Colonial Kids: An Activity Guide to Life in the New World
o The People What would you say if your parents told you they were taking you to an unknown land called the New World where strange and unusual animals and plants lived The trip would be made in a boat not much larger than a school bus What if they men tioned there might be sea monsters pirates and oh yes worms in your food during the sea voyage And you would probably never be able to return to your homeland Quite an adventure wouldn't you agree A lot of children to the World and came New probably some of them really didn't want to For most though the New World and the opportunities that might be there were far better than where they had been living Look back into your own family’s history if they settled in North America before it became the nation it is today they were colonists The North American colonies were settled by
immigrants who came here and eventually formed their own countries the United States of America Canada and Mexico There were people already here when the new comers stepped off their ships Native North Americans North American Indians already had built villages even cities They sometimes welcomed the new peo ple and sometimes fought them Native North Americans lived in villages all along the Atlantic Coast when the European explorers arrived Each Indian nation had its own territory cus toms style of dress and language The people hunt ed fished and planted gardens They made things they needed out of wood hide bone and shell Villages were usually small because too many peo ple in one place would use up all the food Many more people could survive in villages where gardens were planted Extra food was traded to other villages People traded for items they couldn't gather or make The Native North Americans depended on the land the seasons the weather and on trading with each other for their survival Nations and villages sometimes fought each other over territory or trade just like the European and Asian nations At the beginning of the colonial era in the New World European explorers went everywhere they could looking for the most valuable things they knew
gold jewels spices even the fountain of youth They were able to travel because ship building and navigation had become refined and well developed Ship building map making and charting the night sky made it possible for explorers to head across the ocean looking for great riches The first colonists were soldiers who in their search for riches found rich land instead Soldiers from one country fought soldiers from other coun tries to claim the most land Kings and queens were eager to snap up the biggest piece of the New World for their country and sent explorers and soldiers to do this for them The colonists that came after the explorers came to stay They built towns and raised families They wanted to live in a country where they could have freedom and opportunity the very things they couldn't find in Europe Norsemen from ancient Scandinavia led by Leif Eric son a sailor from Greenland were the first Euro peans to land in North America Ericson sailed in the summer of 1001 A D landing in eastern Canada and later exploring it There they discovered a new plant one they had never seen before grapes The men filled their boat with timber grapes and vines to take back to Greenland to show evidence of their discov ery In honor of this new discovery they called this new land
Sagas are stories or very long poems that were spoken aloud Sagas told about the history of a fami ly Norsemen wrote down the saga of Erik the Red That's one way people today learned about the Greenland colonies Why not use a notebook to write your own fami ly’s history a family saga You can start as far back as anyone remembers and tell the story up to today Try to write down all the obstacles and difficulties your family faced and how they overcame them Keep the notebook to pass on to your own children and grandchildren NOT ALL NORSEMEN were Vikings Vikings were pirates who raided ships and villages killing and stealing from others to gain their for tune In 1492 Christopher Columbus set out from Spain with three ships trying to find a sea route to Asia by going west across the Atlantic Ocean Ten weeks later he came to an island Hispaniola and thought he had landed in India so he called the natives he met Indi ans He soon realized that he hadn't landed in Asia so he made four more trips from Spain still search ing for a route On some voyages his crew of 150 included about fifty twelve and thirteen year old boys that was one third of his crew As soon as the news about Columbus’s
