81 items
Taxation and Representation: The Imperial Debate between Britain and the Americans
Brown University historian Gordon Wood describes the British and American conceptions of representation during the eighteenth century, widely diverging points of view that were forged by radically different experiences with...
The Formation of Slave Culture
Historian Ira Berlin briefly discusses the evolution of slave culture based on African and American experiences of the enslaved.
Teaching the Topic of Slavery
Historian Ira Berlin briefly discusses ways to address slavery in the classroom and teach students how to engage in historical argument.
The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States
Bancroft and Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Gordon S. Wood, the Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University, discusses his 2011 essay collection, The Idea of America: Reflections on the...
History Times: The Colonial Era
Crossing the Atlantic Ocean Imagine saying goodbye to family, friends, and familiar places to take a dangerous voyage across thousands of miles of ocean in a small wooden ship. Your destination: a strange and often hostile land. Yet,...
The Discovery of the Americas and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
In the middle of the fifteenth century, Europe, Africa, and the Americas came together, creating—among other things—a new economy. At the center of that economy was the plantation, an enterprise dedicated to the production of exotic...
Cotton Mather’s account of the Salem witch trials, 1693
Most Americans’ knowledge of the seventeenth century comes from heavily mythologized events: the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth, Pocahontas purportedly saving Captain John Smith from execution in early Virginia, and the Salem witch...
The death of enslaved Africans on a voyage, 1725
Slavery in English America underwent profound changes during the first two centuries of settlement. During the early seventeenth century, some Black laborers were enslaved; others, however, were treated like White indentured servants...
Proclamation of 1763, 1763
At the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, France surrendered Canada and much of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys—two-thirds of eastern North America—to England. The Proclamation of 1763 “preserved to the said Indians” the lands west...
A bond for the manumission of a slave, 1757
In 1757, New York tavern keeper Eve Scurlock freed five slaves in her will, citing their fidelity, service, and good behavior. Among them was a woman named Ann, to whom Scurlock also willed money, clothing, and household items. Though...
The Province of Massachusetts Bay requests aid from Queen Anne, 1708
Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713) was the second of four great wars for empire fought among France and England and their Indian allies. This struggle broke out when the French raided English settlements on the New England frontier....
Olaudah Equiano, 1789
Within ten years of the first North American settlements, Europeans began transporting captured Africans to the colonies as enslaved laborers. Imagine the thoughts and fears of an eleven-year-old boy who was kidnapped from his village...
A View of Savannah, Georgia, 1734
The colony of Georgia was founded in 1732 by James Oglethorpe, a British Member of Parliament. Oglethorpe planned Savannah as a place where the poor could come to make a better life. An attempt to produce a "classless society," this...
Historical Context: American Slavery in Comparative Perspective
Of the ten to sixteen million Africans who survived the voyage to the New World, more than one-third landed in Brazil and between 60 and 70 percent ended up in Brazil or the sugar colonies of the Caribbean. Only 6 percent arrived in...
Statistics: Slaves and Slaveholdings
Slaveholding, 1860 Non-slaveholders 76.1 percent 1-9 slaves 17.2 percent 10-99 6.6 percent over 100 0.1 percent Distribution of Slaves Number of slaves held 0 1-6 7-39 40+ Percent of white families 75 15 9 1 Percent of slaves held 0...
Study Aid: Slavery Fact Sheet
Geography Enslaved Africans came primarily from a region stretching from the Senegal River in northern Africa to Angola in the south. Europeans divided this stretch of land into five coasts: Upper Guinea Coast: The area delineated by...
Study Aid: Slavery and the Law in Seventeenth-Century Virginia
1662 General Assembly determines “Negro women’s children to serve according to the condition of the mother.” 1667 General Assembly passes “An act declaring the baptisme of slaves doth not exempt them from bondage.” 1669 Virginia...
Study Aid: Major Slave Rebellions
New York City, 1712 Like many later revolts, this one occurred during a period of social dissension among White colonists following Leisler’s Rebellion. The rebels espoused traditional African religions. Stono Rebellion, 1739 The...
Historical Context: Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery
TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE VOYAGES Over the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million captured men, women, and children were put on ships in Africa, and 10.7 million arrived in the Americas. The...
Democracy in Early America: Servitude and the Treatment of Native Americans and Africans prior to 1740
Essential Questions How did European explorers and colonists who came to the New World for "Gold, Glory and/or God" justify their treatment of Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and indentured servants? To what extent were there...
Revolutionary Propaganda: Persuasion and Colonial Support
Background Many students misconstrue the American Revolution as a period of unanimous support for independence from Great Britain. However, colonists generally considered themselves loyal British citizens, asserting rightful...
New Amsterdam: The Center of the Dutch Settlement
Teaching with Russell Shorto’s book Island at the Center of the World Objectives Students will examine primary documents and secondary sources to analyze the effects of the Dutch West India Company settlement in North America....
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