In this lesson, students read about Spanish colonialism and the laws that were created to monitor the impact on the New World. A set of discussion questions is provided. In an associated activity, students will role play in a simulated Council of the Indies lawmaking session.

With this digital collection, students will examine advice manuals, letters, cartoons and other materials to explore the common features of colonial life and what Britons setting out for the Indian empire expected to find there, hoped to achieve, and the challenges they faced. Students will answer the following questions: 1. What do the different documents in this collection tell you about why Britons in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ventured out into the Empire? 2. How did the perspective on the British Empire differ between people who lived and worked in India versus people who remained in the British Isles? 3. How did Britons perceive native peoples? 4. Do any of these documents give you an idea of why England wanted to create an empire in the first place?

The web of maritime connections between Western Europe, western and central Africa, and the Americas that made up the Atlantic world is the focus of this section of "On the Water: Stories from Maritime America", an online exhibition from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Students will learn how Atlantic-based trade shaped modern world history and life in America. Topics covered are the tobacco and sugar trades, the Middle Passage and the transatlantic slave trade, and the piracy that plagued the Caribbean Sea and North American coast during this period.

Students will examine content related to mercantilism. Students will use a map to identify political boundaries, analyze primary and secondary sources, and evaluate the impact of economic forces. Students will also participate in an activity to simulate the flow of goods and gold between colonies and the mother countries.

Students explore the two worlds that made contact when Columbus stepped ashore in the New World in 1492. The goals of this lesson are to gain an understanding of the forces within European society that found expression in the voyage of Christopher Columbus, to examine the cultures of those whom Columbus and his successors encountered in the New World, to analyze the degree to which cultural expectations shaped the encounter experience for Columbus, and to reconstruct the encounter experience for those who saw Columbus sail into their world.

This article explains how slaves became the focus of trade between Europe and Africa from the seventeenth century and explores the effects of the transatlantic slave trade.

This unit brings together multimedia resources describing Imperialism. Multiple documents are available for analysis of policies among competing nations that led to Colonialism, Social Darwinism, Racism, Nationalism and Paternalism.

This unit brings together multimedia resources describing the Age of Exploration. Multiple documents are available for examining notable voyages of discovery from various perspectives including economic, technological innovation, and trade as well as explaining the consequences for native peoples and enslaved populations.

In this lesson students will gain an understanding of the history of the African slave trade, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the development of slavery in America through discussing historical facts, art work, and excerpts from the book, Copper Sun.

This presentation is used with a lesson that allows students to gain an understanding of the history of the African slave trade, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the development of slavery in America through discussing historical facts, art work, and excerpts from the book, Copper Sun.

In this lesson, students read excerpts from Columbus's letters and journals, as well as recent considerations of his achievements. Students reflect on the motivations behind Columbus's explorations, his reactions to what he found and the consequences, intended and unintended, of his endeavor.

Students will analyze primary text and visual sources in order to identify the roles of women in the development of the Cape Colony. Students will identify point of view in a variety of sources and understand the difference between different types of written documents, such as journals and diaries, letters, or legal documents. Students will write an essay summarizing the lesson.