NATIVE AMERICA:
Contact
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Murphy Entertainment Group
Teacher’s Guide Written By…
Gina Smith
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NATIVE AMERICA:
Contact
Teacher’s Guide
Table of Contents
Introduction and Summary .......................................1
Curriculum Standards ...............................................1
Teacher Preparation/Instructional Notes ..................1
Student Preparation ..................................................2
Pre-Test .....................................................................3
Student Objectives ....................................................3
Introducing the Video ...............................................3
View the Video .........................................................3
FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES
Discussion Questions................................................4
Blackline Masters Activities .....................................4
Extended Learning Activities ...................................6
Answer Key ..............................................................7
Reference Suggestions..............................................9
Script of Narration ..................................................10
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NATIVE AMERICA
CONTACT
Teacher’s Guide
Grades 5-8
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
This program gives students a look at what Native American life
was like before contact with European explorers. Students will
learn the reasons explorers came to North America. Students will
discover how contact and the establishment of the fur trade
changed Native American lifestyle. Students will also learn how
this contact brought diseases that devastated Native American
communities.
CURRICULUM STANDARDS
The design for this program was guided by United States history
standards. In accordance with these standards we have attempted
to help students:
1.
Understand the characteristics of societies in North
America before and after Western European interaction
after 1450.
2.
Understand why the Americas attracted Europeans.
3.
Understand the cultural and environmental impacts of
European settlement in North America.
4.
Learn about the friendly and conflictory relations between
the French and Native Americans.
5.
Learn how various Native American societies changed as
a result of European expansion.
6.
Understand the impact of the fur trade on the environment.
TEACHER PREPARATION/INSTRUCTIONAL NOTES
1.
Before presenting this lesson to your students, we suggest that you review history and cultural anthropology
books about Native Americans in general and Native
American communities in your region. Native Americans
as a whole have a shared history concerning contact but
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the various nations, tribes and cultures are as diverse as
the regions they once inhabited. We also advise you to
preview the video and review the guide and accompanying blackline masters in order to familiarize yourself with
their content.
As you review the materials presented in this guide, you
may find it necessary to make some changes, additions,
or deletions to meet the specific needs of your class. We
encourage you to do so, for only in tailoring this program
for your class will they obtain the maximum instructional
benefits afforded by the materials.
It is also suggested that the video presentation take place
before the entire group under your supervision. The lesson activities grow out of the context of the video; therefore, the presentation should be a common experience for
all students.
You should also duplicate selected hand-out materials
from the blackline masters included in this guide.
2.
Set up a “ Learning Center” with maps of Europe, North
America, and a world map and historical pictures of Native people, fur bearing animals, fish and other relevant
materials that may be available to you. Create a trade
museum in the “Learning Center” with cloth, beads, hats,
steel pots, corn, potatoes, and tomatoes. You might include items that represent Native cultures in your area for
example, for the people of the plains, drums and music,
for the people of the desert, pottery, and silver jewelry.
STUDENT PREPARATION
Before viewing NATIVE AMERICA: CONTACT,
1. Have students explore the “Learning Center.”
2. Introduce or review with your students the meaning of any
words from Blackline Master #3: Vocabulary sheet with
which they may need help understanding.
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PRE-TEST
An optional Pre-Test is provided on Blackline Master #2. This
test will help you determine the level of student comprehension
prior to participating in this lesson. An Answer Key appears on
pages 7-9 of this Teacher’s Guide.
STUDENT OBJECTIVES
After viewing the video and participating in the follow up activities, students should be able to:
1. Explain what life was like in North America prior to European contact.
2. Explain why the Americas attracted Europeans
3. Identify cultural and environmental impacts of European contact and the fur trade.
4. Explain the friendly relationships between the French and
Native Americans.
5. Explain how Native societies changed as a result of European expansion
6. Identify the impact of the fur trade on the environment.
INTRODUCING THE VIDEO
1. Using a large map of Europe and North America, point out
some of the routes taken by Europeans to settle in North
America
2. Using a large map of North America, point out the St.
Lawrence Seaway, the Great Lakes, Green Bay, Wisconsin,
the Wisconsin River, the Mississippi River, Oregon and Washington.
