Examine multiple perspectives on a historical event with primary and secondary sources, then communicate a claim

Learning goal: Use primary and secondary sources to examine multiple perspectives on a historical event or individual, then create and communicate a claim or position supported by credible sources. This lesson teaches Ohio's 2026 social studies standard for Grade 5, published in July 2026. The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce anticipates that districts will begin implementing the 2026 standards in the 2027-28 school year.

Two kinds of sources. A primary source gives direct evidence for the question you are asking: it was made by a person who took part in the event or saw it, or it was made at the time as part of the event itself. Letters, diaries, drawings, maps, laws, objects and eyewitness accounts can all be primary sources. A secondary source interprets or brings together other evidence; it is usually made later by someone who studied the event, often by reading and comparing primary sources. A textbook chapter, a museum article and a modern historian's book are secondary sources. Age alone does not decide the kind: what matters is how the source is connected to your question. A school textbook from 1950 is a secondary source about the year 1521, but it is a primary source if your question is how schools in 1950 taught the conquest. Neither kind is automatically true. An eyewitness can be mistaken, can see only part of what happened, or can write to make himself look good. A careful historian writing later may know more than any single eyewitness because she has compared many accounts. The question to ask of every source is: how does this source know what it says?

What a perspective is. A perspective is the point of view a person brings to an event. It comes from who the person is, where they stood, what they wanted and what they already believed. Two people can describe the same event very differently and both be honest. When historians study an event from multiple perspectives, they look for sources made by different people who took part in it, especially people on different sides.

An event with several perspectives: the fall of Tenochtitlan, 1519–1521. Tenochtitlan was the capital of the Mexica (Aztec) Empire, built on an island in Lake Texcoco. Spanish soldiers led by Hernán Cortés arrived in 1519. In 1521, after a long siege, the city fell. Thousands of Indigenous warriors from Tlaxcala and other nations that were enemies of the Mexica fought alongside the Spanish. Disease, especially smallpox, had also killed many people in the city before the final siege.

We can study this event through at least three kinds of sources:

1. Cortés's letters to the Spanish king (1519–1526). These are primary sources written by the Spanish commander himself. His perspective: he wanted the king to approve his actions and reward him, so he had reasons to make himself look brave and wise and to make his victory look like his own doing.
2. The Florentine Codex, Book 12. Beginning in the mid-1500s, a Spanish friar, Bernardino de Sahagún, worked with Nahua scholars and elders to record Mexica memories of the conquest in the Nahuatl language. The accounts in Book 12 were gathered about thirty years after the siege, from survivors, by Nahua scholars working under Spanish rule; the finished illustrated manuscript now called the Florentine Codex was completed around 1577, more than fifty years after the siege. It is a primary source for the Mexica perspective, with those time gaps as limits to state. It describes fear, sickness, and the suffering of the city.
3. A modern museum or history article. This is a secondary source. One example is the historian Matthew Restall's book Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (2003). A good one explains that the Spanish could not have won without their Indigenous allies and without the effects of disease, because it compares the Spanish accounts, the Nahua accounts and other evidence.

Comparing the perspectives. Cortés's letters say a great deal about Spanish plans and battles. The Nahua account says much more about what the people inside the city experienced. Neither tells the whole story alone. When two sources from opposite sides agree on a fact (for example, that the siege was long and that many people died), our confidence in that fact rises, but only if each source knew it independently. Two accounts that copied each other, or repeated the same earlier report, count as one piece of evidence, not two. So we also ask: did each creator learn this separately? When they disagree, we do not simply pick the one we like; we ask why each creator might see it that way.

Credible sources. A source is credible when there are good reasons to trust it for the claim you are making. Check four things: Who made it? (a person who was there, or a researcher who studied the evidence?) When? (at the time, or much later?) Why? (to inform, to persuade, to win a reward?) Can it be checked? (do other sources that learned it independently agree?) A credible source for one question may be weak for another. Cortés's letter is credible evidence of what Cortés wanted the king to believe. It is weaker evidence of what the Mexica people thought.

The misconception to avoid. Many students think "primary means true and secondary means just an opinion." That is wrong. A primary source can be one-sided; a secondary source can be carefully checked. Credibility depends on how the source knows and why it was made, not on its age.

Creating and communicating a claim. A claim is a statement you can support with evidence. A strong historical claim has three parts: (1) the claim in one sentence, (2) evidence from at least two sources, named and described as primary or secondary, and (3) an explanation of how each source's perspective affects what it can prove. For example: *"Indigenous allies were essential to the Spanish capture of Tenochtitlan. Cortés's own letters describe fighting beside Tlaxcalan warriors, the Nahua account in the Florentine Codex describes the city surrounded by many enemies, and modern historians who compare these sources, such as Matthew Restall in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (2003), agree. Because Cortés wanted credit for himself, his letters are especially strong evidence here: even he admits he needed allies."* You communicate the claim by writing it, saying it aloud, or presenting it on a poster, and you always name your sources so others can check them.

Worked example 1 — sort the sources: A student has four sources about the fall of Tenochtitlan: (a) a letter Cortés wrote in 1522; (b) a drawing from the Florentine Codex made by Nahua artists in the 1500s; (c) a 2019 museum web page; (d) a modern map showing where Tenochtitlan's island once was. Solution: (a) primary, written by a participant; (b) primary for the Nahua perspective, made by people of the time from survivors' memories, but decades later; (c) secondary, written by researchers long after; (d) secondary, a modern reconstruction. The student notes that (b) is primary even though it came later, because it records the memories of people who lived through the event.

Worked example 2 — two perspectives, one fact: Cortés's letters and the Nahua account both describe a long siege in which the city ran short of food and water. The student checks independence: Cortés wrote from the Spanish camp outside the city, and the Nahua account records what people inside the city remembered of their own experience, so neither is likely to have simply copied the other, although the Nahua accounts were gathered later, under Spanish rule. Because two independent sources made by people on opposite sides agree, the student can state this fact confidently. The student then notes a difference: the Nahua account describes the sickness that killed many people in the city, while Cortés's letters focus on battles. The difference is explained by perspective: people inside the city lived through the epidemic; the commander wrote about his campaign.

Worked example 3 — test a claim for credibility: Claim: "Cortés conquered the Aztec Empire by himself with a few hundred Spanish soldiers." Check it against the sources. Cortés's own letters mention Tlaxcalan allies; the Nahua account shows the city surrounded; modern secondary sources explain the role of disease and of many thousands of Indigenous warriors. The claim fails. A better claim: "A small Spanish force, many thousands of Indigenous allies and an epidemic together brought about the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521." The revised claim names its evidence and does not give all the credit to one person.

Source chart (representation task): Make a five-column chart for three sources about one event from the Western Hemisphere that your teacher provides (for example, the fall of Tenochtitlan or the first meeting of Europeans and the Taíno in 1492). Columns: source name; primary or secondary, and why; who made it and when; the creator's perspective (what did they want or believe?); one thing the source can show and one thing it cannot show.

Independent performance: Write or present a claim about the event in 150–250 words. Success criteria: (1) your claim is one clear sentence that could be argued with; (2) you use at least two sources, at least one primary and one secondary, and label each; (3) you name the perspective of at least two creators and explain how it affects what their source can prove; (4) you explain why your sources are credible for your claim (who, when, why, can it be checked); (5) you describe one perspective that your sources leave out. Share your claim with a partner, who must point to the evidence for each sentence.