Jacques Cartier's 1534 account says the French raised a large cross at Gaspe to claim the land for France, and that the Stadacona leader Donnacona came out to the ships and spoke against it. What did that response show about his view of the land?

Cartier wrote his account of the 1534 voyage for the king of France, who had paid for the expedition. Knowing that audience, what should a reader expect the account to emphasize?

Columbus wrote in his 1492 journal that the Taino people would make good servants and could easily be made Christians. What does this line show about his point of view?

Columbus's journal for October 12, 1492 records that the Taino swam out with parrots and cotton thread, and that the Spanish handed them glass beads and bells. His entry is the only record of that meeting. What can it NOT tell us?

Hernan Cortes wrote to the Spanish king that the market of Tenochtitlan drew more than sixty thousand people a day. Nahua elders' accounts describe the visitors searching out and carrying off gold. What do both accounts show about the city?

Cortes wrote his letters as the commander of the Spanish force. The Nahua accounts in the Florentine Codex were told by elders who had lived through the fighting in Tenochtitlan. Which source can tell us most about what the city's own people experienced?

Nahua accounts describe a sickness that covered people with sores and swept through Tenochtitlan in 1520, after Europeans reached the city. Why did this epidemic spread so fast among the city's people?

After contact, maize, potatoes and tomatoes moved from the Americas to Europe, while horses, wheat and cattle moved from Europe to the Americas. What is this two-way movement of plants, animals and diseases called?

Spanish accounts written by men who were present at Cajamarca in 1532 describe a meeting with the Inca ruler Atahualpa. According to those accounts, what happened to Atahualpa at that meeting?

John Smith described his 1607 capture by Powhatan leaders twice: in a report printed in 1608 and in a history printed in 1624. Only the 1624 version tells of Pocahontas saving his life. Why do historians question that part of the story?

The English colonists at Jamestown left many written records. The Powhatan people passed their history on by speaking it rather than by writing it. What does this difference mean for historians studying Jamestown?

Tisquantum, also called Squanto, returned to Patuxet after years away across the Atlantic and found the village empty. In the years just before, European ships had visited that stretch of coast. What best explains what he found?

An officer on Henry Hudson's ship kept a written journal of the 1609 river voyage. A Lenape account of the same meeting was passed down by speaking and was written down about two hundred years later. Which source was recorded at the time of the event?

Accounts written by members of Hernando de Soto's expedition describe the Spanish taking stored food from the Southeastern towns they passed through and forcing townspeople to carry supplies and guide them.

Cortes's letters describe the crowded market of Tenochtitlan, while the Florentine Codex accounts of the same city were told by Nahua elders. Both of these accounts were made by people who came from Spain.

A Spanish account and a Nahua account of the same day in Tenochtitlan both report the same detail. What does it usually mean when accounts from two different sides agree?

Why do historians compare multiple accounts of the same historical event?

If a European trader's journal and a Native leader's oral history describe the same meeting differently, one of them must be lying.

Which source would be a primary source about early contact between Native peoples and Europeans?

When two accounts disagree about what happened during first contact, what should a careful reader do?