Hand out Blackline Master # 1: Video Quiz, Blackline Master#4: Crossword Puzzle, and Blackline Masters # 7a : Map
of the European Ship Routes to North America, # 7b: Map of
Regions and People in North America, and # 7c: Map of Migration Routes of the Fur Trade.
VIEW THE VIDEO
Running time of the program is 14:00 minutes long followed by
an optional Video Quiz.
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FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Lead a class discussion about Native American life before
European contact including the aspects of their family life, religion, political structures, culture and language.
2. What does it mean to live as hunters and gatherers?
3. What does it mean to think that everything around you has a
spirit or a soul?
4. Discuss the many different reasons European explorers came
to North America.
5. Discuss how European manufactured goods made Native
American life easier. For example, cooking in steel pots and using metal knives instead of stone.
6. Discuss the effects of the fur trade on beaver populations and
other fur bearing animals. How did fur trade affect the rivers and
streams?
7. Lead a discussion about viruses and bacteria. Have students
share experiences with colds and viruses. How do you get exposed? Then ask what happens when teachers and principals are
sick for a long time. How does that change the culture of the
classroom?
BLACKLINE MASTERS
(1.) Blackline Master #1: Video Quiz is a printed version of the
questions that appear at the end of this program.
(2.) Blackline Master #2 is a Pre-Test that, when compared to
the results of the of Blackline Master #8: Post-Test, will help
you gauge student progress.
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(3.) Blackline Masters #3a-b are Vocabulary Worksheets that
will introduce students to unfamiliar words used in the program,
or words pertaining to the subject of the program they may encounter in outside reading. Blackline Master #3c is a Vocabulary Activities Sheet that challenges students to use some of the
words from the vocabulary worksheet presented in this program.
(4.) Blackline Masters #4a-b: Timeline delineates some of the
important events and figures of the period.
(5.) Blackline Master # 5 is a Crossword Puzzle that challenges
students to use some of the words from the vocabulary worksheet
presented in this program.
(6.) Blackline Masters #6a-b: Thinking About Contact (Native America and Contact, Fur Trade and Vanished Americans,
and Europeans) challenge students to think about the impact of
first contact with foreign visitors and evaluate the process of
change on both cultures.
(7.). Blackline Masters #7a-c: Map of European Exploration,
Map of North American Native American Cultures, Map of
Fur Trade Location and Migration will help students visualize
the physical and cultural geography of the period.
a. Map #7a is a map showing European ship routes to North
America.
b. Map #7b is a map showing regions and culture groups in precontact North America.
c. Map #7c shows migration routes of the fur trade from east to
west.
(8.) Blackline Master #8: Post-Test is an assessment tool to be
administered after the entire lesson is complete. Contrasting students’ results with those of Blackline Master #2: Pre-Test should
help you gauge overall comprehension of the Student Objectives.
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EXTENDED LEARNING ACTIVITIES
A. In order to express and communicate ideas, papers, or oral
reports could be prepared on the following subjects:
1. The economic reasons for European exploration.
2. What do you think Native American life was like as hunters
and gatherers in pre-contact North America?
3. How did contact with Native Americans improve the lifestyle
and wealth of Europeans?
4. Why did the Native Americans get involved in the fur trade?
5. What do you think life was like for French fur traders?
6. How did the fur trade change the economy of hunters and gatherers?
7. How did the fur trade change relationships between Native
American communities?
8. How disease epidemics affect people historically and in modern times.
B. North America could be divided into regions and students could
research how life among pre-contact Native Americans was dependent on where they lived and what resources were available
to them.
C. As an art project, students could research the Native American
cultures that lived where you live now. For example, how they
made pottery, wove baskets, made flutes and drums, or constructed
homes out of wood, animal hides, or clay dirt.
D. In order to gain computer experience students could scan the
Internet and see what they can find out about European exploration throughout in the 1400s, 1500s and 1600s. They can look
up information using key search words such as “Native American Indians” to see how Native American address historic events
and modern issues.
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ANSWER KEY
Blackline Master #1: Video Quiz
1.
T
2.
F
3.
F
4.
