The Negotiators - Land Of No Return

Learning Resource Type

Lesson Plan

Subject Area

English Language Arts
Social Studies

Grade(s)

4

Overview

The lesson will explain why significant leaders of the Creek War disrupted the Alabama Creek Indian Headsmen and the government. The disruption would be solved through negotiation. The negotiating Creek Indians did not obtain full restoration of their land, however, they did accept a compromise.

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Social Studies (2010) Grade(s): 4

SS10.4.3

Explain the social, political, and economic impact of the War of 1812, including battles and significant leaders of the Creek War, on Alabama.

UP:SS10.4.3

Vocabulary

  • culture
  • settlement
  • relocation
  • acquisition
  • territory

Knowledge

Students know:
  • Key battles of the War of 1812 that took place in Alabama including the Battle of Burnt Corn Creek, Fort Mims, the Canoe Fight, and the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
  • Key leaders of the Creek War including Andrew Jackson, William Weatherford, Tecumseh, and Alexander McGillivray.
  • Reasons for and the impact of the Trail of Tears in Alabama.

Skills

The students will:
  • Analyze the social impact of the War of 1812 including the adoption of European culture by American Indians, opening of Alabama land for settlement.
  • Analyze the political impact of the War of 1812 including the forced relocation of American Indians.
  • Formulate an opinion of whether or not Andrew Jackson was a hero and will defend that opinion.
  • Analyze the economic impact of the War of 1812 including acquisition of tribal land in Alabama by the United States.
  • Analyze the impact of the Trail of Tears on Alabama's American Indians' lives, rights, and territories.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • The political, economic, and social decisions made by Alabama's early settlers impacted the lives of American Indians living in the territory.

Primary Learning Objectives

Students will be able to research the lives of Native Americans.  Students will be able to describe the lives of Native Americans who negotiated a land dispute. Students should be able to take on the roles of negotiators and government officials after reading and interpreting all aspects of the problem from passages included in the lesson plans.

Procedures/Activities

Essential Question:  What can we learn from paintings of Creek Negotiators?

Before

Students turn and talk about a time when they were treated unfairly either at home or at school. Have them tell you how they reacted. Engage students further by asking them to tell when they have had to compromise or they didn't get everything they wanted and had to be satisfied with what they did get.

Tell students that long ago a group of Creek Native Americans felt that their land was taken away unfairly, and they had to form a negotiating team to go to the government to ask to have the land returned.  

Students turn and talk again to answer the questions: What is the job of a negotiating team? What happens if they fail to get the results they want?

Remind students that long ago in history, the Creek Indians had a land dispute, and they needed to negotiate with the government to have their land returned. The Creek formed a committee that became their negotiating team. The teacher should remind students that we have a primary source of this historical event in portrait form because, during the negotiator's visit to Washington, an artist painted their pictures. (Students may not realize that this is the only form of pictorial documentation. There were no cameras, videos, or cell phones)

During Strategy

The teacher should pass out copies of portraits and assign them to small groups. Give students the opportunity to analyze and interpret what they see in the portraits. Students should describe (use inference) the clothing and what their style could possibly say about the individual native.

The teacher should provide scaffolding as the students read the biographic sketch and explain how the land was taken from the Creek.

The teacher will use portraits from the McKenney and Hall Portrait Gallery, Creek Treaty Delegation to Washington, 1825-1826. Background information can be found in "A Guide to a Selection of the Portraits," written by Dr. Kathryn Braund at Auburn.

Hand out copies or place the information on a smart board to be read aloud.

Here are excerpts from the guide:

On November 25th, 1825, President John Quincy Adams welcomed a delegation of Creek Indian headmen to the White House.

Questions to students:  

Do you agree with President Adams's statement that they were almost all good-looking men, dressing not, as the Cherokee entirely in our costume, but somewhat fantastically?  Why do you think he was surprised when he saw the way they were dressed?

President Adams stated that their look was dark and settled gloom. What do you think that meant? Why were the Creeks there? Why did they send an entire negotiating team?

Give students a few minutes to predict and wonder. Have students turn and talk. Students should write notes in their journals or on an index card for later. The teacher may also provide a journal sheet for recording. Students should underline where they found the answer in the text if they have handouts. The teacher and students could highlight the answer on the interactive whiteboard.

