This Interactive Map Shows Us How the United States Grew Westward

The Invasion of America is an interactive map produced by eHistory.org for the purpose of showing how the land holdings of Native Americans drastically shrunk between 1784 and 1887. You can move the timeline at the bottom of the map to see how the land holdings changed from year to year or decade to decade. The map also includes tools for selecting a Native American nation and or selecting a specific state or territory. Clicking on a highlighted tract of land will open a menu that includes links to treaty or executive order through which the land changed ownership.

Applications for Education
The Invasion of America could be a good resource for teachers of United States History to use to show students the impact westward expansion and the idea of Manifest Destiny had on Native Americans. To extend the use of the map further you could have students investigate the treaties and or executive orders used in acquiring land.


H/T to Google Maps Mania. 

Woven Together - An Interactive Story About Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest

Woven Together is an interactive story that students can work through to learn about the history and culture of the Nuu-chah-nulth people of the Pacific Northwest. As students move through the story they can click on the Nuu-chah-nulth words to hear them pronounced and to read their definitions. The story is arranged in seven parts based on images associated with the history and culture of the Nuu-chah-nulth people. After finishing the story students can find directions for trying their hands at weaving (with supervision of course).

Applications for Education
Woven Together could be a good interactive resource to use in elementary school or middle school lessons about the traditions and history of various groups of Native Americans. Woven History's inclusion of audio files that play the words makes it useful for introducing students to some new words. 

I learned about Woven Together in Larry Ferlazzo's list of sites for International Day of the Indigenous People.

National Archives Today's Document

The US National Archives is an all around good resource for history teachers to have bookmarked. I've written about some of their services in the past (here and here) and today I'd like to remind you of the National Archives Today's Document feed. Everyday Today's Document features a new image or document from the archives. The documents are usually accompanied by some additional research links and lesson plan resources.

One of the documents recently featured in the Today's Document feed was a petition to the US Government signed by Hopi (Moqui) Chiefs. One of the interesting things about this document is the way that the document was signed with the symbol of each family in the tribe.

Applications for Education
This document could be used with a wide range of grade levels. At the middle school or high school level the petition could be part of a lesson on the way the US Government redistributed land to Native Americans following the Dawes Act. The symbol-signature aspect of the document could be used in an elementary school lesson about cultural differences between European-Americans and Native Americans.

The Story Behind the Iroquois and Lacrosse

Last Saturday the Iroquois Nation was officially excluded from the world lacrosse championships because UK officials would not recognize their Iroquois Nation travel documents. The players could have traveled on US passports but they refused on the grounds that accepting the passports of another nation would be a strike against their sovereignty and nationality. So the world lacrosse championships were held without the nation that invented the game. Read more about the story here. For more on the history of relationship between the Iroquois and lacrosse, watch the video below.



Applications for Education
The story of the denial of Iroquois' attempts to travel on the passports of their nation could be the beginning of a lesson exploring the issues of Native American sovereignty rights. I can see myself using the story above as a modern connection to the 1830's legal attempts of the Cherokee people to prevent their forced relocation by the US government. In particular I can see connecting this to the 1832 case of Worcester v. Georgia.