T
5.
T
6.
T
7.
F
8.
F
9.
F
10.
T
Blackline Master # 2: Pre-Test
1.
T
2.
T
3.
T
4.
T
5.
T
6.
F
7.
F
8.
F
Blackline Master #3c: Vocabulary
Fill-in-the-Blanks
1. glaciers
2. animal spirits
3. Basque fishermen
4. hunters and gatherers
5. Native Americans
Answer the Following
6. Looking for trade routes
7. Jean Nicolet and Father Marquette.
8. Louis Joliet
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Use the vocabulary list to find the following.
9. tomato, potato, medicine
10. le castor, pelts, peltry
11. malaria, small pox, whooping cough
Blackline Master #5: Crossword Puzzle
1
1 M A R Q U E T T E
U
R
2 V O Y A G E R
P
E
2
A
3
N
N
T
I
3 S P I R I T U
C
I
4 J O L I E T
B
L
6
E
5 E X P L O R E R S
T
E
L
6
T
S
Blackline Master #8: Post-Test
Fill-in-the-Blanks
1.
Basque fishermen
2.
trade route
3.
Native Americans
4.
fur trade
5.
hunter and gatherers
True or False
6.
T
7.
T
8.
F
13
4
5
G
P
L
E
A L I T Y
C
R
I
O
E
G
R
L
Y
T R A P
H
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
F
F
F
T
T
F
F
REFERENCE SUGGESTIONS
The Anthropology Outreach Office offers bibliography sources
and culturally sensitive advice for teachers on the Web site:
http://nmnhwww.si.edu/anthro/outreach/Indbibl/
bibgen.html
They offer a free Teacher’s Packet on North American Indians:
NHB MRC 112, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. 20560
Poatcieter, Hermina, Indian Legacy: Native American Influences
on World Life and Culture, 1981, Julian Messner.
Viola, Harman J., The Smithsonian Chronicle of the North American Indians, 1990, Orion Books. ISBN 0-517-58108-6
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Native America: Contact
Script of Narration
EDDIE BENTON BENAI:
We existed here peacefully, abundantly, joyfully. And that was what was going
on prior to 1492.
NARRATOR:
Imagine North America before Columbus. Who lived here? What did they
do? What was native America like?
DAVID WRONE:
As the glaciers receded from the archeological evidence the Indians were here
almost immediately. And we have some marvelous archeological evidence to
back this up. The tribes: their stories, their legends, their creations they ago
back in recorded time for millennia.
EDDIE BENTON BENAI:
There were societies; there was civilizations there was commerce there was
trade there was conflict. There was spiritually. There was a living, thriving,
beautiful culture on the part of all the original people of this part of the world
prior to 1492.
MICHAEL DOUGLASS:
You look at Native American social structure and you look a sort of balance
between men and women. Women being the planters, the cultivators, the
processors, the harvesters of all manner of foods that were abundant in the
forest of the Northeast. Or that were cultivated in large gardens. You look at
men as being the hunters who would leave the villages go out and trap and
hunt animals and bring them back to the villages for processing. It was the
women that held the nuclear family together. It was the men who went out
and went away. And there was a balance of labor that persisted for most
Native American cultures for many many centuries, thousands of years really.
It was a balance that kept things in pretty much harmony.
NARRATOR:
Eventually, Europeans came to North America. But why did they come and
what were they looking for?
MICHAEL DOUGLASS:
According to traditions it was Basque fisherman who were exploiting the first
great resource that was really harvested in North America. Fish that found
their way up the St. Lawrence River. As they worked their way up in the early
1500s they were not one of ten ships or a dozen ships or fifty ships. But one
of 300 vessels a year that were making the trip from European ports to the
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Northeast coast of North America. So sightings of these odd vessels must
have become relatively quickly a common occurrence to the Native Americans
and they were certainly open to the curiosity of these strange looking men.
NARRATOR:
Strange looking men in odd looking vessels brought things to Native Americans
they had never seen before.
