Keywords: Colonial trade
Item 102023
Thomas Robison from Thomas Hodges regarding illegal slave trade, Les Cayes, April 6, 1791
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1791 Location: Portland; Les Cayes Media: Ink on paper
Item 103126
Benjamin Bullard to Sir William Pepperell on slave trading, Barbados, 1720
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1720-03-15 Location: Bridgetown; Kittery Media: Ink on paper
Exhibit
Northern Threads: Colonial and 19th century fur trade
A vignette in "Northern Threads: Two centuries of dress at Maine Historical Society Part 1," this fur trade mini-exhibition discusses the environmental and economic impact of the fur trade in Maine through the 19th century.
Exhibit
George Popham and a group of fellow Englishmen arrived at the mouth of the Kennebec River, hoping to trade with Native Americans, find gold and other valuable minerals, and discover a Northwest passage. In 18 months, the fledgling colony was gone.
Site Page
"Women in Colonial Economies Essay by Sara T. Damiano, Fall 2022 Sara T. Damiano, PhD, is an historian of women and gender in early America and the…"
Site Page
"Women in Colonial Economies Copy, deed from James and Rachell Berry to Proprietors, page 1 of 3Maine Historical Society For their part, as…"
Lesson Plan
Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12, Postsecondary
Content Area: Science & Engineering, Social Studies
This lesson presents an overview of the history of the fur trade in Maine with a focus on the 17th and 18th centuries, on how fashion influenced that trade, and how that trade impacted Indigenous peoples and the environment.
Lesson Plan
Longfellow Studies: Longfellow Amongst His Contemporaries - The Ship of State DBQ
Grade Level: 9-12
Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
Preparation Required/Preliminary Discussion:
Lesson plans should be done in the context of a course of study on American literature and/or history from the Revolution to the Civil War.
The ship of state is an ancient metaphor in the western world, especially among seafaring people, but this figure of speech assumed a more widespread and literal significance in the English colonies of the New World. From the middle of the 17th century, after all, until revolution broke out in 1775, the dominant system of governance in the colonies was the Navigation Acts. The primary responsibility of colonial governors, according to both Parliament and the Crown, was the enforcement of the laws of trade, and the governors themselves appointed naval officers to ensure that the various provisions and regulations of the Navigation Acts were executed. England, in other words, governed her American colonies as if they were merchant ships.
This metaphorical conception of the colonies as a naval enterprise not only survived the Revolution but also took on a deeper relevance following the construction of the Union. The United States of America had now become the ship of state, launched on July 4th 1776 and dedicated to the radical proposition that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights. This proposition is examined and tested in any number of ways during the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. Novelists and poets, as well as politicians and statesmen, questioned its viability: Whither goes the ship of state? Is there a safe harbor somewhere up ahead or is the vessel doomed to ruin and wreckage? Is she well built and sturdy or is there some essential flaw in her structural frame?
