1765 Archives

The Color Line

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 6 pages.
A lesson on the countless colonial laws enacted to create division and inequality based on race. This helps students understand the origins of racism in the United States and who benefits.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Re-examining the Revolution

Background Reading. By Ray Raphael. 7 pages.
Based on his book Founding Myths, Raphael critiques the textbook portrayal of the American Revolution. The textbooks say that "a few special people forged American freedom" which "misrepresents, and even contradicts, the spirit of the American Revolution."

A Peoples History of the United States Book | Zinn Education Project

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 2005, with a new introduction by Anthony Arnove in 2015. 784 pages.
Howard Zinn's groundbreaking work on U.S. history. This book details lives and facts rarely included in textbooks—an indispensable teacher and student resource.

Rethinking the U.S. Constitutional Convention: A Role Play

Teaching Activity. By Bob Peterson. Rethinking Schools. 14 pages.
A role play on the Constitutional Convention which brings to life the social forces active during and immediately following the American Revolution with focus on two key topics: suffrage and slavery. An elementary school adaptation of the Constitution Role Play by Bill Bigelow. Roles available in Spanish.

Teaching Activity by Bob Peterson

Odawa Chief Pontiac Meets with Gladwin | Zinn Education Project

July 31, 1763: Chief Pontiac Wins Battle of Bloody Run at Fort Detroit

Fighting alongside Odawa Chief Pontiac, the unified Native warriors defeated 250 British soldiers during their siege at Fort Detroit during Pontiac’s War.

We the Elites: Why the U.S. Constitution Serves the Few

Book — Non-fiction. By Robert Ovetz. 2022. 240 pages.
This collection of essays exposes the U.S. Constitution for what it really is — a rulebook to protect capitalism for the elites.

U.S. Constitution | Zinn Education Project

Sept. 17, 1787: U.S. Constitution Signed

The U.S. Constitution was signed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Nov. 29, 1781: Zong Massacre

During the Zong Massacre, a ship captain ordered that 54 enslaved Africans be thrown overboard and killed.

It’s Constitution Day! Time to Teach Obedience or History?

By Bill Bigelow

Pearson-Prentice Hall’s high school textbook, United States History, opens its chapter on the Constitution with this Daniel Webster quote: “We may be tossed upon an ocean where we can see no land — not, perhaps, the sun and stars. But there is a chart and a compass for us to study, to consult, and to obey. The chart is the Constitution.” United States History tells students approvingly that Ronald Reagan and others have recited this Webster quote at celebrations of the Constitution.

This is the kind of on-bended-knee Constitution worship that has long been a staple of our country’s social studies curricula.

Sure, these days, most U.S. history textbooks acknowledge that the Constitution was not without controversy. Holt McDougal’s The Americans offers a perfunctory couple of pages on the debate between elite groups of Federalists and Anti-Federalists. But corporate textbooks present the Constitution as a wise inevitability, awaiting only the Bill of Rights as the icing on a delicious cake of compromise.

White House Black History | Zinn Education Project

Missing from Presidents’ Day: The People They Enslaved

By Clarence Lusane

Schools across the country are adorned with posters of the U.S. presidents and the years they served in office. U.S. history textbooks describe the accomplishments and challenges of the major presidential administrations — George Washington had the Revolutionary War, Abraham Lincoln the Civil War, Teddy Roosevelt the Spanish-American War, and so on. Children’s books put students on a first-name basis with the presidents, engaging readers with stories of their dogs in the Rose Garden or childhood escapades. Washington, D.C.’s Smithsonian Institution welcomes visitors to an exhibit of the first ladies’ gowns and White House furnishings.

Nowhere in all this information is there any mention of the fact that more than one in four U.S. presidents were involved in human trafficking and slavery.

Preaching and Farming at Mission Delores by Anton Refregier | Zinn Education Project

Lying to Children About the California Missions and the Indians

By Deborah A. Miranda

In California schools, students come up against the “Mission Unit” in 4th grade, reinforcing the same lies those children have been breathing in most of their lives. Part of California’s history curriculum, the unit is entrenched in the educational system and impossible to avoid, a powerfully authoritative indoctrination in Mission Mythology to which 4th graders have little if any resistance.

Close up of book cover for Clarence Lusane's The Black History of the White House.

Oct. 13, 1792: White House Cornerstone Laid

The White House cornerstone was laid. Among those who constructed the building were African Americans, both free and enslaved.

Constitution Role Play: Whose “More Perfect Union”? and The Constitutional Convention: Who Really Won?

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 24 pages.
The U.S. Constitution endorsed slavery and favored the interests of the owning classes. What kind of Constitution would have resulted from founders who were representative of the entire country? That is the question addressed in this role play activity.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

book cover showing people working in a field

Daniel Shays’s Honorable Rebellion: An American Story

Book — Non-fiction. By Daniel Bullen. 2021. 320 pages.
A history of Shays’ Rebellion, where farmers challenged the state’s authority to seize their farms for flagrantly unjust taxes, told from the protesters’ perspective.

March 1, 1784: Rhode Island Passes Gradual Emancipation Act

While the state of Rhode Island legally abolished slavery in 1652, it wasn’t until 1784 — after mounting public pressure to do away with the enslavement of other human beings once and for all — that the state passed the Gradual Emancipation Act.

The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic

Book — Non-fiction. By Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker. 2013. 448 pages.
A sweeping history of the role of the dispossessed in the making of the modern world.

Nearer My Freedom: The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano by Himself

Book — Non-fiction. By Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge. 2023. 216 pages.
The story of Olaudah Equiano, from his childhood in Africa to his capture, enslavement, and eventual liberation.

Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past

Book — Non-fiction. By Ray Raphael. 2014. 420 pages.
Myths and the reasons that they have come to replace the real stories of the Revolutionary period.

"Freedom might be too great a temptation" Marker Text | Zinn Education Project

Feb. 18, 1797: Hercules Escapes from Enslavement by George Washington

Hercules, the head cook at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate and slave labor camp, escaped to freedom in Pennsylvania.

Chains

Book — Historical fiction. By Laurie Halse Anderson. 2010. 336 pages.
Historical fiction based on the life of an enslaved teenager during the Revolutionary War.

Teaching Activity by Laurie Halse Anderson

Period: 1765

The Color Line

Re-examining the Revolution

Rethinking the U.S. Constitutional Convention: A Role Play

We the Elites: Why the U.S. Constitution Serves the Few

Nov. 29, 1781: Zong Massacre

Missing from Presidents’ Day: The People They Enslaved

Lying to Children About the California Missions and the Indians

Oct. 13, 1792: White House Cornerstone Laid

Daniel Shays’s Honorable Rebellion: An American Story

March 1, 1784: Rhode Island Passes Gradual Emancipation Act

The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic

Nearer My Freedom: The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano by Himself

Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past

Feb. 18, 1797: Hercules Escapes from Enslavement by George Washington

Rebellion 1776

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