Founding Fathers

Chester the Crab meets some of the people who helped create the United States of America as a bold and independent nation. Sometimes that creation of a new kind of government was messy. There were fights and arguments. These people set in motion debates that we still have today about what it means to be American. This funny, colorful graphic novel will excite reluctant readers, prepare students for standardized tests in history and help homeschooling parents!

Comic sample page #1: How did Henry menace King George?
Comic sample page #2: What is in Washington’s first term?
Topics covered in this comic book
Teacher’s Guide for this comic

Patrick Henry and King George III

George Washington's first presidential term

CHAPTER 1 NATHANIEL BACON

Virginia is one of England’s biggest and wealthiest colonies in North America in 1675. But tensions are growing between rich planters who own large plantations in the east and small farmers who must go west into the wooded frontier to find land for themselves. That tension becomes America’s first open rebellion against England’s royal power when Nathaniel Bacon comes from England and takes up the small farmers’ cause . . .

Topics covered in this chapter include:
When was Virginia’s first revolution?
Who was Nathaniel Bacon?
Why did settlers fight Indians in 1675?
Who ruled Jamestown in 1676?
Who won Bacon’s Rebellion?

CHAPTER 2 PATRICK HENRY

In 1699 the capital of Virginia moves from Jamestown to Williamsburg. There is calm for 60 years. But Patrick Henry is part of a generation of Virginians who are born on the frontier and grow up questioning the relationship of their colony to “Mother England.” Henry himself is bold enough to say these questions out loud, in public! He is in the colony’s House of Burgesses only three days before he makes a ruckus by opposing the king’s Stamp Act tax in 1765. And the words only get hotter from there . . .

Topics covered in this chapter include:
Who was Henry the Menace?
Who fought the King’s Stamp Tax?
How did Henry menace King George?
Who was Virginia’s first elected governor?
Why did Henry menace the Constitution?

CHAPTER 3 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Young George Washington surveys the frontier to mark off land for settlers, and he wants to join the British army. But the Redcoats will not have him. So he is available in 1775 when the rebelling American colonies need a general to lead their patriot soldiers. Washington holds the ragtag troops together until his victory at Yorktown in 1781 smashes a major British force. Winning a war against the world’s superpower is amazing enough. But now Washington faces an even bigger challenge: forming a peacetime government that will hold the American states together . . .

Topics covered in this chapter include:
Why did America need a president?
Where was Washington’s inauguration?
What is in Washington’s first term?
How did Washington view the world?
Who ended the Whiskey Rebellion?

CHAPTER 4 JOHN MARSHALL

In 1801, America has a working government and some stability after George Washington’s two terms as president. But the job of founding (forming) America is not done yet. One of the nation’s three government branches is still very weak: the judiciary. There is not true balance in our system of checks and balances. Virginian John Marshall is put on the United States Supreme Court in 1801 – can he do something to build the power of judges?

Topics covered in this chapter include:
How did John Marshall start judging?
Where are courts in the Constitution?
How strong was the Supreme Court?
Who makes laws unconstitutional?
Did politics or the law save Burr?

Founding Fathers

View the FOUNDING FATHERS Teacher’s Guide.