Colonial America 1587-1763

 Life in a New Land

Essential Skills for this unit:

TEKS 8.2A Identify reasons for European exploration and colonization of North America. 

TEKS 8.2B Compare political, economic, religious, and social reasons for the establishment of the 13 English colonies.

TEKS 8.3A Explain the reasons for the growth of representative government and institutions during the colonial period.

Notes and Materials for this unit:

13 Colonies Notes

Colonial Self Government Notes

On-line Readings for This Unit

1. Britain in the New World
1. Early Ventures Fail
2. Joint-Stock Companies
3. Jamestown Settlement and the "Starving Time"
4. The Growth of the Tobacco Trade
5. War and Peace with Powhatan's People
6. The House of Burgesses
2. The New England Colonies
1. The Mayflower and Plymouth Colony
2. William Bradford and the First Thanksgiving
3. Massachusetts Bay — "The City Upon a Hill"
4. Puritan Life
5. Dissent in Massachusetts Bay
6. Reaching to Connecticut
7. Witchcraft in Salem
3. The Middle Colonies
1. New Netherland to New York
2. Quakers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey
3. City of Brotherly Love — Philadelphia
4. The Ideas of Benjamin Franklin
4. The Southern Colonies
1. Maryland — The Catholic Experiment
2. Indentured Servants
3. Creating the Carolinas
4. Debtors in Georgia
5. Life in the Plantation South
5. African Americans in the British New World
1. West African Society at the Point of European Contact
2. "The Middle Passage"
3. The Growth of Slavery
4. Slave Life on the Farm and in the Town
5. Free African Americans in the Colonial Era
6. "Slave Codes"
7. A New African-American Culture