United States History: Growth & Conflict
1492 - 1880
After reviewing the development of America’s democratic institutions founded on the Judeo-Christian heritage and English parliamentary traditions, particularly the shaping of the Constitution, students trace the development of American politics, society, culture, and economy and relate them to the emergence of major regional differences. They learn about the challenges facing the new nation, with an emphasis on the causes, course, and consequences of the Civil War. -California Department of Education
Unit 1: Conquest & Colliding Worlds, 1492 - 1650
Millions of Indians lived in today’s United States and Canada in 1492, and they had an American history that stretched back for more than ten thousand years. Truly, the American continent is the native land of the American Indians. At first contact, European and Indian needs and expectations varied widely, but ultimately Europeans prevailed throughout the hemisphere. Yet Indians did not merely fade away when Europeans arrived. They adjusted to new conditions of life and, when conditions were favorable, asserted a measure of control in the New World that Indians and Europeans together created. -Major Problems in American Indian History, 2nd Edition
Over the course of the centuries following 1942, people from Europe, the Americas, and Africa together would create a “new world.” Empires in search of land, slaves, and riches came into conflict with one another and in contact with indigenous peoples. Perhaps even more important than overt conflict was a mysterious and hidden exchange of disease. As native people were exposed to an array of disease, ranging from smallpox to influenza with which they had had little prior contact, they suffered epidemics that weakened their societies and therefore their ability to contest additional European incursions.
Student Learning Objectives:
cK-12 Chapter 2.2 Pocahontas
Conquest & Colliding Worlds Study Guide
Unit 2: American Society Takes Shape, 1650-1750
The series of English colonies which developed in the Chesapeake after 1607 were based in large part on the success of staple crops. Tobacco crops amplified the colonists’ demand for land – resulting in increased conflict between the colonists and neighboring Native Americans – and required intensive labor. Although laborers tended to be European indentured servants in the early years, African slaves later began to replace them. Slavery existed in all the British American colonies, but the plantation agriculture of the southern colonies never took root in the North. From very early on, colonial New England and the Middle Colonies had several prominent features which caused the society, culture, and economies of those norther colonies to develop in ways that differed from the southern colonies.
Student Learning Objectives:
cK-12 Chapter 2.5 King Philip's War
Unit 3: The Road to Revolution, 1750-1770
The French and Indian War, an epic conflict that secured America's destiny as an independent nation, began in the wilderness of the Pennsylvania frontier, eventually spreading throughout the colonies and into Canada. In this three-part lesson, students will focus on the critical military importance and strategic diplomacy of Native Americans in the conflict between the English and French, the introduction of George Washington as a young colonial officer serving under the British flag, and his transformation to commander of the Continental army fighting for independence. -PBS: The War That Made America
In March 1765, the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a tax on newspapers and all other printed materials in the American colonies. The British argued that the tax was needed to pay off debts that they had incurred while protecting the American colonists during the French and Indian War. The British thought that it was fair for the Americans to pay higher taxes. The Americans disagreed. -cK-12.org
Student Learning Objectives:
America's Place in the Global Struggle
cK-12 Chapter 3.1 Stamp Act
Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions
The Townshend Acts
Unit 4: The American Revolution
After the passage of the Stamp Act, tensions between the colonists and the British government continued to rise, and the colonists began to organize militias. On April 19, 1775, British troops marched from Boston to the nearby towns Lexington and Concord to arrest the militia’s leaders, John Hancock and Sam Adams, and to confiscate their weapons. The militias learned in advanced that the British were coming, and about 70 militiamen, also called minutemen, assembled before dawn on the central green of the town of Lexington. As dawn was breaking, a shot rang out which set off the first battle of the American Revolution. But who fired the shot? -cK-12.org
Student Learning Objectives:
The Battle of Lexington
Yorktown and the Treaty of Paris
Unit 5: Nationalism & Expansion
Expansion. Battles with Indian nations. The War of 1812. Welcome to America under Republican rule at the onset of the 19th century.The United States underwent dramatic changes during the period of Democratic-Republican (also called Jeffersonian Republican, or simply Republican) political leadership in the first decades of the 19th century. The republic's expansion to the west and renewed military conflict with Indian nations and Great Britain each posed a fundamental challenge to the fragile new republic. -USHistory.org
Resource Links:
The War of 1812
Ch. 24 The Age of Jackson
Unit 6: Pushing the Bear - A Novel of The Trail of Tears
"In 1838, thirteen thousand Cherokee were forced from their south-eastern homeland and walked nine hundred miles through four winter months to present-day Oklahoma on the tragic relocation trek known as the Trail of Tears. Uprooted and betrayed by the government they had trusted, the Cherokee struggled to endure the cruelty, disease, fatigue, and spiritual despair of the Trail and to face the prospect of beginning anew on unfamiliar soil. Bringing to life the ordeal are the haunting voices of Maritole, a young Cherokee woman; her embittered husband, Knowbowtee; and a host of others - Cherokee and white, soldier and missionary, parent and child..." - Diane Clancy, Pushing the Bear
Resource Links:
Millions of Indians lived in today’s United States and Canada in 1492, and they had an American history that stretched back for more than ten thousand years. Truly, the American continent is the native land of the American Indians. At first contact, European and Indian needs and expectations varied widely, but ultimately Europeans prevailed throughout the hemisphere. Yet Indians did not merely fade away when Europeans arrived. They adjusted to new conditions of life and, when conditions were favorable, asserted a measure of control in the New World that Indians and Europeans together created. -Major Problems in American Indian History, 2nd Edition
Over the course of the centuries following 1942, people from Europe, the Americas, and Africa together would create a “new world.” Empires in search of land, slaves, and riches came into conflict with one another and in contact with indigenous peoples. Perhaps even more important than overt conflict was a mysterious and hidden exchange of disease. As native people were exposed to an array of disease, ranging from smallpox to influenza with which they had had little prior contact, they suffered epidemics that weakened their societies and therefore their ability to contest additional European incursions.
