VI History Activities

The instructional material offered on TeachVIHistory.com are called “activities”. They center around encouraging the use of primary sources to explore, discover and investigate US Virgin Islands history, and helping students develop research skills. Each activity includes primary source(s), a brief historical background, suggested teaching instructions, an analysis worksheet, and discussion points. Some activities include extension projects. Teachers may use the activities in their entirety or pick primary sources and associated discussion points that best suit their lesson plans. Are you ready to start exploring US Virgin Islands history using primary sources? Choose a grade level to get started. 

Activities by Grade Level

Lower Elementary

Engage students by exploring cultural objects, games, chores from the past, modes of transportation, Amerindian tools, and more.

Upper Elementary

Learn about Amerindian culture, story telling traditions, sale of the DWI, campaigning & voting, censuses, historical figures, and more.

Junior High School

Question the past using documents, ship records, maps, newspapers, runaway notices, letter about the slave revolt, and more.

High School

Interpret and discuss history through records, poetry, treaties, judgements for suffrage, paintings of plantations, manumissions, and more.

All Activities >

Featured Activities

Analyze Petroglyphs and an Amerindian Swallow Stick

Activity Type:
The various groups of people who first inhabited the Virgin Islands had no written system of communication. However, we can learn directly about their lifeways and beliefs through the surviving elements of their material culture, which include settlement sites, pottery, stoneware, food remains and various kinds of carvings, all…
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Analyzing E. Benjamin Oliver’s ID Card for Insular Travel

Activity Type:
Emanuel Benjamin Oliver was born on May 29, 1876, in Monserrat. He moved to St. Croix around 1897 to teach at Reverend Paul’s School, a private school. On St. Croix he served for many years as a teacher, and later as a principal at the St. Croix Dane School,…
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Treaty of Acquisition between the United States of American and Denmark, 1917

Activity Type:
In 1917 Denmark sold its West Indian colonies with their inhabitants to the United States of America for twenty-five million dollars in gold in accordance with the terms of this Treaty signed by both parties. By that transaction, the United States enhanced its military and economic hegemony within the…
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