Feb 10, 2007
Virtual Jamestown
The year 2007 will mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown in Virginia, the first enduring settlement in continental British North America. This website allows visitors to explore Jamestown’s rich history.
This site offers primary source documents, scholarly essays, and teaching tools. Primary source documents include 63 letters and first-hand accounts, available in original-spelling or modern-spelling versions, 100 public records, from census data to laws, a sample of documents on labor contracts, and nine 17th-century maps. The reference section includes a timeline placing the history of Jamestown in a global context, interpretive essays by prominent historians, links to 20 related sites, and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. There are a number of K-12 teaching tools and classroom activities. These include using census data to research occupations of colonial settlers, researching questions about life in the colony, studying runaway slave advertisements to investigate the factors a slave had to consider before escaping, and identifying the location of the original Jamestown Fort and artifacts from archaeological explorations. Additionally, there are 10 explanatory maps. Although there is no site search feature, the site is well organized and easy to navigate. An older site, Virtual Jamestown is still a good place to begin investigating the important history of Jamestown, Virginia.
Read a more in-depth review written by City College of New York Professor David Jaffee at http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/868. Or explore other website reviews at History Matters
This site offers primary source documents, scholarly essays, and teaching tools. Primary source documents include 63 letters and first-hand accounts, available in original-spelling or modern-spelling versions, 100 public records, from census data to laws, a sample of documents on labor contracts, and nine 17th-century maps. The reference section includes a timeline placing the history of Jamestown in a global context, interpretive essays by prominent historians, links to 20 related sites, and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. There are a number of K-12 teaching tools and classroom activities. These include using census data to research occupations of colonial settlers, researching questions about life in the colony, studying runaway slave advertisements to investigate the factors a slave had to consider before escaping, and identifying the location of the original Jamestown Fort and artifacts from archaeological explorations. Additionally, there are 10 explanatory maps. Although there is no site search feature, the site is well organized and easy to navigate. An older site, Virtual Jamestown is still a good place to begin investigating the important history of Jamestown, Virginia.
Read a more in-depth review written by City College of New York Professor David Jaffee at http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/868. Or explore other website reviews at History Matters