With this digital collection, students will review primary sources that develop the historical context for the debates over Africa and the slave trade. Students will consider the following questions as they review the documents: 1. How did eighteenth-century European and American writers portray Africans? How are these representations shaped by the writers’ own experiences and convictions? 2. What arguments did eighteenth-century writers make in support of and in opposition to the slave trade? How are these arguments shaped by each writer’s understanding of African civilization? 3. How does Olaudah Equiano contribute to these debates? How does he portray his own experiences of slavery and freedom? How does he define his identity as African, British, and Christian?

In this lesson, students learn about the potato famine and how it contributed to immigration from Ireland to America. Discussion questions are provided. In an associated activity, students role play an Irish family and decide whether or not to immigrate to America.

In this activity, students listen to a historical narrative and analyze other primary and secondary sources in order to answer a series of questions.

In this lesson, students will use debate to determine the advantages and drawbacks of traveling west using original sources and descriptions of the attitudes, beliefs, and experiences of the pioneers.

In this lesson, students will be able to compare Cherokee experience with Seminole experience under the Indian Removal Act and make inferences about different points of view of the Second Seminole War using primary documents, assuming a role of historical figure in the war and by role playing an interview with Harper's Weekly Reporter.

This lesson will focus on the views of the founders as expressed in primary documents from their own time and in their own words. Students will see that many of the major founders opposed slavery as contrary to the principles of the American Revolution.

In this writing activity, students use the images and texts in the documents provided to write a well-organized essay of at least five paragraphs in response to the following question: Evaluate the role of children in the Atlantic slave trade during the 18th and 19th centuries, based on analysis of evidence in the documents.

In this lesson, students examine children's experiences in the trans-Atlantic slave trade in terms of their capture, transport, and usage as laborers. They will also assess factors in the continuation of the slave trade in the Americas, and in its fluctutation over time, and assess efforts by abolitionists to draw attention to the evils of slavery through publication of narratives and images involving children and the brutalities to which they were exposed.

In this activity, students examine a series of primary source documents that are designed to provide a well-rounded examination of children's experiences in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Each of the sources offers a different perspective. By juxtaposing these narratives against images of the slave trade, students can begin to understand the brutalities of enslavement. A set of discussion questions is provided.

Students will examine several documents related to the life of Solomon Northup, whose life story is told in his autobiography Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841 and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation Near the Red River in Louisiana.

In this activity students compare an eighteenth-century print of a slave ship and a table of data about the voyages of the slave ship to draw facts and make inferences about the transatlantic slave trade. This activity was designed for the Smartboard, but it can be completed without a Smartboard.

In this lesson, students examine the Statute for Religious Freedom that Virginia passed in 1786 and how it served as a model for the First Amendment. A set of discussion questions is provided. In an associated activity, students role play as James Madison and Patrick Henry and debate which person's bill should be supported.

In this lesson, students will learn to recognize different types of prejudice. Additionally, given four primary source documents, a capture sheet, and a survey about immigrants, students will accurately analyze the similarities between views on the Chinese, Irish and Latino immigrants using political cartoons and provide oral and written evidence of their findings.

In this lesson, students explain the methods Penn used to attract settlers to his colony and evaluate the effectiveness of Penn's ability to attract settlers to the colony. Students will also compare and contrast Penn's account of the colony with Daniel Pastorius' account.

This interactive timeline highlights the stories of the women of Vance Birthplace in the mountains of North Carolina. From prehistory to the twentieth century, students can explore each woman's experience of life in the Reems Creek Valley through videos, primary and secondary sources, and graphics.

Explore the movement and exchange of plants, animals, and diseases from the Old World to the New World and the New World to the Old World.