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.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of Syacust Ukah
This portrait of a Cherokee man was painted during a peace delegation from the Indigenous nation to meet the King of England
Codex Canadensis
This manuscript contains about 180 illustrations of people, plants, and animals—including a unicorn
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
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
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
Spanish conquest and U.S. expansion
De Soto led hundreds of soldiers on the first European expedition into what became the United States.
Picturing America
De Bry's images of the Americas affirm and assert a sense of European superiority.
Painting the French and Indian War
West turned the conventions of history painting on their head by choosing a contemporary subject and dress.
Thought the Puritans were dour?
We think of Puritans aesthetics as restrained and humble, but this elaborate cupboard proves otherwise.
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