+
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...
+
PPT
British Library

British Library: Teaching Resources: The Tempest: Slideshow Who Is Savage & Who Is Civilised?

For Students 9th - 10th
These activities encourage students to explore the 'brave new world' of The Tempest in light of thought-provoking texts on early modern colonization. A link to a slideshow featuring images of Native Americans and Europeans which...
+
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.
+
Article
Virginia Historical Society

Virginia Museum of History and Culture: Early Images of Virginia Indians

For Students 9th - 10th
A collection of images of early Virginia Indians that includes information on interpreting the images and shows fanciful images that were not historically accurate.
+
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: 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.
+
Website
Other

Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704

For Students 9th - 10th
This award-winning resource draws the reader into a consideration of history as witnessed from multiple perspectives. Discover the mystery of the French and Indian raid on colonial Deerfield, Massachusetts where five cultures clashed in...
+
Article
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Teacher Serve: Religious Pluralism in the Middle Colonies

For Students 9th - 10th
Essay looks at the phenomenon of religious pluralism in the middle colonies. Author discusses religious sects in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, as well as African Americans and Native Americans.
+
Lesson Plan
iCivics

I Civics: Columbus to the Colonies

For Teachers 9th - 10th
From the time Columbus first set foot in the New World, Europeans were fascinated with this new land. For this lesson, learners learn about the Three Gs that drove them here- gold, God, and glory- and find out how these settlers gave...
+
Lesson Plan
Library of Virginia

Virginia Memory: Petition of the Meherrin Indians

For Teachers 9th - 10th
A lesson exploring the steps taken by the Meherrin Indians in Virginia to try to protect their lands from encroaching colonists
+
Primary
Other

New Netherland Institute: Early Descriptions of New Netherland

For Students 9th - 10th
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...
+
Website
Independence Hall Association

U.s. History: Britain in the New World: The Growth of the Tobacco Trade

For Students 5th - 8th
Many colonists came to Jamestown to find gold. Read about what finally brought money into the colony, and what John Rolfe's role was in that. Read about who the workers were who provided the labor for this new money source.
+
Website
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Discovering the Past/ an Introduction to Archaeology

For Students 9th - 10th
This is a good, solid, but concise introduction to what archaeology is, how a site is set up, what one uses artifacts for, and how to approach a site. It is written for the teacher's newsletter from Colonial Williamsburg.
+
Unit Plan
National Endowment for the Humanities

Neh: Edsit Ement: The First Great Awakening

For Students 9th - 10th
In the middle of the 18th century, a series of evangelical religious revival movements swept across colonial America. Known as the First Great Awakening, the movements were characterized by emotional religious conversions from a state of...
+
Website
Ducksters

Ducksters: Connecticut State History for Kids

For Students 1st - 9th
Students can study the history and timeline of the state of Connecticut including early explorers, Native Americans, colonial settlers, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War on this site.
+
Website
Ducksters

Ducksters: Delaware State History for Kids

For Students 1st - 9th
A site exploring the history and timeline of the state of Delaware including early explorers, Native Americans, colonial settlers, and the Revolutionary War.
+
Interactive
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: The Story of Pocahontas

For Students 3rd - 8th
In this lesson students learn that there are multiple versions of the story of Pocahontas and John Smith.
+
Unit Plan
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Gilder Lehrman Institute: Ap Us History Study Guide, Period Two: 1607 1754

For Students 9th - 10th
[Free Registration/Login Required] Advanced placement U.S. History learning module on the emerging colonial and native societies between 1607-1754. Resources for students include video, essays, timeline and primary source documents.
+
Article
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation

History Is Fun: Powhatan's Challenge and Opechancanough's Action [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th
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.
+
Handout
Other

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities: Virginia Indian Heritage Trail [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th
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.
+
Primary
University of Pennsylvania

Penn Library: Walum Olum Ii

For Students 9th - 10th
Side-by-side English translation of The Walam Olum, which purports to be a pictographic record of the Delaware or Lenni Lenape Indians.
+
Primary
University of Pennsylvania

Penn Library: Walum Olum I

For Students 9th - 10th
The Walam Olum purports to be a pictographic record of the Delaware or Lenni Lenape Indians. Linked to second page showing the side-by-side pictographs and English translation rendered in 1833.
+
Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Read Write Think: Myth and Truth: "The First Thanksgiving" [Pdf]

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Contains plans for three lessons that examine the myth and reality behind the first Thanksgiving and the Wampanoag Native Americans in colonial America. In addition to objectives and standards, this instructional plan contains links to...
+
Unit Plan
CommonLit

Common Lit: Chief Powhatan's Address to Captain John Smith (1609)

For Students 7th - 8th
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...