Social Studies

How did Native Peoples live in New England before Europeans arrived?

• • On a physical map of North America, use cardinal directions, map scales, legends, and titles to locate the Northeast region and identify important physical features (e.g., rivers, lakes, ocean shoreline, capes and bays, and mountain ranges).

  • On a political map of the current United States, locate the New England states (Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine).

  • Explain the diversity of Native Peoples, present and past, in Massachusetts and the New England region.

How did European explorers describe the Northeast and its Native Peoples?

• • Locate North America, the Atlantic Ocean, and Europe on a map, explain how Native Peoples first came into contact with Europeans, and explain why Europeans in the 16^th-17^th centuries sailed westward across the Atlantic (e.g., to find new trade routes to Asia and new supplies of natural resources such as metals, timber, and fish).

  • Trace on a map the voyages of European explorers of the Northeast coast of North America (e.g., Giovanni Caboto [John Cabot], Bartholomew Gosnold, Giovanni de Verrazano, John Smith, Samuel de Champlain).

  • Explain how any one of the explorers described the Native Peoples and the new lands, and compare an early 17^th century map of New England with a current one.

What were the challenges for women and men in the early years in Plymouth?

• • Explain who the Pilgrim men and women were and why they left Europe to seek a place where they would have the right to practice their religion; describe their journey, the government of their early years in the Plymouth Colony, and analyze their relationships with the Wampanoag and Abenaki/Wabanaki people.

    • • the purpose of the Mayflower Compact and the principle of self-government

      • challenges for Pilgrim men, women, and children in their new home

      • contacts with the native leaders Samoset and Massasoit, events leading to a celebration to give thanks for the harvest, and subsequent relationships between Europeans and Native Peoples in southeastern Massachusetts

How did the interactions of Native Peoples, Europeans, and enslaved and free Africans shape the development of Massachusetts?

• • Compare and contrast the roles and leadership decisions of early English leaders of the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Pilgrims of the Plymouth colony (e.g., John Winthrop, Miles Standish, William Brewster, Edward Winslow, William Bradford, John Alden, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker) and the roles and decisions of the leaders of Native Peoples (e.g., Massasoit, Metacom, also known as King Philip).

  • Explain why Puritan men and women migrated in great numbers to Massachusetts in the 17^th century, how they moved west from the Atlantic coast, and the consequences of their migration for the Native Peoples of the region (e.g., loss of territory, great loss of life due to susceptibility to European diseases, religious conversion, conflicts over different ways of life such as the Pequot War and King Philip’s War).

  • Using visual primary sources such as paintings, artifacts, historic buildings, or text sources, analyze details of daily life, housing, education, and work of the Puritan men, women, and children of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, including self-employed farmers and artisans, indentured servants, employees, and enslaved people.

  • Explain that in the 17^th and 18^th century slavery was legal in all the French, Dutch, Spanish, and English colonies, including Massachusetts, and that colonial Massachusetts had both free and enslaved Africans in its population.

  • Explain the importance of maritime commerce and the practice of bartering – exchanging goods or services without payment in money - in the development of the economy of colonial Massachusetts, using materials from historical societies and history museums as reference materials.

Why is Massachusetts important to the nation’s history?

How did different views about the fairness of taxes and government lead to the American Revolution?

• • Using a historical map, explain the extent of the Province of Massachusetts in the 17^th and 18^th centuries (including territory which is now included in Maine, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, as well as Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket). Explain reasons for the growth of towns and cities in Massachusetts in the 1700s.

  • Analyze the connection between events, locations, and individuals in Massachusetts in the early 1770s and the beginning of the American Revolution, using sources such as historical maps, paintings, and texts of the period.

  • Analyze how the colonists’ sense of justice denied led to declaring independence, and what the words of the Declaration of Independence say about what its writers believed.

  • Explain how, after the Revolution, the leaders of the new United States had to write a plan for how to govern the nation, and that this plan is called the Constitution. Explain that the rights of citizens are spelled out in the Constitution’s first ten Amendments, known as the Bill of Rights; explain that full citizenship rights were restricted to white male property owners over the age of 21 in the new Republic.

  • Explain that states as well as nations have plans of government; recognize that the Constitution of Massachusetts (1780) is the oldest functioning constitution in the world, that its primary author was John Adams, and that, in addition to outlining government, it gives basic rights to citizens of the Commonwealth.

How can people get involved in government?

• • On a current map of Massachusetts, use cardinal directions, map scales, legends, and titles to locate and describe the city or town where the school students attend is located, its local geographic features and historic landmarks, and their significance.

  • Research the demographic origins of the town or city (e.g., the Native People who originally lived there or still live there, the people who established it as a colonial town, its founding date, and the free, indentured, and enslaved women and men who contributed to the well-being of the town). Explain that before the mid-19^th century most of the settlers were of Native American, Northern European, or African descent; describe the current population and immigrant groups of the 20^th and 21^st centuries and interview family members, friends, and neighbors to obtain information about living and working there in the past and present.

  • Explain why classrooms, schools, towns, and cities have governments, what governments do, how local governments are organized in Massachusetts, and how people participate in and contribute to their communities.