS site which describes "the history of racial slavery in the United States, this section focuses on slavery from 1750-1805.
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Primary
National Humanities Center

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

For Students 9th - 10th
Three illustrations and five documents about slave codes, master-slave power dynamics, and free blacks within French and Spanish settlements of the Caribbean.
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Primary
National Humanities Center

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

For Students 9th - 10th
Four accounts of the complex power relationships between slaves and slave holders within English colonies in Barbados, Virginia and Pennsylvania, as well as documents about slave revolts and anti-slavery agitation.
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Website
Digital History

Digital History: The Diversity of Colonial Slavery

For Students 9th - 10th
Read about the three distinct systems of slavery that developed in the colonies based primarily on the crops that were grown in each region. See how the system affected the way the culture of slaves grew out of the region.
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Article
PBS

Africans in America: Virginia's Slave Codes (1705)

For Students 9th - 10th
This website describes contents of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 with excerpts from the orginal law.
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Website
PBS

Perceptions of African Identity: Swahili Coast

For Students 9th - 10th
From the PBS series, a history of the Swahili coast of East Africa, including the island of Zanzibar.
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Handout
PBS

Pbs: Africans in America: Part 1: The Growth of Slavery in North America

For Students 9th - 10th
Focuses on slavery in North America, the worry about uprisings, and slavery's economic impact. Links to related information.
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Activity
Other

Understanding Slavery: The Lives of Eighteenth Century African Americans

For Students 9th - 10th
Comprehensive description of slaves in South Carolina. Click on the topics on the left to take you to a wealth of information about the lives of slaves in South Carolina.
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Handout
Columbia University

Edward Wilmot Blyden

For Students 9th - 10th
The life and work of E.W. Blyden (1832-1912 CE), one of the main leaders in the Pan-Africanism movement in Africa.
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Website
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Teacher Serve: Three Worlds, Three Views

For Students 9th - 10th
Essay examining the cultural and environmental changes spanning 300 years in the pre-Revolutionary South as three worlds, Native American, European, and African collide. Site includes guiding questions for student discussion and scholars...
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Primary
Other

Virtual Jamestown: Laws on Slavery

For Students 9th - 10th
This site provides the original text of Virginia colonial laws concerning different aspects of slavery for Africans, Native Americans, and indentured servants.
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Handout
University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania: French in West Africa

For Students 9th - 10th
This site has historical information about West Africa and the French colonial presence in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
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Article
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation

History Is Fun: Cultures at Jamestown [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th
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...
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Website
PBS

Wnet: Thirteen: The Slave Experience: Living Conditions

For Students 9th - 10th
This PBS series site reveals the diverse circumstances and living conditions experienced by slaves and indentured servants in America by reading documents dating to the Colonial, Antebellum, and Reconstruction periods.
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Website
Smithsonian Institution

National Museum of Natural History: Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th Century Chesapeake

For Students 9th - 10th
This very thorough site will fascinate those interested in forensic anthropology. You will learn what you can read from bones, how a face can be reconstructed from a skull, clues you can read from a burial, and about forensic cases both...
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Graphic
Curated OER

Educational Technology Clearinghouse: Maps Etc: Pre Colonial Africa, 1885

For Students 9th - 10th
A map of the African continent prior to the Berlin Conference of 1885, when the most powerful countries in Europe at the time convened to make their territorial claims on Africa and establish their colonial borders at the start of the...