Alabama Social Studies SS24.AS.7
The Standard
Outline the chronology of Alabama’s colonial history, identifying the shifting claims by imperial powers and Indigenous peoples engaged in colonial-era conflict.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students put major events in order, from Spanish expeditions and French settlement to British, Spanish, and U.S. claims. They show how Muscogee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw nations held land, made alliances, and resisted colonial expansion.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student places de Soto’s 1540 expedition, French Mobile in 1702, British claims in 1763, Spain’s capture of Mobile in 1780, and U.S. occupation in 1813 in order. They explain that an imperial claim did not erase Indigenous control of land.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may assume a new claim on a map meant an empire controlled all of present-day Alabama. They may also treat Indigenous land as empty or assume the three nations made the same choices.
How to Assess It
- On an exit ticket, have students order these events: de Soto’s expedition, French Mobile, British claims, Spain’s capture of Mobile, and U.S. occupation. Ask why that timeline alone does not show who controlled Indigenous lands.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs dated event cards and an Alabama outline map; have them build a timeline and mark where Mobile changed hands.
Show a 1763 British claims map beside a Muscogee territory map; ask students whether a new imperial border changed who lived there.
Play a timeline relay: teams sort five event cards, then name the people or power involved at each stop.
Show a photo of Mobile’s Fort Condé; students match its later names, Fort Charlotte and Fort Carlota, to Britain and Spain.
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Related Standards
- SS24.US1.5e
Compare major events in Alabama from 1781 to 1823, including statehood as part of the expanding nation, acquisition of land, settlement, and the Creek War, to e...
- SS24.AS.6a
Compare and contrast the major Native American tribes in Alabama of the colonial period and nineteenth century.
- SS24.AS.6
Identify the locations of the major Native American tribes of Alabama during the colonial period into the nineteenth century.
- SS24.AS.9
Outline the chronology of Alabama’s path to statehood in the early nineteenth century, including the shifting of capital locations.
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