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Skills available for Massachusetts fifth-grade social studies standards

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5.T1 Early colonization and growth of colonies

  • 5.T1.1 Explain the early relationships of English settlers to Native Peoples in the 1600s and 1700s, including the impact of diseases introduced by Europeans in severely reducing Native populations, the differing views on land ownership or use, property rights, and the conflicts between the two groups (e.g., the Pequot and King Philip's Wars in New England).

  • 5.T1.2 Compare the different reasons colonies were established and research one of the founders of a colony (e.g., Lord Baltimore in Maryland, William Penn in Pennsylvania, John Smith in Virginia, Roger Williams in Rhode Island, John Winthrop in Massachusetts).

  • 5.T1.3 Analyze the reasons why English colonists had the strongest influence on the language, political institutions, and political principles of the country that became the United States of America, even though other major European nations also explored North America (e.g., the relatively small number of colonists from other nations, England's history of self-government, high rates of literacy, and strong economic, and military position in the world).

  • 5.T1.4 On a map of the United States, locate the first 13 colonies and describe the impact of regional differences in climate on the types of crops that could be grown or harvested profitably in the Northern, mid-Atlantic, and Southern colonies; describe varied sources of labor (e.g., self-employed colonists, apprentices, employees, indentured servants, free and enslaved Africans).

  • 5.T1.5 Describe the origins of slavery, its legal status in all the colonies through the 18th century, and the prevalence of slave ownership, including by many of the country's early leaders (e.g., George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason).

  • 5.T1.6 Describe the Triangular Trade and the harsh conditions of trans-Atlantic voyages (called the Middle Passage) for enslaved Africans.

  • 5.T1.7 Compare and contrast the living and working conditions of enslaved and free Africans in the colonies in the 18th century, and explain how some enslaved people sought their freedom.

    • 5.T1.7.a Enslaved African Americans were property that could be bought, sold, and separated from their families by their owners; they were generally not taught to read or write, and generally owned no property; they suffered many kinds of abuse and could be punished if they were caught after running away from their masters. A number of slave rebellions resulted from these harsh conditions.

    • 5.T1.7.b Many enslaved Africans became skilled artisans, such as cabinetmakers, coopers, and ironworkers and could be hired out to work.

    • 5.T1.7.c Some Africans came to America as indentured servants or sailors and were freed when their service was completed; some former slaves were granted freedom and some in the North took legal action to obtain their freedom (e.g., in Massachusetts, Elizabeth Freeman, Quock Walker, and Prince Hall).

    • 5.T1.7.d States in the North adopted gradual emancipation (for example, Massachusetts outlawed slavery in 1783 and no enslaved people appear in the 1790 Massachusetts census); free African Americans could have families, own property, hold jobs, and earn a living.

5.T2 Reasons for revolution, the Revolutionary War, and the formation of government

5.T3 Principles of United States Government

  • 5.T3.1 Read the Preamble to and sections of the Constitution and explain how these writings reflect the following political principles: individual rights and responsibilities, equality, the rule of law, general welfare, limited government, representative democracy.

  • 5.T3.2 Explain how the framers of the Constitution divided and shared powers among the three branches of the United States government; describe the function of each branch and the system of checks and balances.

  • 5.T3.3 Describe the responsibilities of government at the federal, state, and local levels (e.g., protection of individual rights and the provision of services such as law enforcement and the building and funding of schools.

  • 5.T3.4 Analyze the significance of the major issues debated by members of the Constitutional Convention (e.g., the distribution of political power, the rights of individuals, rights of states, tensions between states with large and smaller populations, the make-up of the Senate and electoral college, slavery and the question of how slaves were to be counted in the Census); explain why the framers agreed to the 3/5 Compromise in order to keep the states united and how the decision reinforced the institution of slavery and the power of states in which slavery was particularly prevalent.

  • 5.T3.5 Explain that voting rights and property rights did not extend to women in the new Constitution.

