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Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Prosperity, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Four original source accounts, and four related maps, of successful English, French, and Spanish settlements in North America and the Caribbean that explain the qualities of these settlements and their reasons for permanence and prosperity.
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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Instructions, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Three maps of European settlement in Virginia, the Pacific Northwest, and the Spanish New World, and the accompanying official instructions from lenders and monarchs about the obligations, opportunities, and hopes that those...
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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Go Ahead, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
A Spanish, an English, and a French account of the enormous challenges in maintaining a colonial presence in North America and of the potential national loss-of pride, wealth, and possibility for expansion-if nations abandoned these...
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Primary
National Humanities Center

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

For Students 9th - 10th
Two eighteenth-century maps and four accounts of the mutual perceptions, suspicions, and observations between Spanish and French explorers on the Gulf Coast.
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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: First Arrivals, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Numerous visual images of artifacts from English settlements at Jamestown and at Plymouth, and from Spanish settlement in Hispaniola, and three original accounts of each of those early settlements that describe the possibilities and the...
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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Hardships, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Three English, a French, and a Spanish primary account of the staggering losses, misery, and deprivation that characterized early European settlement as well as the resilience needed to overcome those challenges.
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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Cities & Towns, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Four accounts of the visits to and growth of colonial cities in Spanish, British, and French New World settlements that demonstrate why certain communities developed successfully.
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Handout
Other

Texas Bob: The First Europeans in Texas: 1528 1536

For Students 9th - 10th
One of the first Europeans to penetrate the interior of Texas, read Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's account of his shipwreck and eventual return to the Spanish Court.
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Article
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Indian Relations, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
One modern historical assessment and several original accounts of the mistrust, negotiations, alliances, trading, and disease transmission between European colonizers and native peoples in North America.
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Article
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Indian Wars, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Five documents representing the full range of Indian-European antagonisms, struggles for power, and outright warfare among the Spanish, Pueblo, Wampanoag, English, and French in New Spain, New France, New Mexico, and New England.
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Website
InterKnowledge Corp.

Geographica.com: Adventure in Argentina

For Students 9th - 10th
This site from Geographica.com contains information on a variety of parks in Argentina. A description of each follows the name of the park.
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Handout
Internet History Sourcebooks Project

Fordham University: Modern History Sourcebook: Chronicles of the Incas, 1540

For Students 9th - 10th
This site from Fordham University "provides quite a lot of information about the Incan economy--a redistributive typical of all early civilizations."
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Handout
Walled Lake Consolidated Schools

Loon Lake Elementary School: Panfilo De Narvaez

For Students 3rd - 5th
A biography of Panfilo de Narvaez (1470: 1528), a Spanish conquistador and explorer who was famous for the exploration of Cuba and for leading an ill fated expedition to Florida and North America. This site has a Google widget that will...
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Graphic
Curated OER

Etc: Routes of Lewis and Clark, 1804 1805

For Students 9th - 10th
A map of western North America showing the routes of exploration by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (1803-1806), and Zebulon Pike (1806-1807). The map shows the newly purchased Louisiana Territory, the Indian Territory east of the...
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Graphic
Curated OER

Educational Technology Clearinghouse: Maps Etc: Oregon Controversy, 1792 1846

For Students 9th - 10th
A map of the Oregon Territory between the time of exploration by George Vancouver (1792) and the Oregon Treaty of 1846. The map is color-coded to show the disputed claims of the British and United States, the Russian American line of...
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Graphic
Curated OER

Western Hemisphere, Detail of Universalis Cosmographia, 1507

For Students 9th - 10th
English, Spanish, and Portuguese maps and letters about exploration and impressions of the Western hemisphere in the early 1500s. T
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Graphic
Curated OER

Facial Reconstruction of Skull Excavated in Jamestown

For Students 9th - 10th
Three English, a French, and a Spanish primary account of the staggering losses, misery, and deprivation that characterized early European settlement as well as the resilience needed to overcome those challenges.
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Graphic
Curated OER

Coat of Arms, Lord Baltimore

For Students 9th - 10th
Three maps of European settlement in Virginia, the Pacific Northwest, and the Spanish New World, and the accompanying official instructions from lenders and monarchs about the obligations, opportunities, and hopes that those...
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Graphic
Curated OER

Slideshow

For Students 9th - 10th
Three documents reflecting official views of how to rule and regulate a successful colony in New France, Jamaica, and the Spanish Indies.
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Website
British Library

British Library: The Search for the Northwest Passage

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Detailed third grade lessons help students understand what skills and knowledge were required in order to become an explorer. Includes specific lessons on John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, and Henry Hudson.
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Website
Curated OER

National Park Service: Cabrillo National Monument

For Students 9th - 10th
This website contains a wealth of information concerning the life of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the National Monument that was built in his memory, and his discovery of California.
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Handout
Other

Organization of American States: Simon Bolivar

For Students Pre-K - 1st
An informative exploration of the life of Simon Bolivar, the man known in South America as the "Liberator," because he led revolutions against Spanish colonial overlords in Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia.
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Lesson Plan
National Endowment for the Humanities

Neh: Edsit Ement: Other Worlds the Voyage of Columbus

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This site has a lesson plan designed for grades 9-12. The lesson plan deals with understanding the culture from which Columbus came, Renaissance Europe, and the culture he found in the New World.
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Handout
Other

Texas Bob: The Journey of Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca

For Students 9th - 10th
An English translation of Cabeza De Vaca's first-hand account of his journey and quest to claim territory from Florida to Mexico for Spain.