Teaching American Indian History with Primary Sources

Teaching American Indian

History with Primary Sources

Dan Eshet, Salem State University

In partnership with The Organization of American Historians/National Park Service

Northeast Region History Program National Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior December 2020

Cover: from The Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd (1923). This map shows the British colonies in North America from 1763 to 1775.

Teaching American Indian

History with Primary Sources

Popovi Da, the great Pueblo artist, was quizzed one day on why the Indians were the first ones on this continent. "We had reservations," was his reply. Another time, when questioned by an anthropologist on what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, "Ours." ... Some years ago at a Congressional hearing someone asked Alex Chasing Hawk, a council member of the Cheyenne River Sioux for thirty years, "Just what do you Indians want?" Alex replied, "A leave-us-alone law!!"

?-- Vine Deloria Jr., Custer Died for Your Sins (1988)

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Contents

Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 A Note on the Names of Indian Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 A Note to Educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Suggested Classroom Strategies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 A Brief Timeline of the History of Indian Nations in North America. . . . . . . . . . . 16

CHAPTER 1

Identity: Stereotypes and Choices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

What Is Identity?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Exercises. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Exercise 1.1: Wheel of Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Exercise 1.2: Venn Diagram of Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Exercise 1.3: Stereotypes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Readings

Reading 1.1: How Are Stereotypes Created?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Reading 1.2: Mascots and Stereotypes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Reading 1.3: "I'm Not the Indian You Had in Mind". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Reading 1.4: Names Matter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

CHAPTER 2

God, Greed, and Violence: Colonialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Settler Colonialism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Colonialism and Its Critics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Readings

Reading 2.1: Who "Owns" America? The Doctrine of Discovery . . . . . . . . . . 45 Reading 2.2: Creed or Greed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Reading 2.3: The "Thinning" of the American Indian Population. . . . . . . . . . 50 Reading 2.4: American Indians Respond to Settlers' Religions. . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Reading 2.5: The Doctrine of Manifest Destiny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Reading 2.6: The Red Man's Rebuke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

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