8th Grade: A Native American Curriculum: Overview
by Cheryl Tuttle
November 03, 2009
The information for the 8th Grade Native American Curriculum has been provided from the American Indian Issues: An Introduction and Curricular Site for Educators, from Humboldt State University.
Design. This interdisciplinary lesson plan is designed to fit within a historical, social, geographical, political, and economic discussion about building the new nation and westward expansion during the Nineteenth Century. Its optimal length is approximately 16 hours, but it can be shortened or lengthened according to teacher need and student interest. The lesson is divided into three parts:
- Part I: The Lives of American Indians is a one-to-two day unit which creates a reference point for the students by discussing the lives of American Indians prior to European contact as well as during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
- Part II: Federal Indian Policy during the Nineteenth Century,is a five-to-eight day unit which examines federal Indian policies created during the era of manifest destiny. At least two of these days will focus on a case study of President Jackson's removal policy and its consequences for several Indian tribes.
- Part III: Indian Boarding Schools, is a two-to-three-day unit which provides students with an understanding of the federal government's policy that placed Indian children in boarding schools in order to assimilate them into Euro-American society.
Lesson Goals
- To acquaint students with the technological, political, and economic sophistication of American Indians before the Constitution was signed and with Indian lifestyles in the Nineteenth Century.
- To introduce students to Federal Indian policies passed and administered by the US. government during the Nineteenth Century.
- To help students understand that the Westward Movement had different meaning for European Americans who were colonizing new lands, and for American Indians whose lands were being occupied.
- To emphasize several important concepts related to the history of American Indian nations, especially tribal sovereignty, the trust relationship, and government-to-government relations.
Lesson Themes: While many issues and themes are discussed in the course of this lesson plan, the following nine themes are the ones that are most heavily emphasized.
1. At the time of European contact in the early 1600s, the North American continent was populated by hundreds of Indian tribes that were culturally, spiritually, and politically diverse. Additionally, the Indian people had achieved a great deal of technological, agricultural, and political sophistication.
2. Despite Indian diversity and tribal sovereignty, most European settlers had little understanding of the cultural, spiritual, and political beliefs of Indians. Thus, they believed the Indians were"uncivilized heathens" and "savages" who needed to become civilized and Christianized.
3. Each of the tribes were inherently sovereign at the time of European contact. Such sovereignty was reinforced when colonial governments signed government-to-government treaties with various Indian nations. Indian sovereignty was further reinforced when the US government was established, especially through the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution which created two sovereign entities: the federal governments and tribal governments.
4. Treaties were legal, government-to-government agreements between the United States and an Indian nation. When an Indian tribe signed a treaty, it agreed to give the federal government some or all of its land as well as some or all of its sovereign powers. In return, the Indian nation entered into a trust relationship with the federal government in which it promised to provide benefits to the Indians in exchange for their land.
5. After the US government was created, hundreds of treaties were signed and many laws were passed by Congress - all of which gradually eroded Indian sovereignty. By the end of the Nineteenth Century, the remaining Indian Nations had been reduced to a semi-sovereign status.
6. To white settlers, the era of Manifest Destiny and of Westward Expansion represented progress and the extension of their cultural and spiritual values to the American West. But to the American Indians, westward expansion was little more than a genocidal invasion that destroyed their ancestral homelands and eroded their cultural, political, economic, and spiritual traditions.
7. During the era of Manifest Destiny, many federal policies - removal, reservations, allotment, assimilation - combined with westward expansion to further destroy the traditional homelands and lifestyles of the American Indian Peoples. By the turn of the Nineteenth Century, Indians lived on only a fraction of the land that had once been under their stewardship. Furthermore, while an estimated 5-10 million American Indians had lived in North America at the time of European contact, by the turn of the Nineteenth Century, only about 250,000 Indians still remained within the continental borders of the United States.
8. The allotment era brought about a formalized, institutionalized method of Indian education - the Indian boarding school. With the opening of Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1879, federal authorities forced Indian parents to either send their children to an off-reservation boarding school such as Carlisle, or to a boarding school established in remote areas of the Indian reservation. Since the primary purpose of the schools was Americanization, Indian children were forbidden to speak their native language, wear traditional clothing, and practice any religious or cultural rituals. For many Indian children, the results were tragic. In shedding their "Indianness," they were neither accepted into American society, nor were they able to comfortably resettle into traditional Indian society.
9. Despite the many attempts to destroy the culture, spirituality, and politics of the American Indian people, many tribes have replenished their populations and many have also been able to maintain and celebrate their traditional lifestyles.
Standards Addressed in the Lesson. This lesson plan was created in accordance with the California History Standards: Accordingly, the following nine components are addressed in the entire lesson plan.
- 8.1.2. "Students understand the major events preceding the founding of the nation and relate their significance to the development of American constitutional democracy, in terms of...the philosophy of government expressed in the Declaration of Independence with an emphasis on government as a means of securing individual rights (e.g., key phrases such as "...all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights)..."
- Part I of the lesson plan discusses the political, social, economic, and spiritual lives of hundreds of American Indian Nations that existed in North America prior to European colonization.
- Part II of the lesson plan demonstrates how the words of the Declaration of Independence were not applied to American Indians.
- 8.2.2. "Students analyze...the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution and the success of each in implementing the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.
- Part II introduces the concept of Congressional plenary power as applied to American Indians.
- 8.2.7. "Students analyze...the principles of federalism, dual sovereignty, separation of powers, checks and balances...
- Part II discusses the concept of three primary and sovereign levels of government as created in the Constitution - Federal, State, and Tribal.
- 8.5.3. "Students analyze US foreign policy in the early Republic in terms of...the major treaties with Indian nations during the administrations of the first four presidents and their varying outcomes..."
- Part II discusses treaty making as legal, government-to-government agreements between two legitimate governments - the United States of America and an Indian Nation.
- Part II discusses the consequences of such treaties upon American Indian Peoples throughout the 19th Century.
- 8.6.3. "Students analyze...the reasons for the wave of immigration from Northern Europe to the US and growth in the number, size, and spatial arrangements of cities."
- Part II discusses the various relocations of American Indians due to western immigration.
- 8.6.5. "Students analyze...thedevelopment of American public education from its earliest roots..."
- Part III addresses the history of the colonial and federal government's attempts to educate American Indians.
- Part III addresses the federal government's attempt to assimilate American Indians through missions and boarding schools.
- 8.8.1. "Students analyze the divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800's and the challenges they faced, with emphasis on the West, in terms of...the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, the importance of Jacksonian democracy and his actions as president."
- Part II discusses Andrew Jackson's role and involvement in the Removal Act of 1830.
- 8.8.2. "Students analyze the divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800's and the challenges they faced, with emphasis on the West, in terms of...the purpose, challenges and economic incentives associated with westward expansion including the concept of Manifest Destiny (e.g....accounts of the removal of Indians and the Cherokees'Trail of Tears)..."
- Part II discusses how Manifest Destiny dramatically influenced the lives of all American Indian Peoples.
- Part II discusses the Removal Act of 1830 and the Trail of Tears.
- 8.12.2. "Students analyze the transformation of the American economy and the changing social and political conditions in the United States in response to the Industrial Revolution, in terms of...the reasons for the development of federal Indian policy and the Plains wars with the American Indians and their relationship to agricultural development and industrialization..."
- Part II discusses 19th Century federal Indian policies.