MICHAEL DOUGLASS:
You think about the tool the fisherman uses the most beyond nets and fishing
equipment per se and it is knives. And at some magical moment in 1520s,
1530s Native Americans clad in blankets made of beaver skins encountered
these Basque fishermen. Who were altogether willing to trade their knives or
to give their knives as gifts in exchange for Le Castor. These wonderfully
processed beaver furs that these Native Americans are wearing.
NARRATOR:
Native Americans were beginning to see many new people along their shores.
While some of these visitors were looking for fish; others like French explorer
Jean Nicolet were looking for something also very valuable - a trade route to
China.
DAVID WRONE:
They weren’t quite sure where they were. In the beginning they thought they
were near China. ‘Cause no one really knew how big the continent was. The
first Frenchmen here they brought letters written in Chinese. So they could be
introduced to the Khan or whoever it would be. I’ve often wondered what the
Winnebagos thought about that on the way home. Maybe some little girl said,
“Daddy, where do those people think they’re from? Well, I don’t know where
they’re from but they think they’re in China.”
NARRATOR:
Explorers never found a trade route to China through North America. Instead
they found a land rich in resources and a people anxious to welcome them.
EDDIE BENTON BENAI
The French upon arriving here saw a people. Saw a rich friendly hospitable
people and became friends and allies.
NARRATOR:
French priest Jacques Marquette and his explorer friend Louis Joliet were
early French explorers who helped open the interior of North America to other
Europeans. They traveled down the Saint Lawrence River, through the Great
Lakes, to the Fox River in Green Bay. From there they found the Wisconsin
River which eventually emptied into the Mississippi. Marquette described
16
the journey as being “alone in the unknown country,” in the hands of
providence. The maps and journals of Marquette and Joliet allowed other
Frenchmen to explore the middle of North America. It became a trade route
that lasted for two centuries. It became a way to deliver beaver pelts so the
French people could enjoy the fashion of the day: hats.
MICHAEL DOUGLASS:
They were large hats, and they required a great deal of felt, and the felt in turn
required a lot of beaver fur. And by 1490, essentially every beaver in Europe
had been trapped out with the rare exception of a few in remote places like
Northern Russia and Sweden and so forth. So at the very dawning of this sort
of European migration out in to the world, which was largely driven by a
search for natural resources, was this desire for furs.
NARRATOR:
At first, the fur trade was a good deal for both sides. The Native Americans
traded the furs with the European visitors for goods and supplies.
DAVID WRONE:
To the Indians that was a good deal. Hey, they really enjoyed it, because you
get steel needles, you get hatchets, you get cloth.
EDDIE BENTON BENAI:
And our people gravitated toward those things. I mean, it is a lot easier to
cook moose meat in an iron pot, then it is in a birch bark one. It cooks quicker
and cooks a lot better.
DAVID WRONE :
You get the finest Brazilian tobacco. You get the finest beads from Milano,
Italy.
EDDIE BENTON BENAI:
Are we going to continue to use our stone axes against adopting to the use of
the axe? Those answers are simple.
NARRATOR:
Native Americans also introduced Europeans to new things, foods like the
potato, tomato and corn. New medicines and painkillers, many forms of which
are still in use today. The fur trade not only brought new things to Native
Americans and Europeans, it brought change. Changes in how people lived,
where they lived and how they conducted business.
MICHAEL DOUGLASS:
The trade was never a cash and carry sort of business relationship. It was
always a credit relationship. The Native Americans needed goods in the late
17
summer and the early fall that they did not have the means to pay for. They
needed traps. They needed blankets. They needed gun parts. They needed
ammunition. They needed food. They needed other amenities for daily life
and there are not furs in August, September, and October. So goods would be
exchanged. Goods would be extended from the trading houses from the trading
establishments throughout the non-fur months if you will. In the expectation
that they would be paid for when furs became prime when they were trapped
in the cold winter months. This was the essential character of the trade.
NARRATOR:
Instead of seeing these first European visitors as people who wanted to settle
in North America, the Native Americans saw Europeans as nothing more than
a group of traders.
MICHAEL DOUGLASS:
Now when you look at European made goods as being the element which
establishes prestige or wealth. And the means to achieve these is through
hunting and trapping. We start to have changes in the fundamental fabric of
Native American family life and cultural life in general. Now the decisions
on what we will do next and where we will go and where we will move are
based on the most expedient means to more peltries.
