Essential Question:
How did the explorers and later the colonists who
came to the New World for “Gold, Glory and/or
God” justify their treatment of Native Americans,
African slaves, and indentured servants?
Were
there discrepancies between agreed upon political ideals
and the treatment of these minority groups?
Background
The nations that explored and colonized North and
South America during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries used a variety of approaches for
subjugating Native Americans, African slaves, and indentured
servants. Once Jamestown was settled in 1607, democratic
policies were incorporated into colonial governments,
but at the same time, slaves were being imported to
work the settlement’s tobacco fields. Historians,
interpreting primary source documents, have come up
with very different conclusions about the treatment
of the above groups.
Because of labor shortages in English colonies like
Virginia, slaves and indentured servants filled an
immediate economic need for landowners. Slavery had
become rooted in American society in the closing decades
of the seventeenth century. The number of slaves grew
rapidly, from only a few thousand in 1670 to tens of
thousands in the early eighteenth century.
The goal of this lesson is for the students to explore
the contradictions and complexities regarding behavior,
desires, and democratic ideals of this time period.
Motivational Strategy
Ask students to name nations around the world today that deny certain groups
of citizens their basic human rights. They will probably mention communist nations
or nations with dictators in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa. Ask them to
list the basic human rights that may be denied and discuss why it is important
for these rights to be granted. Students will most likely mention the freedoms
of speech, press, religion, assembly, and possibly due process under the law.
Have them jump back into history and imagine a time when certain minority groups
were not even granted the rights to life and liberty (this would be a good time
to define slavery and indentured servitude). Use this to suggest that as the
New World was being explored and settled by European powers such as England and
Spain during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Native-Americans,
African Slaves, and Indentured Servants were three oppressed groups who were denied
basic rights
Objectives
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Students will be able to understand the complexity
of the issues discussed in the Essential Questions.
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Students
will read and be able to evaluate and analyze
primary source documents.
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Students will be able
to gain expertise in the early colonial
period and be able to convey/share information
with their peers.
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Students will be able
to place the information they acquire
into historical context.
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