Columbian Exchange

http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/tserve/nattrans/ntecoindian/essays/columbian.htm

What was the "tsunami of biological exchange" that the author describes? What caused this occurrence? What impact did it have on European exploration and settlement of the Americas?

Conquest of Mexico

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/aztecs1.html

How did the Aztecs remember Cortes' initial meeting with their leaders? What events, according to them, spurred the war between these two cultures? What did they mean when they said "the Sun" murdered their people "on the twentieth day after the Captain left for the coast"?

French Colonization

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1608champlain.html

Why did the French construct a settlement at Quebec? What were their motives for exploring the northern regions of the North American continent? What kind of relationships did they develop with the natives of those regions?

Plymouth Colony

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1650bradford.html

Based on these excerpts from William Bradford's history of the colony, what were the motivations of the settlers at Plymouth? How did they compare to the motivations of French Spanish settlers? What was the significance of the Mayflower Compact? What was the nature of this colony's relationship with neighboring Indians?
How did New England colonies such as Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay differ from other early American settlements? How did such differences impact the success of the colonies?

Tobacco

http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/tobacco.html

http://www.law.du.edu/russell/lh/alh/docs/virginiaact1639arms.html
Why is Bennett opposed to the importation of Spanish tobacco? What does his treatise suggest about the popularity of tobacco in England? Was he opposed to importing tobacco from Virginia? Why or why not?
What did the Virginia Act of General Assembly indicate about the importance of tobacco to the early-seventeenth-century Virginia economy?