Student Learning Objectives:
- Students will analyze primary source documents resenting diverse native traditions about their origins and relationship to the lands they call home.
- Students will identify the four main factors for European exploration in the fifteenth century.
- Students will examine the first contact experiences and expectations between Europeans and American Indians.
- Students will explore the effects of disease from European contact.
- Students will examine the loss of Native American history after European contact.
- Students will analyze an excerpt from Alfred W. Crosby’s The Columbian Exchange
cK-12 Chapter 2.2 Pocahontas
Conquest & Colliding Worlds Study Guide
Unit 2: American Society Takes Shape, 1650-1750
The series of English colonies which developed in the Chesapeake after 1607 were based in large part on the success of staple crops. Tobacco crops amplified the colonists’ demand for land – resulting in increased conflict between the colonists and neighboring Native Americans – and required intensive labor. Although laborers tended to be European indentured servants in the early years, African slaves later began to replace them. Slavery existed in all the British American colonies, but the plantation agriculture of the southern colonies never took root in the North. From very early on, colonial New England and the Middle Colonies had several prominent features which caused the society, culture, and economies of those norther colonies to develop in ways that differed from the southern colonies.
Student Learning Objectives:
- Students will compare and contrast life in the Chesapeake colonies with the New England colonies.
- Students will examine primary source documents from the original Puritan settlers.
- Students will explore the evolving relationship between colonists and Native Americans in late 1600s/early 1700s North America.
cK-12 Chapter 2.5 King Philip's War
Unit 3: The Road to Revolution, 1750-1770
The French and Indian War, an epic conflict that secured America's destiny as an independent nation, began in the wilderness of the Pennsylvania frontier, eventually spreading throughout the colonies and into Canada. In this three-part lesson, students will focus on the critical military importance and strategic diplomacy of Native Americans in the conflict between the English and French, the introduction of George Washington as a young colonial officer serving under the British flag, and his transformation to commander of the Continental army fighting for independence. -PBS: The War That Made America
In March 1765, the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a tax on newspapers and all other printed materials in the American colonies. The British argued that the tax was needed to pay off debts that they had incurred while protecting the American colonists during the French and Indian War. The British thought that it was fair for the Americans to pay higher taxes. The Americans disagreed. -cK-12.org
Student Learning Objectives:
- Students will explore the relationships between the French and the Native Americans and the English and the Native Americans prior to the French and Indian War.
- Students will understand the role geography played in the economic and political claims of the French and British in North America.
- Students will understand the motivation of Native Americans joining Pontiac in war against the British.
- Students will consider how colonists' responses to British taxation and heavy-handedness paved the way to Revolution.
America's Place in the Global Struggle
cK-12 Chapter 3.1 Stamp Act
Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions
The Townshend Acts
Unit 4: The American Revolution
After the passage of the Stamp Act, tensions between the colonists and the British government continued to rise, and the colonists began to organize militias. On April 19, 1775, British troops marched from Boston to the nearby towns Lexington and Concord to arrest the militia’s leaders, John Hancock and Sam Adams, and to confiscate their weapons. The militias learned in advanced that the British were coming, and about 70 militiamen, also called minutemen, assembled before dawn on the central green of the town of Lexington. As dawn was breaking, a shot rang out which set off the first battle of the American Revolution. But who fired the shot? -cK-12.org
Student Learning Objectives:
- Students will trace the growing grievances of the American colonists from the Stamp Act through the Coercive Acts.
- Students will understand how the Coercive Acts inspired the American colonists to call a meeting of the First Continental Congress in 1774.
- Students will evaluate strengths and weaknesses of the government under the Articles of Confederation.
- Students will identify the arguments made by the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists during the ratification debate.
- Students will analyze the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution.
- Students will explain concerns that led the Founders to value these principles.
The Battle of Lexington
Yorktown and the Treaty of Paris
Unit 5: Nationalism & Expansion
Expansion. Battles with Indian nations. The War of 1812. Welcome to America under Republican rule at the onset of the 19th century.The United States underwent dramatic changes during the period of Democratic-Republican (also called Jeffersonian Republican, or simply Republican) political leadership in the first decades of the 19th century. The republic's expansion to the west and renewed military conflict with Indian nations and Great Britain each posed a fundamental challenge to the fragile new republic. -USHistory.org
Resource Links:
The War of 1812
Ch. 24 The Age of Jackson
Unit 6: Pushing the Bear - A Novel of The Trail of Tears
"In 1838, thirteen thousand Cherokee were forced from their south-eastern homeland and walked nine hundred miles through four winter months to present-day Oklahoma on the tragic relocation trek known as the Trail of Tears. Uprooted and betrayed by the government they had trusted, the Cherokee struggled to endure the cruelty, disease, fatigue, and spiritual despair of the Trail and to face the prospect of beginning anew on unfamiliar soil. Bringing to life the ordeal are the haunting voices of Maritole, a young Cherokee woman; her embittered husband, Knowbowtee; and a host of others - Cherokee and white, soldier and missionary, parent and child..." - Diane Clancy, Pushing the Bear
Resource Links:
- Cherokee Bear Legends: Story A - Bear Legend and Story B - Bear Legend
- Cherokee Corn Legends: Story A - Kanati & Selu and Story B - The Origin of Game and of Corn