Teacher’s Guide For Florida History Online
By Barth Derryberry

1. John & William Bartram's Travels
2. British Plantations 1763 — 1784
3. Dr. Turnbull and the New Smyrna Settlement
4. Black Floridians & the Civil War
5. Then & Now Projects

Florida History Online: An Introduction to the Teacher’s Guide

This teacher’s guide is designed to accompany the Florida History Online website.  Materials are intended to be age appropriate by grade level, for elementary, middle school, and high school students.  Student activities are directed to help students develop analytical skills at all grade levels.  By incorporating reading, movement, research and higher level thinking, teachers can help students achieve lifelong learning.

Using the Florida History Online web pages listed above, teachers can design student activities to bring history alive.  Students are asked to act as historians as they examine historical evidence in the form of primary source document on the various web pages.  Teachers are encouraged to assign research projects and/or to role-play the actions of the early settlers of Florida.

• Lesson Plans
• Class Activities
• Historical Analysis
• Post Card Projects
• Games

John & William Bartram Travel the St. Johns River, 1765-1766
PowerPoint

1. Students will read the journals of John and William Bartram.
2. Students will locate on a Florida map the principle points of the Bartram Trail. 
3. The teacher will make a bulletin board display of a map of the Bartram Trail.
4. Students will acquire historic images of the sites visited by John and William Bartram that have been memorialized as locations on the Bartram Trail in Florida. They will also acquire historic images of the flora and fauna discovered by the Bartrams in 1765 — 1766 and 1773 — 1774.  Pictures can be downloaded from the internet and scanned, or original photographs can be taken by students who visit specific sites on the trail.
5. Using the pictures, the class will create a PowerPoint presentation to tell the story of these early British Explorers. (This can be adapted to be age appropriate by the amount of assistance from the teacher and the number of pictures produced by each student.)

Students create their own “Travel Diary”

1. After researching the John Bartram Journal of 1765 — 1766 and the excerpts of William Bartram’s writings from his 1773 — 1774 “Travels” on the St. Johns River that are found on a  Florida History Online webpage, students will create fictionalized journal entries that illustrate knowledge of the environment, living conditions, and history of British Florida.
2. Students create their own post cards by drawing scenes along the trail on the front.  They can get pictures online or use student photographs taken along the trail.  On the back of the card, they write a synopsis of a “day” along the trail using the journal as a source.
3. Students can create their own newspaper for the period.  Using the Bartram Journals, they can design news stories, fashion pages, advertisements, etc. that may have appeared in British Florida in the late 18th century.  Vocabulary can be worked into a crossword puzzle.  A map and description of places from the journals can be used as a “Where’s Waldo” type game/quiz.  (The difficulty can be made age appropriate by reducing or increasing the number of entries.) To incorporate art and various learning styles each journal should contain a hand drawn map and sketches of plants and animals they may encounter along their travels.  This can be inspired by the entries students view online.

Day in the life essay or role-playing

1. The teacher can set the stage with a flashlight in a pile of wood to simulate a campfire.  Student can make hats and costumes to help study the time period.  After reading the journal entries, students create their own dialog about what the travelers did in a typical day.  They then can write en essay, draw a map or scene from the journal to enhance their research.
2. After reading age appropriate excerpts from the Bartram diaries, students will compose an essay describing a typical day in the life of one of the following people that would have lived in 1764 — 1784 British Florida: a fellow traveler, a guide, an Indian observer, a longtime resident, or a British official living in St. Augustine.

Elementary: The teacher reads various journal entries and students view the photos, have the students create drawings of the story.  Students should list the number of participants in the expedition.  Students should describe the jobs each did and assign names where appropriate. Who was not named?  Who had the hardest job? Compare the photo with the map drawn by Bartram. Locate Goodby’s Creek on a Jacksonville map.

 

William Bartram’s Illustration of a Soft Shelled Turtle

Click here to view the Powerpoint

British Plantations and Farms on the St. Johns River, 1763 — 1784

Discuss the various ways the British hoped to make Florida profitable.  Compare and contrast Spanish Florida and British Florida.  What crops did the British hope to grow and why?  Why did they turn to large scale planting?  What was needed to organize the new colony for the British to manage it?  Discuss the environmental changes to the St. Johns River valley that resulted from the British occupation and plantation developments. Discuss the repercussions of the labor system (slavery) that Governor James Grant urged the British planters to introduce in East Florida.

