Read Works
First Thanksgiving Meal
Cranberries, oysters, lobster, deer, and cabbage were just a few of the foods found on the table at the First Thanksgiving. After reading a two-page passage about the historic meal, class members respond to 10 reading...
Other
Colonial America: Native American Cultures
A brief look at the Native American cultures before Contact and some discussion of the interaction with Europeans after Columbus. From an on-line American History textbook.
Library of Congress
Loc: American Memory: Colonial Settlement 1600s 1763
The settlement of the colonies in America is the focus of this article. The course of events is divided into topics and time periods, making it easier to understand. Note is made of the effects to the already present Native Americans as...
Other
Maryland Colonial Essay Contest: Native Americans of Maryland
This student essay discusses the Native Americans of Maryland that helped the colonists settle the land and survive, but were, in turn, run off of the land.
A&E Television
History.com: The Native American Chief Who Drove Out Spanish Colonists and Nearly Expelled the English
In the summer of 1561, Spanish explorers abducted Opechancanough, a Powhatan Indian youth from the Chesapeake Bay tidewater region and brought him to the royal court of Spain. The kidnapping set off a chain of events that would alter the...
University of Groningen
American History: Essays: Western Migration Towards the Interior
This resource provides an essay discussing the migration of American colonists into the Ohio River Valley and the impact on the Native Americans living in the area.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Colonial Williamsburg: Redefining Family
This site from the Colonial Williamsburg Museum explores the different "families" of colonial Williamsburg. Content includes a focus on each cultural group: white, Native American, and black.
A&E Television
History.com: Colonists at the First Thanksgiving Were Mostly Men Because Women Had Perished
According to this account (elements of which continue to be debated by historians, especially regarding the presence and role of Native Americans), the historic event didn't happen on the fourth Thursday in November, as it does today,...
Digital History
Digital History: The Fate of Native Americans
A brief look at the inability of Native Americans to halt the settlement of their lands by American colonists after the French and Indian War. There is a short description of Chief Pontiac and his alliance of several tribes which fought...
Other
Cabrillo College: An Introduction to California's Native People: Missionization
This site discusses the mission movement in California and its effect on the Native Americans. Timeline of the missions' founding is also provided.
Library of Congress
Loc: American Memory Timeline: Colonial Settlement,1600s 1763
Read about the colonization in the New World by many European countries. Hyperlinks to you to more specific topics.
PBS
Pbs:the Living Edens/manu Native People of Manu
An article on the Machiguenga, the native people of the Manu rainforest in Peru. This article talks about their culture, history, and their use of plants and animals.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Conquest, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
A series of illustrations and accounts of Spanish conquest of Indians that reflect the fascination with and the brutality directed against native cultures.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Power, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Fifty seven primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-and one secondary historical account that explore imperial conflict, European economic rivalry, and the impact of colonial rule on native peoples.
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...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Teacher Serve: Three Worlds, Three Views
Essay examining the cultural and environmental changes spanning 300 years in the pre-Revolutionary South as three worlds, Native American, European, and African collide. Site includes guiding questions for student discussion and scholars...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Teacher Serve: Religious Pluralism in the Middle Colonies
Essay looks at the phenomenon of religious pluralism in the middle colonies. Author discusses religious sects in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, as well as African Americans and Native Americans.
Other
New Netherland Institute: Early Descriptions of New Netherland
Excerpts from Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664, published in 1909, and available for free from Google Books. The first excerpt is from a 1644 account of Henry Hudson's descriptions of the new land he saw on his 1609 voyage. The...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: The First Great Awakening
In the middle of the 18th century, a series of evangelical religious revival movements swept across colonial America. Known as the First Great Awakening, the movements were characterized by emotional religious conversions from a state of...
Library of Virginia
Virginia Memory: Virginia Indians in the Twentieth Century
In this lesson, students examine how the annual payment of tribute to the governor by some of Virginia's Indians attest to their continuing presence. This is a tradition that was established in 1646.