Journal

1. Journal • What is perspective? • Why do we need to think about it when we study history? • What is Context? • What does it have to do with studying history? • What was “manifest destiny”?

2. Land Ownership • What would you and your family do if I showed up at your house and started cooking or laid out an air mattress so I could take a nap? • What would you think if I clamed a section of the air and told you it was mine? (You could not pass through it or breathe it in.) • “the principle of establishing private ownership of land is seen as being no more rational than the private ownership of the air” • Most Native American tribes saw themselves as part of the land, and therefore the land and the resources on the land were seen as communal- belonging to everyone…

3. Surviving on the Land • Imagine you are living right here in the year 1850. Write 3-5 sentences to describe to me how you would live. How would you meet your basic needs? *Be ready to share out.* • Some Native American tribes were farmers, but many relied on hunting game, fishing, and gathering, some times even to the point of being nomadic • White European settlers saw things very differently, they had been living as farmers & craftsmen, in permanent settlements, for a long time, and expected to live that way in the newly formed U.S.A. (even in the colonies) • European law places high importance on written documents and contracts

4. Law, Contracts, and Treaties • Imagine I told you today that if you turned in every assignment this trimester, showed up on time every day, and earned a 85% or higher in the class I would give you $500.00 • Would you believe me? • What if I brought you an official written contract saying the same thing, and I signed it and had both you and your parents sign it as well. Would you believe me then? • European law places high importance on written documents and contracts • Many large parcels of land were “legally” taken from Native American tribes through the signing of treaties (formal written agreements between countries). • Many Native Americans held much more importance on honoring verbal agreements than whites, and treaties and contracts were foreign to them.

5. Law, Contracts, and Treaties • Many times treaties were only signed by a small handful of Native Americans from a given tribe, not necessarily the leaders • Many of the treaties were extremely confusing • Many treaties came with pre-conditions: IF you become farmers with up divided, privately owned land we’ll let you stay… • Many of the treaties were never honored in the first place, or only honored until the land was deemed more desirable

6. Perspective & Context: what did you learn? • Explain in 2-3 sentences how Native Americans and white settlers differed on the following ideas: • Land ownership • How best to use the land (how to live off the land) • How did the way agreements were made differ? • 1-paragraph Journal Entry - Imagine you are a U.S. senator in the state of Georgia. You truly want the best possible outcome not only for settlers, but for Indians as well. You have just found out that gold was discovered on land belonging to the Creek Indians. Settlers hungry for profit will soon try to stake claims on the land and it will be hard to stop them. The Creek won’t just let them mine and farm the land holding the ashes of their ancestors and the hunting grounds that feed their families. What do you do?

7. Journal Review: Yesterday we discussed a few examples of ways in which Native American and white settlers saw their situations from very different perspectives. • Explain at least one way in which this was true. • How might it have caused conflicts between the two groups?

8. The Treaty of Paris, 1783 • While under British control, all land east of the Appalachian Mountains was off limits to settlement, in large part to limit conflicts with Native Americans. Native Americans would be increasingly forced off of their lands, and conflicts with white settlers would drastically increase in the period after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.

9. Statistics of Expansion • In 1790there were 3.9 million white Americans, the majority of them lived within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean • In 1830 there were 13 million white Americans, and 4.5 million of them lived in the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys west of the Appalachian Mountains • In 1820 150,000 Native Americans lived east of the Mississippi; by 1844 only 30,000 were left! • Today we are going to examine why and how this happened

10. E.Q.: Could two drastically different cultures have peacefully coexisted?

11. The Tactics of “Removal” • Simply ignoring Native American tribes’ rights to their land and putting Native lands up for sale to white settlers • Seizing the land, dividing it up into parcels, and giving it out by lottery. Telling Native Americans they can own parcels of land if they wish to settle and farm, but not otherwise • Convincing tribes to sign contracts, known as treaties, to offer them land somewhere else if they would leave • Waiting for any instance of Native American aggression towards whites, and then taking swift military action

12. Example: The Chickasaw • Almost every Native American tribe who took part in the Revolutionary War fought on the side of the British • The Chickasaw tribe fought for the Americans, and in return the American government signed a treaty guaranteeing the Chickasaw could stay on their land. • Wealthy American businessmen bought the land from the U.S. government and sold most of it off, forcing the Chickasaw off of their land.

13. The Creek • The Creek are a tribe who traditionally occupied Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. • Many Creek Indians partially assimilated into white culture. Many had taken up farming and permanent settlement. • The Creek’s land suddenly became very attractive to settlers when gold was discovered there.

14. The Purpose of Government • What are the three branches of U.S. government, and what are their jobs? • Next up… reading: Indian Removal, John Marshall and Andrew Jackson

16. Happy Friday! – Journal: Get out your reading questions so I can stamp them… • What is assimilation? • How were the goals of assimilation different from the goals of removal? • In 1832, the Supreme Court found that it was __________ for the state of Georgia to forcibly remove the Creek Indians from their land. * Song of the week!- Poncho and Lefty by Townes Van Zandt!

17. Creating a Political Flyer What is the best way to handle the drastically opposing values and culture of Native Americans and white settlers in the southeast? Your task is to create a full-page political flyer for one of the following plans.: • Assimilation • Removal • Enforcing the Supreme Court’s 1832 decision by any means necessary • Your flyer must include: • A visual (drawing, map, collage, etc- be creative!) • An explanation of your policy- what does it mean? • A justification for your policy, why is it the best course of action?