United States History and Geography: Making a New Nation
Development of the nation prior to 1850
- How geography and climate influenced the way various nations lived and adjusted to the natural environment, including locations of villages, the distinct structures that they built and how they obtained food, clothing, tools and utensils
- Their varied customs and folklore traditions
- Their varied economies and systems of government
5.2 EARLY EXPLORERS AND THEIR ROUTES
- The entrepreneurial characteristics of early explorers (Columbus, Vasquez de Coronado) and the technological developments that made sea exploration by latitude and longitude possible (compass, sextant, astrolabe, seaworthy, chronometers, gunpowder, etc)
- The aims, obstacles and accomplishments of the explorers, sponsors and leaders of key European expeditions and the reasons Europeans chose to explore and colonize the world (e.g., the Spanish Reconquista, the Protestant Reformation, the Counter Reformation)
- The routes of the major land explorers of the U.S., the distances traveled by explorers and the Atlantic trade routes that linked African, the West Indies, the British Colonies and Europe
- Maps of North and South America land claimed by Spain, France, England, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden and Russia
5.3 COOPERATION AND CONFLICT AMONG THE INDIANS AND BETWEEN THE INDIANS AND THE SETTLERS
- The competition among the English, French, Spanish, Dutch and Indian nations for control of North America
- The cooperation that existed between the colonists and Indians during the 1600s and 1700s (agriculture, fur trade, military alliances, treaties, cultural interchanges)
- The conflicts before the Revolutionary War (the Pequot and King Philip's Wars in New England, the Powhatan Wars in Virginia, the French and Indian War)
- The role of broken treaties and massacres and the factors that led to the Indians' defeat, including the resistance of Indian nations to encroachments and assimilation (the Trail of Tears)
- The internecine Indian conflicts, including the competing claims for control of lands (actions of the Iroquois, Huron, Lakota [Sioux])
- The influence and achievements of significant leaders of the time (e.g., John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Chief Tecumseh, Chief Logan, Chief John Ross, Sequoyah)
5.4 COLONIAL POLITICAL, RELIGIOUS, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS
- The influence of location and physical setting on the founding of the original 13 colonies, and the locations of the colonies and of the American Indian nations already there
- The major individuals and groups responsible for the founding of various colonies and the reasons for their founding (John Smith, Virginia; Roger Williams, Rhode Island; William Penn, Pennsylvania; Lord Baltimore, Maryland; William Bradford, Plymouth; John Winthrop, Massachusetts)
- The religious aspects of the earliest colonies (Puritanism in Massachusetts, Anglicanism in Virginia, Catholicism in Maryland, Quakerism in Pennsylvania)
- The significance and leaders of the First Great Awakening, which marked a shift in religious ideas, practices and allegiances in the colonial period, the growth of religious toleration and free exercise of religion
- How the British colonial period created the basis for the development of political self-government and a free-market economic system and the differences between the British, Spanish and French colonial systems
- The introduction of slavery into America, the responses of slave families to their condition, the ongoing struggle between proponents and opponents of slavery and the gradual institutionalization of slavery in the South.
- The early democratic ideas and practices that emerged during the colonial period, including the significance of representative assemblies and town meetings
5.5 THE CAUSES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
- How the political, religious and economic ideas and interests brought about the Revolution (resistance to imperial policy, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, taxes on tea, Coercive Acts)
- The significance of the first and second Continental Congress and of the Committees of Correspondence
- The people and events associated with the drafting and signing of the Declaration of Independence and the document's significance, including the key political concepts it embodies, the origins of those concepts and its role in severing ties with Great Britain
- The views, lives and impact of key individuals during this period (King George III, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams)
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