European colonies in the Americas

We often think about the history of the United States as linked with Britain, but what about the Spanish, Dutch and French?

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Over the next two years, Seeing America will grow to include 100 videos, 18 essays, quizzes, discussion questions and lesson plans.

Teaching guide<br>Six Portraits of the Levy-Franks family

Teaching guide
Six Portraits of the Levy-Franks family

The Levy-Franks were a prosperous Jewish family in early 18th century New York. Their portraits help to reveal a closely-connected British Empire spanning the Atlantic. The Levy-Franks supplied the British during the Seven Years' War, carried goods on Caribbean trade routes, and possibly brought enslaved people to the Americas.
APUSH: KC-2.2.I.A, KC-2.2.I.B

Teaching guide<br>Constructing identity in the Spanish colonies in America

Teaching guide
Constructing identity in the Spanish colonies in America

In New Spain, Indigenous people, Africans, Spaniards, and their descendants mixed together. Casta paintings show one way Spaniards attempted to place these mixed-race families and their children into a hierarchy, although the realities of race and status in Spanish colonial society were much more complex.
APUSH: KC-2.1.I.A

A Jewish Family in Early New York

A Jewish family in New York and London during the French Indian Wars

The making of an American myth

Re-examining a founding American myth

Teaching guide<br>Benjamin West, <em>Penn’s Treaty with the Indians</em>

Teaching guide
Benjamin West, Penn’s Treaty with the Indians

Between the Seven Years' War and the Revolutionary War, conflict between Indigenous people, American colonists, and British imperial officials intensified as American colonists encroached on Indigenous land. Benjamin West's painting of a popular myth helps to illustrate the changes in this period.
APUSH: KC-2.1.I.C