  • 5.T3.6 Read the Bill of Rights and explain the freedoms it guarantees; research the historical background of one of the first ten Amendments and make an argument using evidence for its inclusion in the Bill of Rights in 1791.

5.T4 The growth of the Republic

  • 5.T4.1 Identify the first three Presidents of the United States (George Washington, 1787-1797, John Adams, 1797–1801, and Thomas Jefferson, 1801–1809); summarize key developments during their time (e.g., the founding of political parties in the 1790s; the first Bank of the U.S., the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798; the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the Haitian Revolution in 1804), and evaluate their leadership of the new nation.

  • 5.T4.2 Evaluate the importance to the nation of the Louisiana Purchase and trace the expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, with Sacagawea and the Corps of Discovery, from 1803 to 1806.

  • 5.T4.3 Describe the causes of the War of 1812 and how events during the war contributed to a sense of American nationalism.

  • 5.T4.4 On a map of New England, locate cities and towns that played important roles in the development of the textile and machinery industries, whaling, shipping, and the China trade in the 18th and 19th centuries and give examples of the short- and long-term benefits and costs of these industries.

  • 5.T4.5 Explain 19th century conflicts between Native Peoples and national, state, and local governments in the United States over land ownership and rights to self-government.

    • 5.T4.5.a Shawnee leader Tecumseh's call for Native Peoples to unify in resistance to the taking of their land (1810)

    • 5.T4.5.b President Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act (1830), which forced native communities to move from their ancestral lands in the Southeast to territory west of the Mississippi River

    • 5.T4.5.c the Mashpee Revolt (1833), a dispute over self-government in the Mashpee Indian district in Massachusetts

    • 5.T4.5.d the significance of the Trail of Tears (1838) for the Cherokee and other native communities in the Southeast

5.T5 Slavery, the legacy of the Civil War, and the struggle for civil rights for all

  • 5.T5.1 Trace the state-by-state abolition of slavery in the Northern states in the 18th and 19th centuries and the expansion of slavery into western states; explain the effects of the 1808 law that banned the importation of slaves into the United States and explain how a robust slave trade nonetheless continued within the United States until the mid-19th century.

  • 5.T5.2 Identify the major reasons for the Civil War (e.g., slavery, political and economic competition in Western territories, the emergence of the Republican Party) and the war's most important outcomes (e.g., end of slavery, Reconstruction, expanded role of the federal government, industrial growth in the North).

  • 5.T5.3 Explain the ideas and roles of some of the people of the pre-Civil War era who led the struggle against slavery (abolitionism) and for voting and property rights for African Americans (e.g., Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe).

  • 5.T5.4 Identify the major military leaders and battles of the Civil War (e.g., Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson; Battles of Bull Run, Shiloh, Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Appomattox).

  • 5.T5.5 Describe the role of Abraham Lincoln in the development of the Republican Party and his actions as President during the Civil War, including the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

  • 5.T5.6 Explain the consequences of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments for the rights of African Americans.

    • 5.T5.6.a advocacy for women's rights surrounding the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments and its relationship to the later movement for women's rights

    • 5.T5.6.b women's attainment of the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment of 1920

  • 5.T5.7 Describe living conditions for African Americans following the Civil War, during the Jim Crow era, including limited educational and economic opportunities, separate public facilities (e.g., segregated schools and colleges, neighborhoods, sections in buses, trains, restaurants, and movie theaters), the organized perpetuation of white supremacist beliefs and the threat of violence from extra-legal groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Describe the role African American churches, civic organizations, and newspapers played in supporting and unifying African American communities.

  • 5.T5.8 Research and analyze one of the people, organizations, events, or legislative acts from the 20th century that contributed to expanding civil rights of African Americans, women, and others in the United States.

  • 5.T5.9 Explain how the 20th century African American Civil Rights movement served as a model for other movements for civil rights (e.g., the second phase of the women's movement in the 1960s and 1970s, the disability rights movement, the LGBTQ movement).