ENVIRONMENTAL FRONTIERS:

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ENVIRONMENTAL FRONTIERS
Native American, African American, and
Euro-American Approaches to the Land
By Charles L. Newhall Fellow, ABC-CLIO
History Teacher, St. Johns Prep
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Jamestown the Powhatan

• Source Image Text from ABC-CLIO Schools
  database

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Jamestown the Powhatan
To what extent did tobacco cause conflict for the
English and Natives between 1604 and 1680?

• Powhatan Indians launch a surprise attack
  against English settlers of the James River area
  on March 22, 1622, killing nearly 350 settlers.
  The Anglo-Powhatan War, started with the founding
  of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, was a two-stage
  war over the control of land, lasting until 1646.
• Source Image Text from ABC-CLIO Schools
  database

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Session Objectives

• Participate in several historical thinking
  activities using primary and secondary sources
• Learn about the ABC-CLIO Fellows Model of
  Inquiry
• Explore the concepts of land and the
  environment in the 17th and 18th centuries among
  differing ethnic and racial groups
• Develop research questions to pursue on line and
  in
• print resources

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Historical Thinking

• What is good historical thinking?
• Students benefit from lessons which guide them
  to develop questions on their own
• Good historical thinking is driven by probing
  questions
• Primary and secondary sources lend themselves
  to
• critical historical questions
• Research follows critical questions and helps
  students develop
• enduring historical dilemmas

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Teaching Historical Thinking isContent-Rich
Teaching

• Includes Engaging Narratives
• Guides student toward Valid Analysis
• Demonstrates Cause and Effect
• Considers Contingencies
• Explores Intended Unintended Consequences

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Teaching Historical Thinking isSkills-Based
Teaching

• Critical Reading and Research
• (gathering information and asking questions)
• Critical Thinking and Analysis
• (processing interpreting and making informed
  judgments)
• Critical Writing Expression
• (crafting and presenting historical arguments in
  essays or in other ways)

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The Case for Teaching History
We're deluged by conflicting, fragmented
information that tries to steer us in particular
directions. We need to raise citizens who ask
themselves, Is this true? Who's saying so?
What's the nature of the evidence?' Taught this
way, history is a training ground for
democracy. Sam Wineburg, Professor of
Education, Stanford University
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Historical Thinking

• History teaches us a way to make choices,
• to balance opinions,
• to tell stories, and
• to become uneasy--when necessary--
• about the stories we tell.Sam Wineburg

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Historical Thinking

• Achieving mature historical thought
• depends precisely on our ability to navigate the
  uneven landscape of history,
• to traverse the rugged terrain that lies between
  the poles of familiarity and distance from the
  past.
• Sam Wineburg

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Historical Thinking Requires

• An ability to form an argument,
• using data for a purpose.
• A capacity to glean data from primary sources.
• Some capacity for handling diverse
  interpretations and testing theories about
  change.
• Peter Stearns, Social Historian

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Historical Thinking Standards

• Chronological Thinking
• Historical Comprehension
• Historical Analysis Interpretation
• Historical Research Capabilities
• Historical Issues--Analysis and Decision-making
• National Standards for History

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HistoricalInquiryProcess
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What is anEnduring Historical Dilemma?

• An enduring historical dilemma is
• A historical event about which historians do not
  have clear agreement interpretations vary
• Often posed with phrases such as To what
  extent
• An investigation into multiple historians views
  on a historical topic (historiography)

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Examples ofEnduring Historical Dilemmas

• What role did the extension of slavery play in
  the Southern decision to secede from the Union?
• To what extent did American isolationism in the
  1930s embolden Hitler?
• Did Ronald Reagan end the Cold War or did the
  Soviet Union collapse from within?

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Environmental Frontiers

• As we examine the documents, maps, and images,
• consider
• the Point of View,
• the Date of the Document,
• and the Author, Artist, Transcriber.
• Look for connections and contradictions.
• The goal to come up with a viable enduring
  historical dilemma which can be addressed by
  these documents and further researched.