NARRATOR:
The beavers and other fur bearing animals that fueled the fur trade were being
taken faster than they could reproduce. This forced Native American trappers
to move into new hunting grounds to look for animals for the fur trade. This
created conflict between the Native Americans who traded with the Europeans,
and those who hunted the animals for their own use including food and clothing.
Animals were also part of Native American spirituality and the fur trade affected
this as well.
ANDY JOSEPH, JR:
The animals were actually the livelihood of the people. They were the spirits.
They were the full existence of a lot of people. And a person that related for
instance to the bear was very disturbed that all the bears were depleting.
NARRATOR:
The loss of bears and beavers to the fur trade also affected the environment.
As beavers disappeared, the ecology changed.
ANDY JOSEPH, JR:
The creeks and the streams were drying up because the beaver dams were no
longer there to support the grass and meadows.
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NARRATOR:
As furs depleted in the east, the fur trade moved west. And so did many Native
Americans.
MICHAEL DOUGLASS:
What occurs is a sort of a domino effect of pressure from the East Coast pushing
Native Americans into the West.
NARRATOR:
As well as bringing a new source of wealth to native America, fur traders
brought something they don’t know they carried. Small pox, whooping cough
and measles devastated native populations. Fur traders carried malaria along
North American river routes. These parasitic diseases annihilated Native
populations. In some outbreaks entire native communities perished.
ARMOND MINTHORN:
And they had devastating effects on the tribes here because we had no tolerance
and we were wiped out by the thousands.
They are extinct. They vanished.
NARRATOR:
Disease devastated Native American people. As time went on Native people
realized the Europeans invading their lands were not just a group of traders.
Now they realized they wanted their land. And what was, at first, friendly and
mutually beneficial contact between Native Americans and Europeans would
become a series of conflicts over native America.
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1
Name_________________________
VIDEO QUIZ
1. True or false. Before 1492, there were organized societies in North
America.
2. True or false. Before 1492, Native American women did most of the
hunting.
3. True or false. Europeans first came to North America looking for land.
4. True or false. Europeans were attracted to North America to harvest
beaver pelts.
5. True or false. Native Americans saw early Europeans as nothing more
than a group of traders.
6. True or false. As the fur trade moved west, Native Americans stayed
east.
7. True or false. The fur trade did little to change the environment.
8. True or false. First contact between native Americans and French traders was hostile.
9. True or false. Native Americans were immune to diseases carried by
Europeans.
10. True or false. Only Native American lives were changed by contact
between them and Europeans.
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© 2000 Murphy Entertainment Group
All rights to print materials cleared for classroom duplication and distribution.
2
Name_________________________
PRE -TEST
Directions: Answer each question either TRUE or FALSE.
1.
Prior to 1492, Native American people had complex cultures. Evidence of these rich histories are carved in stone.
2.
Native American people were friendly and curious about the Europeans they came in contact with.
3.
French Explorers thought they were in China.
4.
Fur traders wanted land to build homes and settlements.
5.
Native Americans did not change how they hunted and gathered food
when they got involved in the fur trade.
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© 2000 Murphy Entertainment Group
All rights to print materials cleared for classroom duplication and distribution.
3a
Name_________________________
VOCABULARY
ANIMAL SPIRITS Belief that the animals have spirits and those spirits communicates and influences how a person acts
in relation to the animal the environment it thrives in.
BASQUE FISHERMEN In the 1500s, they were among the first European people to harvest North American resources.
They came looking for fish. The Basque are people who speak Basque and inhabit the western Pyrenees
BEAVER PELTS Processed beaver fur Native Americans exchanged for knives and other manufactured goods.
CREDIT The acknowledgment of payment on a debt by entry of the amount in an account.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS - A 1492 explorer who sighted what was probably present day Watling Island in the
Bahamas. On October 12, 1492 he claimed that Island for the king and queen of Spain. He is credited for discovering the
New World.
EUROPEANS People who are native or inhabitant of Europe.
EXPLORERS Europeans from various countries like France, Spain, Portugal and England who traveled throughout the
world.
