Social Studies - United States History I
Lesson Plans

U.S. I Strand 2: COLONIZATION

(Ca. 1565-1776)

Driven by economic, religious, and political opportunities, colonial powers from Europe established footholds, then empires in North America. Many colonists fled poverty or persecution to start new lives in an unfamiliar land. Africans were enslaved and brought to the Americas against their will. Interactions between colonists and the indigenous peoples living in North America added complexity to the colonies. Geographic and cultural factors influenced where colonists settled and how they lived. Sectional and regional differences emerged that would affect American history. Patterns established within the English colonies on the Eastern seaboard would shape many of the dominant political, economic, linguistic, and religious traditions of the United States.

Possible Guiding Questions to Consider:

• What is a colony?
• What role did the concepts of self-government and religious freedom play in the colonial era?
• How did economic philosophies such as mercantilism promote colonization?
• How were English colonization patterns on the Atlantic coast different from those of the French colonies in the interior and Spanish colonization in what is now the southwestern United States?
• How are colonization patterns of the French, Spanish, and English colonies evident in human geography patterns today?

U.S. I Standard 2.1:

Students will identify the economic, social, and geographic factors that influenced the colonization efforts of the Dutch, English, French, and Spanish.

• What's In a Name?
  Structured as game questions, this activity challenges students to identify cities, states and geographical features whose names tell the story of the Indigenous, Spanish and Mexican settlement that predated the U.S. The investigative questions can be used alone as a geography trivia game, as a matching activity, or in conjunction with analysis of historical maps.

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