Enrichment Activities
1. Answer the following two discussion questions. You must copy the question and answer it in complete sentences.
1. What did American colonists mean by “No taxation without representation”?
2. What do you think was the most important battle of the Revolutionary War and why?
2. Read the following account of the Lost Colony and answer the question below:
The colony on Roanoke Island was the first attempt at establishing a colony. The colonists arrived in the New World in the summer of 1584. The land had plenty of game and fish. In 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh sent his cousin, Sir Richard Grenville to Virginia. After his arrival, the colonists began to build a settlement called Fort Raleigh. Near the end of August, Grenville went back to England for supplies. He left Governor Ralph Lane in charge of the men he left behind in the colony. Governor Lane led raids against the Roanoke Indians and killed their chief. Sir Francis Drake arrived on the island in 1586 and saw that things were bad between the colonists and the indians. The food supply was getting low, so Lane and his men decided to go back to England with Sir Drake.
A few weeks later, Grenville returned to Roanoke Island with 3 ships full of supplies, but because Lane and his men had gone back to England, he decided to return to England as well, but he left 15 of his men there so the colony would remain an English colony. In July of 1587, Sir John White, who Raleigh named as the new Governor of the colony, arrived on the island with 91 men, 17 women, and 9 children. They met friendly natives called Croatoans who lived on an island to the south of Roanoke Island. They taught the colonists how to hunt and fish. Two of the indians were baptized on August 13, 1587 - one of them was Manteo, the leader of the Croatoans. Eleanor Dare had the first English child born in the New World, Virginia Dare, on August 18, 1587. On August 27, 1587, White decided to return to England for more supplies before the hurricane season started. When he got back to England, he learned that England was going to war with Spain. He was not able to return to the colony for three years.
When White returned to Roanoke Island, he was unable to find the colonists. They had all mysteriously vanished. He did not find any evidence of their deaths - the only clues he found were the letters "CRO" carved into a tree and the word "Croatoan" carved into a wooden fence post. The colonists were never found.
There are many theories about what may have happened to the colonists. You can view some of them here. Do you agree with one of the theories listed on this site, or do you think something else happened to the colonists, such as being wiped out by a storm or maybe you think they all died from a disease? Do you think something else happened? What do you think happened to the colonists and why do you believe so?
3. Click the following links to play review games:
Revolutionary War - Battleship