Explain the techniques and procedures and the importance of each of the following:
Surveying             
Indigo cultivation     
Rice cultivation

Have students research and design models of British plantations.  There are several maps on Florida History Online that students can examine. Ask them to study the maps of Governor Grant’s two plantations: Grants Villa (his indigo plantation six miles north of St. Augustine) and Mount Pleasant (his rice plantation twenty miles north of St. Augustine). Several maps of Dr. Andrew Turnbull’s Smyrnea Plantation at today’s New Smyrna and Edgewater, Florida can also be examined. Have students view the aerial photographs of the rice field  at White Oak Plantation at the juncture of the St. Marys River and the Little St. Marys River and ask them to speculate on the reasons for the canals and divisions of land in between. All of these locations can be compared with the current configuration of these sites as viewed on Google Earth. Students can research Spanish Land Grants documents and the United States Township Maps on the Florida State Archives website and plot them on modern maps.

Students could also be asked to create a “Plantation Inventory” based on tax rolls, census documents, or probate files from a county court house or a historical society. Examples can be found on Florida History Online. For another intriguing assignment, ask students to compose a   “Day (or week) in the Life of an Enslaved Man or Woman” at the plantation of Farquhar Bethune on the St. Johns River in Duval County. “The Plantation Journal of Farquhar Bethune,” transcribed on Florida History Online,” will provide students with documented examples of the daily life of enslaved African Americans in the 1820s and 1830s. Teachers might also suggest that students imagine themselves as plantation overseers in Florida during the 1763 — 1784 era, and then write a letter to an absentee owner of the plantation in England or Scotland, describing current events and conditions.


Ruins of Slave Quarters at Kingsley Plantation, Fort George Island

Colonel James Grant, First Governor of British East Florida


James Grant of Ballindalloch, Scotland,
the First Governor of British East Florida


Dozens of complete or partial transcripts of letters written by or to Governor James Grant can be found in projects on this website.  The letters and related documents provide opportunities for students to sharpen their analytical skills by working with primary source documents. 

Document analysis

1. After study of the journal of the first governor of British East Florida, James Grant, students can draw an outlay of the town of St. Augustine and identify the governor’s house, the main plaza, appropriate streets, and the location of the fort.
2. Students can write a narrative of British St. Augustine and list the daily activities and hardships.  They could draw pictures of buildings or people to help show how they lived.  They might create a fashion portfolio (notebook size drawings) for the 1780s or several students could do a fashion show with students creating their own costumes of pirates, gentry, and commoners of the period.
3. Students can draw a state map of Florida in the British period and indicate where towns, roads, and settlements were located.  Indicate what dangers were present to travelers and what types of transportation were available.  Possible sources (In addition to sites listed in the source section)
   1. http://dhr.dos.state.fl.us/kids/history.cfm
   2. http://www.flheritage.com/facts/history/summary/
   3. http://www.floridahistory.org/floridians/british.htm

Point of view analysis is a high-level skill in social studies.  Students should be encouraged to explore the background of the person who created the document and the purpose of the document.

1. Role playing is a great way to understand point of view and hats and even face cutouts on a stick are a great stimulators for acting out certain roles.  Students of all ages realize that we have different voices based upon where we are and with whom we are talking.  After studying the material, prepare hats or cutout faces of Governor Grant, Frederick Mulcaster, surveyor, a town’s person, a native observer.  Have students, in pairs ad lib a conversation after given a prompt from the journal entries.
2. Have students write a skit or a scene of life in British Florida or the life of Governor Grant in Florida.  Emphasize that the roles of the characters are defined by what we know about them from our historical documents.  Work with students to help them understand point of view of a particular character effects what he says in the play.

Working with Documents
This website is designed to encourage students to work with and interpret historical documents. 
Interpreting historical documents is a pivotal skill.  As students enter the upper levels of elementary school they need to realize that documents are a historical snapshot of the time they are created.  Matching maps with contemporary photographs, or viewing William Bartram’s watercolor drawings and then comparing them with photographs or drawings made today provides the student with an opportunity to experience historical analysis on a personal level. 

Students can be encouraged to examine primary source documents such as the daily entries of John Bartram’s journal on the Florida History Online webpage, and to draw conclusions regarding the author’s point of view, and the nature of historical evidence. The same can be done with letters of the period, with land grant documents, and census data, to encourage students to  make conclusions as regarding point of view, historical evidence, and the veracity of the evidence.  Depending on the grade level of students being taught, teachers can vary the difficulty of the documents. Teachers might begin with small quotes that are familiar to students and ask questions regarding the author’s purpose for the quote and its underlying meaning?  Examples can be chosen from Governor Grant’s letters or statements. Once students are familiar with documents and analysis, teachers can introduce longer sections of Governor Grant’s letters and more challenging concepts.

Smyrnea: Dr. Andrew Turnbull and the Mediterranean Settlement at New Smyrna and Edgewater, Florida, 1766 — 1777

Using the above-mentioned research and analysis techniques students will explore the experiences of the indentured laborers at Turnbull’s plantation at New Smyrna.

