Liberty of Conscience Lesson Starters
The lesson starters below provide flexible ways to use film clips from the documentary Liberty of Conscience: The Founding of Maryland in your classroom. Select a topic to find video clips, essential and guiding questions, learning extensions, and other student supports to use in your classroom.
Elementary
Learn the stories of three important people -- Mathias de Sousa, Margaret Brent, and Chief Wannas -- to explore what freedom and fairness meant for different people in the early Maryland colony.
» Go to Freedom and Fairness in Colonial Maryland
Analyze how geography influences settlement patterns and how archaeology can help us understand early colonial settlements by comparing St. Mary's City to George Calvert's first colony, the Colony of Avalon in Newfoundland.
» Go to Geography and Archaeology in the Avalon Colony
Examine how societies in the Americas shaped and were shaped by their environments by learning how geography influences the lifeways, economies, and cultural practices of Indigenous communities in the Chesapeake region.
» Go to Indigenous Geographic Values and Connections to the Land
Explore how people in the past tried to create a place where different religious beliefs could coexist, why that religious freedom was important to Maryland's founders, and how laws like the Maryland Toleration Act shaped life in the early colony.
» Go to Religious Freedom in Colonial Maryland
Middle School
Learn how Maryland’s labor system shifted from indentured servitude to race‑based slavery and how lawmakers used race to justify and enforce this change.
» Go to Analyzing the Shift from Indentured Servitude to Race-Based Slavery
Examine contrasting Indigenous and European perspectives on land, including how each group understood ownership, stewardship, and responsibility to place, and analyze how treaties were used to designate or deny Indigenous sovereignty.
» Go to Comparing and Contrasting Indigenous vs. European Land Use and Treaties
Investigate the religious, political, and economic motivations behind exploration and colonization to understand why the Maryland colony was founded.
» Go to Motivations for Exploration and Colonization
Learn how English colonial presence affected Indigenous lands and communities, and evaluate the impacts of European settlement on Indigenous nations in the Chesapeake region.
» Go to Consequences of Colonizer Presence on Indigenous Land