Alabama Social Studies SS24.3.9

SS24.3.9 is a cluster heading. These are the individual standards under it.

• SS24.3.9a

  Trace and compare routes of early explorers of North and South America.

• SS24.3.9b

  Describe key parts of Hernando de Soto’s expedition through Alabama and explain its effects on Alabama’s Indigenous peoples.

01

What Students Need to Do

Students explain why Europeans explored and built settlements in North America, including the search for wealth, trade, land, and religious freedom. They compare explorers’ routes in North and South America. They describe de Soto’s march through Alabama and its effects on Indigenous communities.

02

What Mastery Looks Like

A student can show how de Soto’s route through the Southeast differed from Magellan’s route around South America. They can explain that de Soto sought wealth and that the battle at Mabila caused deaths and damaged an Indigenous town. They can name a reason settlers founded Jamestown or Plymouth.

03

Common Misconceptions

Students may assume every expedition founded a colony, though de Soto’s party did not settle in Alabama. They may describe Indigenous communities as passive, missing their resistance at Mabila. They may confuse Magellan’s route around South America with de Soto’s route through the Southeast.

04

How to Assess It

On a blank map, draw approximate routes for de Soto and Magellan, then write one difference between them. Add why de Soto traveled, one reason Europeans founded colonies, and one effect of the battle at Mabila.

1. 01

   Give pairs a map and colored pencils to trace Cartier’s St. Lawrence route, de Soto’s southeastern route, and Magellan’s passage around South America.

2. 02

   Ask students to write: Why did de Soto search inland for gold, and how might people at Mabila describe his arrival?

3. 03

   Hand out motive cards marked gold, trade, land, and religion; have teams match them to de Soto’s expedition, Jamestown, or Plymouth.

4. 04

   Compare a proposed de Soto route with an Alabama highway map, and circle places where rivers might have slowed his party.

• SS24.8.11

  Explain the motivations for exploration by European nations.

• SS24.6.3

  Describe the effects of European expeditions and colonization on the economic, geographic, and social conditions of Indigenous peoples during the fifteenth thro...

• SS24.6.2b

  Trace the routes of key European expeditions in North America and describe their effects on colonization in the New World.

• SS24.6.2

  Compare and contrast the reasons for British, French, and Spanish colonization in North America as well as why individuals migrated to the colonies, including m...