FATHER PERE MARQUETTE A French missionary who along with Lois Joliet made detailed maps and journals of the
interior of North America to Europe. They are believed to be the first Europeans to explore the area.
FRENCH FUR TRADER A French man licensed by the French Canadian government to exchange goods in what they
called Indian country.
FUR TRADE European fur companies established trade relationships with Native Americans. In exchange for peltries
companies would supply Native Americans with knives, guns, metal traps and many other goods. It began in the early
1600s and lasted over 200 years.
GLACIER A large body of ice that moves slowly down a slope or spreading outward on a land surface.
.
HATCHET A small ax with a short handle designed for use with one hand.
HUNTERS & GATHERERS An economic social system found among many Native American people in which the
society is organized around men who go out to hunt and women who cultivate some food and harvest resources in their
environment.
JEAN NICOLET A French fur trader and explorer who is credited with discovering Wisconsin in1634. He thought he had
landed in China because the people who inhabited the area were called people of the sea. So he thought he was in the
Orient. He greeted the Winnebago people in a robe of China damask, painted with birds and flowers and fired two guns in
the air. A great feast was celebrated in his honor with four to five thousand Winnebagos.
LE CASTOR A term the French fur traders used for beaver pelts used to make hats.
LOIS JOLIET A French explorer who was sent by the Governor of New France (Canada) in 1673 along with Father
Marquette paddled canoes from the Great Lakes and into Green Bay and from there up the Fox River to the spot know as
the Portage. From there, they carried their canoes to the Wisconsin River which led them to the Mississippi River.
MALARIA An infectious disease caused by protozoans that are parasitic in the red blood corpuscles.
Distributed by AGC/United Learning
© 2000 Murphy Entertainment Group
All rights to print materials cleared for classroom duplication and distribution.
3b
Name_________________________
VOCABULARY
MEDICINE Native America plants and herbs used for pain, like aspirin bark for aspirin.
NATIVE AMERICANS The original inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere.
PELTS The skin of a fur-bearing animal after it has been stripped from the carcass.
PELTRY A term for referring to different kinds of fur bearing skins.
PETROGLYPH Prehistoric rock carvings. Native Americans describe their lives in carvings in caves.
POTATO A starchy food related to the tomato native to Native America.
SMALL POX An acute highly contagious viral disease characterized by fever, vomiting. Small Pox leaves pitted scars, or
pockmarks when healed.
SPIRITUALITY A belief that a person or a people have a characteristic, personality or a nature that shows their spirit or
their soul.
TRADE ROUTES A way to get to or a route to China. European explorers in the 1500’s were looking for a fast efficient
way to get to China because there was knowledge in Europe about the resources there. They were not aware of how big
the New World was so they went out into the world expecting to find China.
TOMATO A berry food native to Native America and introduced to Europeans after contact.
TRAP A device for capturing animals, specifically a snapping device worked by a spring.
TRIBES A group of people, families or clans believed to be descended from a common ancestor that form a community
under one leader or chief.
WHOOPING COUGH An acute infectious disease caused by a bacillus and characterized by a mucous discharge from the
nose and then repeated attacks of coughing that end in a forced intake of breath.
WINNEBAGO A member of a Souian language group who inhabited the forest lands of the Upper Midwest which is now
known as Wisconsin and Minnesota. Winnebago people today live on Winnebago nation lands in Eastern Wisconsin.
They also are found in Nebraska where they were taken when reservations were established. They call themselves Ho
Chunk.
VANISHED AMERICANS The people and tribes and nations that passed suddenly from the sight of surrounding communities and completely disappeared from the face of the earth.
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© 2000 Murphy Entertainment Group
All rights to print materials cleared for classroom duplication and distribution.
3c
Name_________________________
VOCABULARY ACTIVITIES
Directions: Use the vocabulary list to fill in the blanks:
1. Native Americans lived in Native America since the _____________
receded.
2. Some Native Americans believe _____________ communicate with
them.
3. _____________ traded their knives for _____________ .
4. Before contact many Native Americans lived as _____________ and
_____________.
5. The original inhabitants of North America were _____________.
Directions: Use the vocabulary list to answer the following:
6. Why did French Explorers come to the New World?
7.
