Digital History
Digital History: The Life Cycle of a Slave [Pdf]
Read excerpts from these slave and ex-slave narratives to find out what the life of a slave was like through all stages of life--childhood, marriage, and old age. See the heartbreak of mothers being separated from their children, and...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Constitutional Rights Foundation: An Overview of the African American Experience
Lesson with article and questions for discussion on the experience of African-Americans beginning with the slave trade.
Books in the Classroom
Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site: Civil War in Children's Literature
This page from Carol Hurst's Children's Literature offers book reviews and planning help for an upper elementary unit on the Civil War. Includes information on books for teachers, books for students, easy-purchase links, and links to...
McGraw Hill
Mc Graw Hill: Colonial Economy and Patterns of Society
Although tied to pages from a specific text, these AP study questions allow anyone to consider aspects of colonial economics. (Answers to some of the questions are located at the following link:...
InterKnowledge Corp.
Geographia: Antigua and Barbuda's History and Culture
Read this interesting account of the history of Antigua and Barbuda detailing English development of sugar plantations and sugar mills, and the early emancipation of the slaves on the plantations.
EL Education
El Education: Bessy
8th grade students at the Pioneer Charter School in Fort Collins, Colorado, each created a historical character file (HCF) as part of a Learning Expedition on slavery. Each HCF is a fictionalized account of a historically/geographically...
ClassFlow
Class Flow: African Heritage: Frederick Douglass
[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart aims to help students understand how Frederick Douglass's writing painted a powerfully negative portrait of life on southern plantations. It uses video as well as text to inform students.
PBS
Africans in America: Virginia Looks Toward Africa for Labor
This website explains why Virginia needed laborers, why it led to the use of African labor and how it was justified by Christians. Hyperlinks to related topics on the site.
Other
Texas Beyond History: Uncovering Our Heritage
Use archaeology to teach students about the history of Texas. There are online exhibits and a large teacher resource page with lesson plans for all subject areas using archaeology as an entry point for the lessons. A kids-only page gives...
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: The Slave Experience: Family
Using oral histories and primary sources, the story of slave family life is told.
University of Oregon
Mapping History: American History
Interactive and animated maps and timelines of historical events and time periods in American history from pre-European times until post-World War II.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Colonial Williamsburg: Colonial African American Life
Provides a few statistics on slaves in Maryland and Virginia and then contrasts the lives of field hand vs household or urban slaves.
Digital History
Digital History: The Sections [Pdf]
Soon after the end of the Revolutionary War, the characteristics of the various parts of the new United States established themselves. Find out about the sectionalism, economy, and needs in the country in the early 1800s--the...
Other
Mr. Kash's History Page: Comparing and Contrasting the North and South
Chart showing the differences between the North and the South in the United States in the mid-1800s. Students are asked to copy the information and to write a paragraph explaining the differences.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Community, Making of African American Identity: V. 1, 1500 1865
Twenty nine primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore how enslaved individuals and families coped with, adjusted to, maintained communities within, and opposed the system of oppression.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Enslaved Family, Making of African American Identity: Vol. 1
This site offers two letters and a memoir from the mid-nineteenth century, and interviews from the early-twentieth century, about the importance and the roles of enslaved families.
University of Virginia
Virginia Center for Digital History: United States Expansion, 1800 1860
An essay that looks at issues affecting Americans leading up to the Civil War. These included economic changes that led to new ideological, social, cultural, and political issues that further divided the nation along moral and regional...
EL Education
El Education: Fanta
8th grade students in Fort Collins, Colorado each created a historical character file (HCF) as part of a Learning Expedition on slavery. Each HCF is a fictionalized account of an historically/geographically accurate character. Each file...
Black Past
Black Past: Jordan Hatcher Case (1852)
Learn about the slave Jordan Hatcher who was charged with killing and assaulting a white man and how his trail affected others.
Digital History
Digital History: Enslaved African Americans and Religious Revivalism
A brief look at the role of Christianity in the lives of slaves in the 1800s. See how evangelicalism was reflected in the way slaves practiced their religion.
Travel Document Systems
Tds: Antigua and Barbuda: History
A brief history of Antigua and Barbuda beginning with the earliest inhabitants, the Siboney, and continuing to the elections of 2004. Information is from the U.S. State Dept. Background Notes.
Other
Monticello: Sally Hemings and Her Children
Monticello's biography of Sally Hemings. Provides a link to a description of the Hemings-Jefferson controversy.