Classroom Resources Study Aid: Major European Explorers Foreign Languages, Geography, World History 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 View this infographic as a PDF.
Spotlight on: Primary Source Indenture agreement, 1742 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Colonial Americans engaged in many forms of unfree labor, with great numbers of youths moving away from their families to become servants or apprentices. The terms of their service were spelled out in contracts called indentures,...
Spotlight on: Primary Source A secret agreement between pirate hunters, 1696 World History Maritime trade and exploration in the colonial era created an environment ripe for piracy. One of the most famous pirates in history, Captain William Kidd, was commissioned by William III of England in 1695 as a privateer to hunt and...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The New York Conspiracy of 1741 Economics, Government and Civics In New York City in 1741 an economic decline exacerbated conflict between enslaved men and women engaged in commercial activity and working-class White colonists who felt their jobs were threatened. This tension boiled over in the...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Sir Francis Drake’s attack on St. Augustine, 1586 Economics, World History Five years after leading the first English circumnavigation of the globe in 1577–1580, Sir Francis Drake led a raid against Spanish settlements in the Caribbean including Santiago, Santo Domingo, and Cartagena, as well as St....
Spotlight on: Primary Source Slave revolt in the West Indies, 1733 Economics, Geography, World History The prevalence of slavery in pre-Revolutionary America made actual and threatened uprisings of enslaved people of intense interest throughout the British colonies in North America. The West Indies, or Caribbean islands, where slavery...
Lesson Plan The French and Indian War Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...
Spotlight on: Primary Source A report from Spanish California, 1776 Foreign Languages, Government and Civics Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, military commander of Alta California, wrote this letter from Mission San Gabriel. Rivera y Moncada was instrumental in the development of missions in California and was in a sometimes-contentious...