Who paddled canoes from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River?
8.
Who thought he had landed in China?
Directions: Use the vocabulary list to find the following:
9
Find three things Europeans got from trade with Native Americans.
10 Find three words that mean processed animal fur.
11 Find three things Europeans gave to the Native Americans they did
know they had.
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4a
Name_________________________
TIME LINE
2 million years ago
Glaciers cover North America.
25,0000 BC
Native Americans are living in North America.
12,000 BC
Glaciers recede.
1000 AD
Leif Ericson is the first European to settle in North America.
.
1015
Last Norse voyage to the New World.
1492
Christopher Columbus lands in the New World.
1608
Samuel Champlain made the first planned move into the interior of mainland America.
1634
Jean Nicolet traveled through the Great Lakes to Green Bay, Wisconsin on what is now Lake
Michigan. He claimed all the land in this area for France.
1630
Furs were regularly being sent from New France to Europe. Indian traders, especially the Huron
and Ottawa tribes, supplied furs. In Wisconsin, the Winnebago tribes blocked the fur trade
routes. They were attacked and defeated by the Ottawa and Huron. New tribes such as the Sauk,
Fox, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe began moving into the area that is now Wisconsin.
1667
Members of many tribes were settling around Chequamagon Bay on Lake Superior.
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4b
Name_________________________
TIME LINE
1670
The Hudson Bay Company was chartered. He claimed all the lands that drained into Hudson
Bay as his trading area. His post was located on Hudson Bay and the Indians brought their furs
there. About this time, the Dakota Sioux attacked and drove the Huron and Ottawa out of the
western Great Lakes. After this time many Frenchmen moved into the region and began trading
directly with the Indians.
1673
Marquette and Joliet used the Fox and Wisconsin rivers to reach the Mississippi. After this, the
Fox and Wisconsin Rivers became a major transportation route to the western trading regions.
1679
The Ojibway were moving from eastern Lake Superior to the area around Chequamagon. They
took the place of the departed Huron and Ottawa. They even allied themselves with the Dakota
with whom they traded goods.
1689
War broke out between France and England. It interrupted trade as far west as Minnesota.
1754
The French and Indian War began and trade was interrupted. Most of the licensed traders and
their voyageurs were called east to fight the British.
1782
The Dakota no longer had any villages north of St. Anthony Falls. A small pox epidemic killed
thousands throughout the North and Northwest.
1850
The beaver hat was now out of fashion in Europe, signaling the demise of the fur trade.
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5
Name_________________________
ACROSS
1. This French missionary made detailed maps and journals that opened the interior of North America to
Europeans.
2. A canoe man or boatman who manned vessels of the inland fur trade
3. A belief that a person has a personality or nature that shows their spirit or their soul
4. This French explorer paddled canoes from the Great Lakes down the Wisconsin River to the Mississippi
River
5. A person who goes to a place he/she knows nothing about.
6. A device for capturing animals.
DOWN
1. A person who is a native or inhabitant of Europe.
2. In 1634 this French fur trader and explorer thought he had landed in China.
3. Groups of people, families or clans descended from a common ancestor and form a community under one
leader or chief.
4. A large body of ice that moves slowly down a slope or spreads outward on a land surface
5. Prehistoric rock carvings found on the walls of caves
6. The skin of a fur-bearing animal.
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6a
Name_________________________
THINKING ABOUT CONTACT
NATIVE AMERICA
A long time ago Native Americans lived where you live now. Their mothers gardened and harvested tomatoes and
potatoes. They gathered herbs and medicines and tended to the family. Their fathers hunted many different kinds
of animals. They learned about hunting, fishing, gathering, and cultivating food around their homes. They learned
about the animals they saw and lived with. They believed their god watched over them. They learned to care for
and nurture family, friends and strangers.
Make a list of things you might need to know if you were a father and mother in modern times. Then make a list
of things you would need to know as a Native American parent three hundred years ago.
CONTACT
The first contact between Native Americans and Europeans was friendly. Tradition says that the Basque fishermen
brought knives and found beaver fur. The arrival of Europeans in Native America brought change. Europeans had
tools and technology that were new to Native Americans. Native Americans had knowledge of foods, and medicine that benefited Europeans.
