Lesson Plan Dawes to Burke to McGirt: Tribal Sovereignty, 1887–2020 Geography 9, 10, 11, 12 Click to download this three-lesson unit.
Essay America the Newcomer: Claiming the Louisiana Purchase Elliott West Geography The Lewis and Clark expedition is rightly considered one of the great American stories. In May of 1804 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set off by keelboat up the Missouri River with thirty-one men, the "Corps of Discovery," on an...
Spotlight on: Primary Source De Soto's discovery of the Mississippi, 1541 Art, Geography, World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In 1539, Hernando de Soto led the first major European expedition into the interior of the southeastern North America, an area then known as La Florida. De Soto landed near Tampa Bay, Florida, with more than 600 men, and hoped to find...
Classroom Resources Cultural Encounters: Teaching Exploration and Encounter to Students Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Some 40,000 years from now, give or take a few millennia, someone, somewhere in the universe may find and listen to the Golden Record, NASA’s attempt to describe Earth and its peoples to anyone out there who might be interested. There...
Video Nature, Culture, and Native Americans Geography, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Daniel Wildcat is a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma and Director of the American Indian Studies Program at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. He discusses the importance of distinguishing between...
Essay The Americas to 1620 Christopher L. Miller Geography, World History 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ At the end of the first millennium, most people in the Eastern Hemisphere had a firm sense of how the world was arranged, who occupied it, and how they had come to be where they were. Various sacred texts as well as long-standing folk...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Bartolomé de Las Casas debates the subjugation of the Indians, 1550 Art 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ This tract, a summary of a debate concerning the subjugation of Indians, contains the arguments of Bartolomé de Las Casas, the Bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, and Juan Gines Sepulveda, an influential Spanish philosopher, concerning the...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Secotan, an Algonquian village, ca. 1585 Art 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In the 1570s and 1580s, John White served as an artist and mapmaker to several expeditions around the Carolinas. White made numerous watercolor sketches depicting the Algonquian people and stunning American landscapes. This engraving...
Essay The Discovery of the Americas and the Transatlantic Slave Trade Ira Berlin 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...