Thinking Like a Historian: Part 1

Name: ______Date: ______Period: ______Class: ______

Below are some rules historians follow. Be sure to keep these in mind when studying history.

1)Exhibit curiosity,

2)Experiment with new ideas,

3)See Others’ points of view,

4)Challenge your own beliefs,

5)Ask provocative questions,

6)Read with awareness of self and others, and

7)Look for significance in order to learn and grow as a person

Adapted from Unrau, 2008

What do each of these rules mean to you? Having trouble? Read the “context” section below and the poem on the backside of this paper. Mr. Padilla will guide you in a class discussion.

Exhibit curiosity
Experiment with new ideas
See Others’ points of view
Challenge your own beliefs
Ask provocative questions
Read with awareness of self and others
Look for significance in order to learn and grow as a person

Context:In 1838, the United States government forcibly removed more than 16,000 Cherokee Indian people from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia, and sent them to Indian Territory (today known as Oklahoma).

The impact to the Cherokee was devastating. Hundreds of Cherokee died during their trip west, and thousands more perished from the consequences of relocation. This tragic chapter in American and Cherokee history became known as the Trail of Tears, and culminated the implementation of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which mandated the removal of all American Indian tribes east of the Mississippi River to lands in the West.

(accessed September 11, 2011)

There's a trail of tears
Flowing from our homeland
Washing out the years
Drowning out the red man.
There's a broken heart
beating like a funeral drum,
A nation torn apart,
So one can be born.

There's a memory
That the eagle holds high
When we were free
As the wind in the sky.
There's a feeling inside
That stirs our madness
To have a chosen life
In the fields of sadness.

There are some empty teepees
Falling into dust
Like an endangered species
We're losing way too much
We are a world forgotten
Pushed aside and left alone
But comes a time when we will rise again.
Oh Great One, hear our prayers and our song.

~written by Mojomike8~

Name: ______Date: ______Period: ______Class: ______

Thinking Like a Historian: Part 2

Listed below are 6 Native American cultural regions. Many different Native American groups lived in North America. Different groups living in the same region shared the same culture because the land they lived on shaped their way of life. You will discuss two regions: the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast Region.

The Pacific Northwest people lived along 2,000 miles of coastline from southern Alaska to northern California. The plateau region was to the east beynd the Cascade mountain range, and California people lived to the south.

More than 500,000 people in tribes such as the Chinook, Haida, Nootka and Tlingit lived in the region before 1800. There was plenty of food and cedar to built their homes and make their canoes.

There were two main language groups of Native Americans in the northeast region: Iroquois and Algonquin. Within those language groups were many individual tribes or nations.

The Algonquin lived in two areas: around the Great Lakes, and near the Atlantic Ocean. The Wampanoag nation were the first tribe that Europeans met when they came to America. Both the Illini and Potawatomi, tribes that lived in Illinois long ago, were part of the Algonquin language group.

The League of the Iroquois was formed from five tribes: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. There is not a consensus among scholars of the exact date. Some say the League was formed in 1451; some say 1570. Others believe the league was formed at least 300 years earlier - around 1090. The Tuscarora tribe joined in 1772, and it became the Six Nations. This group of people lived in what is now New York state. The Iroquois call themselves the Hodenosaunee, which means "People of the Longhouse".

(accessed September 12, 2011)

With a partner…

Define Discovery: ______.

Define Immigration: ______.

Christopher Columbus

Discovers America, 1492

Columbus led his three ships - the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria - out of the Spanish port of Palos on August 3, 1492. His objective was to sail west until he reached Asia (the Indies) where the riches of gold, pearls and spice awaited. His first stop was the Canary Islands where the lack of wind left his expedition becalmed until September 6.

Once underway, Columbus benefited from calm seas and steady winds that pushed him steadily westward (Columbus had discovered the southern "Trades" that in the future would fuel the sailing ships carrying goods to the New World). However, the trip was long, longer than anticipated by either Columbus or his crew. In order to mollify his crew's apprehensions, Columbus kept two sets of logs: one showing the true distance traveled each day and one showing a lesser distance. The first log was kept secret. The latter log quieted the crew's anxiety by under-reporting the true distance they had traveled from their homeland.

This deception had only a temporary effect; by October 10 the crew's apprehension had increased to the point of near mutiny. Columbus headed off disaster by promising his crew that if land was not sighted in two days, they would return home. The next day land was discovered.

(accessed September 12, 2011)