Make a game of role-playing in which you imagine you have come in contact with alien beings from space and you
welcome them. They come with their new technology that will make life easier. They find new ideas and resources that will make them rich in their world.
Discuss how that contact might change you and your environment.
Discuss how it might change what you do and how you live.
FUR TRADE
Directions: Read the following, then answer the questions below:
With the European fur trade, Native Americans gained a new kind of wealth and prestige. Europeans traded
knives, hatchets, and beads to the Indians in exchange for fur and meat. Beaver pelts made French fur trading
companies very wealthy. Native American trappers brought furs from the interior of North America to trading
posts established on river highways where the furs were traded for manufactured goods from Europe. These goods
included iron tools such as knives and hatchets, wool blankets, colorful cloth, and guns.
The trade was based on a credit relationship between Europeans and Native Americans. When fur was scarce in
August, September, and October, Native Americans went to trading posts to get goods they had come to value or
needed. They owed the traders fur the following spring. The fur trader would keep track of the goods that the
Native Americans took.
Why would knives and hatchets be considered a symbol of wealth?
Can you name some things that are considered symbols of wealth in your community?
Do you consider someone wealthy if he or she has things you want?
Why did the French want the peltry?
If your grocery store, hardware store or department store used trade instead of money: what would you buy in
August in exchange for peltry?
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Name_________________________
6b
THINKING ABOUT CONTACT
VANISHED AMERICANS
Malaria, whooping cough and small pox are some of the diseases Europeans exposed Native Americans to. No
one knows exactly how many people died an no one knows how many people lived in North America before
European contact. The estimates vary widely.
To show the effects of disease on the Native American populations draw two population maps of North America.
Color one that is solid and label it “Native American Populations before Contact.” Then color another one using
dots or a symbol you choose to represent Native American populations and label it “Native American Populations
After Contact.”
Discuss how Native American culture and communities could have changed after so many people were suddenly
gone from their communities.
Consider what we might have learned from the tribes and people who disappeared.
EUROPEANS
Europeans found many new resources in the New World. They came to find fish, peltries and trade routes to
China. They also found Native Americans with complex cultures and a knowledge of what was on and in the earth
that nourished them. Throughout the New World, not just in North America, Europeans found the following
foods:
potatoes
corn
tomatoes
beans
peanuts
coca
vanilla
hominy
grits
maple syrup
red peppers
cranberries
Europeans found plants that produced:
aspirin
laxatives
petroleum jelly
muscle-relaxers
witch-hazel
Take this list home with you and put a check by the items you have in your house today. Then bring the list back
and share with your class the list of things Native Americans shared with Europeans.
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7a
Name_________________________
EUROPEAN SHIP ROUTES TO AMERICA
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Name_________________________
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8
Name_________________________
POST-TEST
FILL-IN-THE-BLANKS
Directions: Fill in the blank with the correct word or phrase for each statement below.
1. In the 1500s
traded their knives and other manufactured goods for beaver
fur.
2. European explorers were looking for a
to China.
3. French explorers met many friendly
in the northern woodlands of North
America.
4. The business that involved Europeans exchanging manufactured goods for peltry was called
.
the
5. Many Native Americans worked together as
and
.
TRUE OR FALSE
Directions: Answer the following questions true or false.
6. Native Americans have been in North America since the glaciers receded thousands of years
ago.
7. Petroglyphs describe Native American history.
8. The Winnebago people were hostile to the French explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634.
9. Marquette and Joliet explored North America looking for gold and riches.
10.European explorers and fur traders knowingly exposed Native Americans to diseases to
reduce their populations.
11.Native Americans who were involved in the fur trade in the eastern part of North America
did not migrate west when beaver became scarce in their homelands.
12.French fur traders became wealthy selling beaver furs to furniture craftsmen in France.
13.In the 1400s many Native Americans believed that animals had spirits and souls.
14.The depleting populations of fur bearing animals during the fur trade did not effect the environment of North America.
15. In the 1600s, Native Americans believed fur traders wanted their land for settlement.
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