1. Conditions experienced by the Greek, Italian and Minorcan indentured laborers during their turbulent voyage from the Mediterranean to Florida. Ask students to create a narrative of the difficulties faced by the indentured servants during the Atlantic crossing, and to include answers to the following: What promises did Turnbull make to convince the laborers to come to Florida? How many persons were on the eight boats at the start of the journey? How many survived the voyage? How many were alive one or two years later?
2. In addition to Mediterranean laborers, Turnbull also purchased enslaved Africans to work at New Smyrna. What were Turnbull’s attitudes concerning slavery, concerning Africans? Compare and contrast the experiences of the indentured servants from the Mediterranean and the slaves from Africa. How many Africans were purchased? How many Africans were alive when a census was conducted? Another activity would be to ask students to write descriptions of both slaves in North America and indentured servants in the same era. Next, divide the class into groups of 4 or 5.  Have each group compile the list on a poster or newsprint paper.  Then have the class come up with the best answers.  Using a Venn diagram the class can illustrate what elements are the same and what ones were different. Middle School students can make a comparison poster illustrated with drawings, clip art, pictures, etc. Senior High students should use their own graphic organizer to write a 500-word essay that has a strong thesis and supports that thesis with adequate historical information. 



Black Floridians & the Civil War 

Using the Florida History Online website and other sources the teacher can show students how historical biographies are created.  Older students could compare and contrast historical biography with historical fiction. Students will research Black Floridians and link them to actual historical events.  Students will then connect the facts into a narrative.  The teacher should also give instruction in proper notation and how to avoid plagiarism. Students should illustrate their work with photos, maps, charts, and various other visuals.  The final copy of each student’s “chapter” can be placed in a notebook.  The class can use it as a resource for years to come.



Soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts,
a Regiment of United States Colored Infantry


Eartha M.M. White
and her mother Clara White:
Jacksonville, Florida (1910).

Clara White, born a slave at a plantation on Amelia Island, married a black soldier who escaped from slavery in South Carolina during the Civil War to join the 34th Regiment of United States Colored Infantry. Eartha White, the adopted child of Clara and Lafayette White, became a famed social worker, teacher, opera singer, charitable figure, and founder of a mission, orphanage, and old folks home in Jacksonville. Valuable documents relative to their lives can be researched at Special Collections, Thomas G. Carpenter Library, the University of North Florida.

Then & Now Projects

THEN


 

 NOW
 

Using the Florida Post Card archive of finding old photographs from the State Archives, students can create a visual display by comparing old Florida and our state today.                       


Post Card Archives: http://www.floridamemory.com/PhotographicCollection/Collection_page.cfm?PR_ID=23

Helpful Hints:
In Middle School, the class can be divided into groups and assigned projects concerned with living conditions, food, dangers, tools, weapons, etc. Area road maps can be obtained from the Chamber of Commerce or local realtors.  On these maps, students can trace their travels.

For Elementary age students the teacher can provide segments of butcher block paper to map the St. Johns River.  The maps should be made in sections as they are divided on the website.  Students can mark the travels on the map and discuss what would be found at each section.  Student should make three cornered hats, native dress, or indigenous animal costumes to help tell the story as related in the journal.  When the project is finished, the teacher will assemble all the sections on the floor.  The class will retrace the steps of the Bartram Trail and at each stop the class will have a presentation of the various groups as to what they might see there.

Large brown grocery bags can be used to make native costumes

Discussions can focus on local history, community, habitats, groupings of people, food patterns, diet and health.  Games can be structured to remember places on the trail.  A good review would be to list the places on the Bartram Trail. 


Games


1. Students can adapt the rules of children’s games (such as Red Light /Green Light or Simon Says) to “King George Says.”  The leader says a name and the students choose to step forward or not.  If the name is from the trail, they stay. If it is a false name, and the students take a step, they have to go back to the start.  The winner gets to the destination first.
2. For the more active student “Freeze Tag” can be adapted. When tagged a student must call out a name of a place on the trail or be frozen.  Students can be released by having non-frozen students crawl between their legs. 

Additional Sources

Florida History Online http://www.unf.edu/floridahistoryonline/
Florida State Archives http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/
P.K. Young Library http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/fhmaps.html
Florida Post Card Project http://scholar.library.miami.edu/cards/index.html
Exploring Florida http://fcit.usf.edu/Florida/lessons/bartram/bartram.htm     

Project links

Rice production
http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/3rice/3facts1.htm
http://cghs.dade.k12.fl.us/slavery/antebellum_slavery/non_plantation_slave_life/marriage.htm
http://www.sherpaguides.com/georgia/flint_river/cultural_history/index.html
Tri Cornered Hats
http://www.cvesd.k12.ca.us/finney/paulvm/PR3_TricornHat.pdf
Ft. Caroline National Park
http://www.nps.gov/timu/
Kingsley Plantation
http://www.nps.gov/archive/timu/indepth/kingsley/kp_scav_hunt.pdf