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US History: Colonial Era through Reconstruction

Explore American history from Indigenous civilizations through the broken promises of Reconstruction. Primary sources, multiple perspectives, and the uncomfortable questions textbooks skip. TEKS §113.20 aligned.

14 Units

30-45 minutes per unit

What You Will Learn

Primary Sources

Read the actual documents — the Declaration, the Constitution, slave narratives, and battlefield letters.

Multiple Perspectives

Examine the same events through Indigenous, African American, Tejano, and Anglo lenses.

TEKS §113.20 Aligned

Covers Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Grade 8 Social Studies.

All Units

The Americas Before Contact

Explore the sophisticated civilizations of pre-contact North America — from Cahokia's skyline to the Haudenosaunee's democratic confederacy — and challenge the myth of an empty continent.

•Describe the major Indigenous civilizations of North America and their geographic distribution
•Analyze how environment shaped diverse economic, social, and political systems
•Evaluate the Haudenosaunee Confederacy as a model of complex governance
+1 more objectives

Exploration and Colonization

Examine the European motivations for exploration, the catastrophic consequences of first contact, and the transformation of two hemispheres through the Columbian Exchange.

•Explain the economic, political, and religious motivations driving European exploration
•Analyze the short- and long-term consequences of the Columbian Exchange for both hemispheres
•Evaluate Spanish, French, and English colonization strategies and their different impacts on Indigenous peoples
+1 more objectives

Colonial Society: Work, Religion, Identity

Examine how colonial economies, religious movements, and social hierarchies shaped life for settlers, enslaved people, and Indigenous peoples in 17th and early 18th-century America.

•Compare the economic systems of New England, the Middle Colonies, and the Southern Colonies
•Analyze the role of indentured servitude and chattel slavery in the colonial economy
•Explain the causes and effects of the Great Awakening on colonial religious and political culture
+1 more objectives

The Road to Revolution

Trace the escalating conflict between Britain and the colonies — from the Stamp Act to Lexington and Concord — and examine how Enlightenment ideas transformed colonial grievances into revolutionary ideology.

•Explain how British taxation policies after the Seven Years' War provoked colonial resistance
•Analyze how Enlightenment ideas about natural rights influenced revolutionary thinking
•Evaluate the methods of colonial resistance and their effectiveness
+1 more objectives

The American Revolution

Examine the revolutionary ideas in the Declaration of Independence, the military campaigns that decided the war, and the diverse people who fought — and were excluded — from the Revolution's promises.

•Analyze the philosophical foundations and political arguments of the Declaration of Independence
•Trace the major military campaigns of the Revolution and explain how the Continental Army survived
•Evaluate the contributions of women, African Americans, and Indigenous peoples to the revolutionary war
+1 more objectives

The Constitution: Compromise and Design

Examine the failures of the Articles of Confederation, the debates at the Constitutional Convention, and the compromises — including over slavery — that produced the United States Constitution.

•Explain why the Articles of Confederation failed and what problems it left unsolved
•Analyze the major debates at the Constitutional Convention and the compromises that resolved them
•Evaluate the Three-Fifths Compromise and the Constitution's relationship to slavery
+1 more objectives

The Early Republic: 1789–1815

Examine how the new nation's leaders built federal institutions, navigated foreign entanglements, and fought over the meaning of the Constitution — from Washington's presidency through the War of 1812.

•Describe how Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson established the precedents of the new government
•Explain the origins and significance of the first political party system
•Analyze the causes and consequences of the War of 1812
+1 more objectives

Jacksonian Democracy and Expansion

Examine how Andrew Jackson reshaped American democracy, expanded white male suffrage, destroyed the national bank, and forced the removal of eastern Indigenous nations — all while claiming to represent 'the people.'

•Explain how Jacksonian democracy expanded political participation for white men while excluding others
•Analyze the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears as policy choices with specific causes and consequences
•Evaluate Jackson's Bank War and what it revealed about competing visions of the American economy
+1 more objectives

Reform Movements and American Culture

Explore the intertwined reform movements of antebellum America — abolition, women's rights, temperance, and Transcendentalism — that challenged the nation to live up to its founding ideals.

•Describe the major reform movements of the antebellum period and the social conditions that produced them
•Analyze the connections between the abolitionist movement and the women's rights movement
•Evaluate Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth as public intellectuals and activists
+1 more objectives

Westward Expansion and Its Consequences

Examine the Mexican-American War, the California Gold Rush, and the human consequences of continental expansion — for Mexican citizens, Indigenous nations, Chinese immigrants, and free and enslaved Black Americans.

•Analyze the causes and consequences of the Mexican-American War, including the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
•Describe the California Gold Rush and its social and demographic consequences
•Evaluate how westward expansion intensified the political crisis over slavery
+1 more objectives

Slavery, Sectionalism, and the Road to War

Trace the collapse of compromise as slavery's expansion tore the nation apart — from the Kansas-Nebraska Act and 'Bleeding Kansas' through the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's raid, and the 1860 election.

•Explain how the Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed the Missouri Compromise and destabilized national politics
•Analyze the Dred Scott decision and its consequences for both enslaved people and national politics
•Describe how Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 triggered secession
+1 more objectives

Examine the causes, military strategies, turning points, and human costs of the Civil War — including what the war became when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

•Analyze why the Confederacy lost and the Union won, including strategic, economic, and diplomatic factors
•Explain the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation and how it transformed the war's purpose
•Describe the experiences of soldiers, enslaved people, and civilians during the war
+1 more objectives

Reconstruction: Promise and Betrayal

Examine the decade of Reconstruction — its constitutional achievements, the political and economic ambitions of freed people, and the violent counterrevolution that dismantled it.

•Explain the major achievements of Reconstruction, including the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
•Describe the political and economic aspirations of formerly enslaved people during Reconstruction
•Analyze the role of Reconstruction-era violence in overturning Black political power
+1 more objectives

The Unfinished Revolution

Trace how the unresolved questions of Reconstruction — citizenship, equality, and the meaning of the Constitution — echoed through the 20th and 21st centuries, and examine what the story of 1607–1877 demands of us now.

•Trace the direct connections between Reconstruction's betrayal and the 20th-century civil rights movement
•Analyze how the constitutional amendments of Reconstruction were eventually enforced through struggle
•Evaluate how the history of this era is remembered, contested, and used
+1 more objectives

Grade 8 US History. Designed for Texas homeschool families. TEKS §113.20 aligned.