Idaho Social Studies 6-12.US1.4
The Standard
Explain the differences with economic systems between New England, and the Mid-Atlantic and Southern colonies, including indentured servitude and slavery as labor sources, and the role of the transatlantic slave trade.
Idaho Content Standards: K-12 Social Studies · American Indian Cultures and Colonization Cultures and Colonization 1491-1754
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students compare the work and trade that shaped New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and Southern colonies. They explain how indentured servitude and slavery supplied labor, and how the transatlantic slave trade forced Africans across the ocean.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can connect New England with fishing and shipping, the Mid-Atlantic with grain, and the South with plantation crops. They can distinguish a time-limited indenture from lifelong, inherited enslavement and recognize that slavery existed in all three regions.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think slavery existed only in Southern colonies or that every colonial farm was a plantation. They may confuse indentured servitude with slavery or assume Africans chose to make the Atlantic crossing.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Name one major product or trade in each region. Then distinguish indentured servitude from slavery and explain how the transatlantic slave trade supplied forced labor.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs three region maps and cards labeled cod fishing, grain farming, tobacco planting, and shipping; have them place cards and explain overlaps.
Ask students to write two sentences comparing a servant's contract with an enslaved person's status, including who could leave and when.
Play a four-corner sort with cards reading cod, wheat, tobacco, and enslaved labor; students choose a region or all regions and justify.
Use a present-day map to locate Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston; add a colonial export beside each city and identify who produced it.
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Related Standards
- 6-12.US1.27
Compare and contrast the various manifestations of slavery in this time period, for example, ownership patterns, labor divisions, and geographic differences.
- 6-12.US1.3
Analyze the development of the New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern Colonies, including the reasons for the establishment, the economic, political, and socia...
- 5.SS.1.8
Explain the history of indentured servitude and the slave trade in the United States.
- 6-12.US1.19
Explain the social and economic motivations and developments surrounding the enslavement of peoples in the northern and southern states and territories.
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