Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Us History: 1491 1607: Quiz 1
Take this five question quiz over the Native Americans and European exploration in the Americas.
Other
Radford University: Prelude to European Settlement of Virginia
This site traces the early voyages of explorers from Portugal and Spain who were trying to find new resources.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Zagat's Guide to the Columbian Exchange
This is a unit plan designed for a class that meets for approximately 60-96 minutes. It is also recommended that this project be used to conclude a unit that covers European exploration and the Columbian Exchange. Young scholars will...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Exploring Borderlands:christopher Columbus
This passage features explorer Christopher Columbus as an author documenting his travels and experiences through letters and such. Click on "Christopher Columbus Activities" for related artifacts and activities.
Louisiana Department of Education
Louisiana Doe: Louisiana Believes: Social Studies: Grade 5: The Age of Exploration in the Americas
Read and study the sources about the European Age of Exploration. As you read the four sources, think about the ways in which exploration during this time period impacted the Americas.
Library of Congress
Loc: Exploring the Early Americas: Competition for Empire
Part of a larger site, the primary sources here deal with the competition among the European countries in establishing a foothold in the New World.
University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota: Immigration: Racial Encounters in Colonial America
Copper plate engravings offer one example of the racialization of colonized peoples. At the turn of the 17th century, most Europeans' visual conceptions of the Americas came from the engravings of the workshop of Flemish print-maker...
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: The Literature of Exploration
Had history taken a different turn, the United States easily could have been a part of the great Spanish or French overseas empires. Its present inhabitants might speak Spanish and form one nation with Mexico, or speak French and be...
Digital History
Digital History: The Meaning of America
Although brief, this article points out the opposing views of the New World of America in European eyes during the exploration and early colonization period.
Digital History
Digital History: European Commercial and Financial Expansion
An interesting look at the support for Portuguese exploration by the bankers of Germany and Italy. See how Christopher Columbus' desires for riches was stoked by Portuguese trading posts in the Atlantic.
Enchanted Learning
Enchanted Learning: Explorers of North and Central America
This is a comprehensive guide to all the people who explored Central and North America. They are alphabetically listed with brief biographies. Some entries have links for further information or activities.
Bullock Texas State History Museum
Bullock Museum: American Indians
Immerse in the campfire stories of the people who defined Texas. Find out about how the two Americas: the Europeans' version, and the American Indians' version, started changing forever.
George Mason University
Chnm: Differences Among Colonial Regions
Students will explore the differences among the three colonial regions of New England, Mid-Atlantic/Middle, and the Southern colonies. In small groups for each region, students will observe and note details of pictures, maps, and...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The English, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Six poems written by navigators and included by George Peckham, and Richard Hakluyt's argument to promote British settlement in North America. Both documents were directed to Queen Elizabeth I in an effort to promote British involvement...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The French, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Three maps reflecting French exploration along rivers in North America and three French explorers' accounts of the astonishing hardships they endured and the possibilities for trade with natives they opened.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Us History: 1491 1607: Environmental/health Effects in New World
European arrival in the Americas decimated both indigenous people and previously-flourishing ecosystems.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Failed Colonies, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Three European accounts of the disappointments, challenges, and outright failures to establish early successful colonial outposts in North America.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Spanish, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Two maps and four accounts of the Spanish exploration of North America that reflect the goals of the conquistadors and fascination with the land they examined-and the brutality of their treatment of native peoples.
The History Place
The History Place: American Revolution
The History Place provides this timeline broken into six different sections that highlight the important events from the early European exploration of America through to the United States becoming a country. Features include informative...
Library of Congress
Loc: 1492: An Ongoing Voyage
An exhibit by the Library of Congress supplies diverse facts on the famous 1492 voyage. The exhibition first examines the encounter between the European explorers and the native people. They explore five geographical areas: The Caribbean...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Response, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Five literary responses to exploration and discovery-poems, fictional accounts, a play, and journal entries-that reflect European desire, frustration, and enchantment with the New World.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Contact: First Impressions
English, Spanish, and Portuguese maps and letters of about the voyages of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and Portuguese explorer, Gaspar Corte Real, which describe impressions of the lands explored.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Indians' Accounts, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Four accounts by Native Americans of their complex responses to and reactions toward European explorers near present-day Canada and Mexico.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Atlantic Coast, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Primary resources for U.S. history and literature offer a French and a Norse account of the earliest documented exploration on the Atlantic coast of North America and encounters with native peoples. Includes questions for discussion.