Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Race and Identity in Antebellum America
This unit features authors of Antebellum America and how they portray the American identity through their literature. Click on the tabs to explore the various resources available to enhance this unit.
Other
American Centuries, View From New England
A multi-purpose site that provides information on history and historic artifacts from New England. There are also some interesting games that serve to enhance learning about New England. Be sure to watch video demonstrations of Early...
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Native American Relations in Texas: David G Burnet to m.b. Menard, Mar 1836
Read this letter through which the interim president of Texas wrote to Michel B. Menard, "a trader and adopted member of the Shawnee nation," asking Menard "to negotiate a peace treaty with the Shawnees, Delawares, and Kickapoos." This...
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Native American Relations in Texas: Sam Houston to John Linney, Sept 1836
Read a letter through which Sam Houston recruits Indian tribes "to act in the policing of" Texas. This site includes images of the original letter, as well as line-by-line transcription of the handwritten text.
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Native American Relations in Texas/ "The Raven"
Read about Sam Houston's attempt to keep the peace between whites and Indians as president of the Republic of Texas. See primary source documents addressing this issue and read transcripts of the documents.
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Native American Relations in Texas: Indians and the Texas Revolution
Read about the importance of the support of various Indian tribes in the success of the Texas Revolution. See primary sources that explore this topic.
University of Maryland
Early Americas Digital Archive: Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America
An essay by Benjamin Franklin describing the Native Americans of North America and explaining how "savages" is not an appropriate name.
Other
Trail of Tears Assoc: The Story Trail of Tears National Historic Trail
Follow the early history of Native American and European contact in America. As more settlers moved west, a law was passed to relocate the Cherokee from Arkansas. The routes they followed and the cruelties they suffered came to be known...
Other
Ben Nighthorse Campbell
Here is an excellent biography of Campbell, his early life and heritage and his life as a Senator and representative of Native Americans. His life story in an inspiration to read.
Library of Congress
Loc: Exploring the Early Americas: Columbus and the Taino
An on-line exhibit displaying copies of Columbus' journals, other writings about his voyages and findings, as well as information and artifacts of the Taino, the Native Americans Columbus encountered on San Salvador.
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Native American Relations in Texas: Introduction
How did a Spanish explorer become a "medicine man and the first European trader in Texas"? Who authored the "first ever written description of Texas Indians"? Read this brief article to begin learning about the early relations between...
Other
New Netherland Institute: Early Descriptions of New Netherland
Excerpts from Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664, published in 1909, and available for free from Google Books. The first excerpt is from a 1644 account of Henry Hudson's descriptions of the new land he saw on his 1609 voyage. The...
Varsity Tutors
Varsity Tutors: Archiving Early America: Chief Joseph Brant: Mohawk, Loyalist, and Freemason
Biography of Chief Joseph Brant, "the powerful and influential Mohawk chief who sided with the British during the American Revolutionary War."
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: Colonial Indian Relations
By 1640 the British had solid colonies established along the New England coast and the Chesapeake Bay. In between were the Dutch and the tiny Swedish community. To the west were the original Americans, the Indians.
A&E Television
History.com: Deb Haaland, Us Interior Secretary, on How She's Influenced by History
In early 2021, Deb Haaland was sworn in as the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, making her the first Native American cabinet secretary in the history of the United States. A tribal member of the Laguna Pueblo, she was...
Other
Arkansas Archeological Survey: First Encounters Native Tribes and Spaniards
An account of early contacts and effects between the Native Americans of Arkansas and the Spaniards led by De Soto.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Early Chicago Environment & People [Pdf]
"Early Chicago Environment & People" is a one page, nonfiction passage about the Native Americans who lived in what is now Chicago. It explains how they lived and how Chicago got its name. It is followed by constructed-response...
Oklahoma State University
Oklahoma Historical Society: An Early Account of the Cherokees [Pdf]
A first-hand account describing the Cherokee Native Americans during the period of their displacement (1837) from the southern United States to Oklahoma Indian territory.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: What Should a House Do
Site provides an extensive lesson plan that challenges students to compare early American houses to present day houses. Very comprehensive site with several activities that will assist students in understanding common features of houses....
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Native Cultures in the Americas
This lesson is part of a project-based, hands-on unit in which children discover the native cultures that existed in the Americas prior to the arrival of explorers. The students will "become" part of their assigned culture through...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: The Early Americas Civilizations Power Point
This instructional activity is for cooperative learning groups. This instructional activity will take place in the classroom and the computer lab. Students will create PowerPoints on the early Americas civilizations of the Hohokam,...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: English I, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
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.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Harcourt: School Publishers: Carving a Memorial to Chief Crazy Horse
This Harcourt Publishing site is all about the memorial carved in the Black Hills of South Dakota in honor of Chief Crazy Horse.
Curated OER
Perry Castaneda Map Collection: Map of Early Indian Tribes in the Western u.s.
Map showing the Native American culture areas and the tribes within those cultures in western North America. From the Perry Castaneda collection.