Conquest
Teacher Resources
Lesson Guide
This guide includes all the usual stuff on timing and sample answers, but you should also read it as you prep for the What Are You Trading? game.
Map: Silver Trade and Transoceanic Voyages
This map can help your students visualize the routes of exchange and exploration that fueled the Columbian Exchange.
Driving Question: How did Europeans conquer empires in the Americas, and how did Indigenous people resist?
Beginning in the sixteenth century, Europeans invaded the Americas, imposing their rule on Indigenous communities. Disease, warfare, and slavery all took their toll on Indigenous American communities. Nonetheless, in every region, people resisted colonial rule.
Learning Objectives:
- Evaluate the strategies that European empires used to conquer and rule colonies in the Americas.
- Identify types of resistance and adaptation strategies employed by Indigenous Americans.
- Use sourcing skills to analyze how religions and cultures in the Americas changed as a result of colonization.
Vocab Terms:
The content in this lesson is particularly heavy. Students might need support understanding disease, forced migration, racial categorization, and plantation labor as part of one larger system. The sourcing activity can be especially valuable because it shifts the focus from the injustices that happened and onto the words of the people who explained and justified it.
If you need additional support, check out the OER Project guide to teaching sensitive topics.
European colonizers had powerful weapons and new strategies, but Indigenous communities responded with their own tools. How do you think they compared to each other?
This sourcing activity can be especially valuable because it shifts the focus from the injustices that took place and onto the words of the people who explained and justified it.
You can also have students view a two-minute video from historian Camilla Townshend on the importance of Aztec sources. Find the link and more in this community post.
European empires established colonies from Canada to Brazil. The materials below provide a sense of the scale of colonization and delve deeper into one of the most infamous examples: the Spanish invasion of the Aztec Empire.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
The Spanish colonization of the Americas happened quickly and spanned two continents. Consider some of the diverse methods that Indigenous people used to resist the invasions.
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Guiding Questions
Indigenous resistance against European rule in the Americas was widespread and constant. Evaluate how your thinking has changed over the course of this lesson.