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The LAND

• Land as a Theme for teaching American History
• Building on the 40 year old concept of the
  Columbian Encounter by Alfred Crosby
• Comparative history agricultural uses
• Intellectual Political history how different
  ethnic groups perceive the land - as property, as
  resource, as opportunity to shape culture

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Eminent Domain
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Sovereignty vs. Ownership

• William Cronons distinction
• Sovereignty - that the land fell under the
  English Crown and laws, that the charters were
  valid
• Ownership - that deeds to land had to be
  procured, a recognition of Indian title

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Documents regarding approaches to the Land
What do you read in these documents? What
questions do they raise?
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Ethnicity and the Land
How was the land used differently by the Native
American, African Americans and European
Americans? How did each of these groups see the
land differently? How did European Americans
understand Native Americans claim on the
land? How do the documents maps demonstrate
European American understandings of Native uses
of the land?
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Native Environments Generating Questions
How did Native Americans use the land and shape
the environment prior to English
colonization? To what extend did Native
Americans have a concept of private
property? How was Native land use tied to
ownership? What forms did ownership take? How
did Native conceptions of ownership shape the
selling of land to English colonists?
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Interpretations

• The difference between Indians and Europeans
  was not that one had property and the other had
  none rather, it was that they loved property
  differently.
• William Cronon (p. 80)
• The English, who had plenty of goods, wanted
  Indian land, while the Indians, who had plenty of
  land, wanted English goods. There were enormous
  gains to be had from trade. It would have been
  remarkable if the Indians hadnt traded land for
  other things.
• Stuart Banner (p. 51)

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Developing an Enduring Historical Dilemma

• Examine the document(s) assigned
• Generate question what do you need to know to
  understand the document(s)
• Confer with another compare the points of view
  and presentation of the land
• Report to the class
• Brainstorm enduring historical dilemmas that
  might arise from these documents

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Resources

• Once students generate questions (and write
  them), provide rich resources for them to find
  answers
• Encourage them to develop further questions
• ABC-CLIO Schools Databases
• Identify on line resource
• Identify key concepts - what do the students need
  to know and what concepts might be central to
  enduring historical dilemmas

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New England Land Deeds
17th 18th Century Deeds in Essex County,
Massachusetts A close examination of these Land
Deeds reveals that these were made between local
sachems and their descendants over the course of
over a century, granting land to what is now the
northern suburbs of Boston to English settlers.
To what extent did Native American have a
concept of land ownership and private property?
To what extent did the European Americans? To
what extent was Native ownership tied to
family? To what extend was land communal for
European American?
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Private Property

• Concept of Private Property
• Enclosure Acts - reshaped the English
  countryside
• Irish colonization - shaped the way the English
  viewed land in the Americas

English Landscape and Enclosure Reward Source
http//www.berkshireenclosure.org.uk/default.asp
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Mutual Exchange
The English, who had plenty of goods, wanted
Indian land, while the Indians, who had plenty of
land, wanted English goods. There were enormous
gains to be had from trade. It would have been
remarkable if the Indians hadnt traded land for
other things. Stuart Banner, How the Indians
Lost Their Land Law and Power on the
Frontier. 51.
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Lescarbot
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Lescarbot Map, 1609
How is Native land use depicted by Lescarbot?
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Secotan Village
To what extent were Natives in the Carolinas
settled? How did they use the land? How dies
this English image challenge other English
depictions of Native uses of the land? Theodor
de Bry, ?Americae pars decima ?Openheim, 1619, as
Indian village of Secotan., Drawing by John
White. Sources http//www.loc.gov/exhibits/1492/
america.html and available on ABC-CLIO Schools
Database.
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Rowley,Massachusetts Bay17th 18th Centuries
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Map and Description of Baga Rice Cultivation,
West Africa, 1793
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William Cronon

• the instability of human relations with the
  environment can be used to explain both cultural
  and ecological transformations. An ecological
  history begins by assuming a dynamic and changing
  relationship between environment and culture, one
  as apt to produce contradictions as continuities.
  Environment may initially shape a range of
  choices availablebut then culture reshapes
  environment in responding to those choices.
• Changes in the Land Indians, Colonists, and
  the Ecology of New England.
• New York Hill Wang, 1983. 13.

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Ethnicity the Land

• Native Americans in Northeast
• For gathering (nuts, berries, etc.)
• For horticulture (three sisters beans, corn,
  squash)
• For hunting (deer, elk, buffalo, bear)
• African Americans in Southeast
• For horticulture (rice) as a way to control
  their environment in the face of enslavement
• For grazing and herding livestock
• Euro-American
• As property and for horticulture and grazing
  livestock

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Conflict Compromise

• How do differing views of the land lead to
  conflict?
• Virginia the Chesapeake - Tobacco
• Northeast (New England and Canadian Maritimes) -
  Land Ownership
• South Carolina - Rice
• Alta California - Land Use

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Enduring Historical Dilemmas

• To what extent were the English and the Native
  American approaches to the land similar?
• To what extent was the land shaped by differing
  ethnic approaches?
• Are there patterns of conflicting uses of the
  land in 17th and 18th century frontier encounters?

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Selected On Line Resources

• ABC-CLIO Schools
• America History Life (ABC-CLIO)
• JSTOR Project MUSE
• Common-place On-Line Journal

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