Find the answer in the text:

The Native Americans suffered several tumultuous events in what are now the states of Georgia and Alabama. Tustunnuggee Hutkee (William Mcintosh), a leading warrior and chief of Coweta, had signed away millions of acres of Creek lands to Georgia, and in the process, enriched himself and his followers. This unauthorized action by McIntosh and a number of other minor chiefs was deemed treason under Creek law and the Creek Nation Council immediately repudiated the spurious treaty and sent "law menders" under Chief Menawa to execute McIntosh. McIntosh's cousin, Governor George Group of Georgia demanded that the United States enforce the terms of the treaty. The Creek National Council appointed a delegation of leading men to travel to Washington to secure peace with the United States and regain title to their land.

The teacher uses chunking method to continue the discussion:

Will the team have a difficult time trying to persuade the government to return the land? Why or why not?

Give students ample time to discuss with you, write their response in their journal, or underline where their defending statement is in the text.  

A journal sheet is included as an option for recording.

We continue to read about the representatives of the negotiating team. Remind students that they will use this information to make inferences and write persuasive statements later.

Opothle Yoholo of Tuckabatchee was the designated speaker for the group, which included representatives from both Upper and Lower Creek towns. John Ridge, the Cherokee who served as an advisor to the Creek delegates in 1825 noted that “this delegation is composed of the choice men of their Nation and as patriots are second to none in the world.” 

Negotiations would drag on for months and, in the end, the Creek delegation was not successful in regaining control of their Georgia lands but did regain land claimed by Alabama with a new Treaty of Washington, ratified in 1826. The infamous McIntosh treaty of Indian Springs was repudiated and stands as the first and only Indian treaty ratified by the United States Senate that was later set aside and renegotiated.

Tell students to write down some statements that could have helped the Native American negotiating team win only a part of what they asked for.

Ask students if they think this was a fair compromise.  Why or why not?

Read additional information about the Native American Negotiating Team.  This tells how the meeting was preserved.

During their stay in Washington, the Creeks lodged at the Indian Queen Hotel, the most popular hotel in the city. Their chief contact with the Adams administration was the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Thomas McKenney, who fell under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of War. The presence of the distinguished Creek delegation provided an unparalleled opportunity for McKenney, who, since 1821, had been developing an “archive” of Indian memorabilia and portraits of Indians who visited the federal city. The “Indian Gallery,” as McKenney’s collection of portraits came to be known, was largely the work of the famous portrait artist Charles Bird King (American, 1785- 1862). The Creeks visited King’s studio to have their portraits rendered, and each sitter was also given a small portrait.

Why are photographs, portraits, and videos important when studying historical events?  Read to see if your answer agrees with what is in the passage:

When President Andrew Jackson replaced Adams in 1829, He replaced most of those associated with Adam’s administration, including McKenney. McKenney wished to use the portraits from the Indian Gallery to illustrate his forthcoming history of American Indians, but he did not have easy access.

The solution that McKenney and his partner devised proved to be providential for posterity, for they hired Henry Inman, a highly regarded portrait artist, to make faithful copies of the original Charles Bird King portraits. From Inman’s oil copies, the publisher used a new method of print reproduction, lithography, to produce stunning color prints to illustrate McKenney’s now famous three-volume History of the Indian Tribes of North America. The work, coauthored by James Hall, represented a triumph of American art and technology and established American lithography as equal in quality to the next European production.

There is no doubt that the lithographs—and Henry Inman’s oil portraits—were faithful likenesses. In a letter to the Secretary of War, McKenney praised the first lithograph produced for the book, and noted that he considered the copy, perfect; a perfect likeness of the man, who was known to me—and an exact copy of the original drawing McKenney’s History was accompanied by Inman's oil paintings, so the public could appreciate the high quality achieved by the lithographic process.

The collection of lithographs presented in the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities includes William McIntosh, who originally signed the Treaty of Indian Springs, as well as the majority of the 1825 Creek delegates, plus the young son of one of the delegates. 

1Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, 7:62.
2 John Ridge to Col. M’Kenney, 18 January 1826, with the Creek Indians, Bureau of Negotiation of the Treaty of January 24, 1826, with the Creek Indians, Bureau of Indian A airs, RG 75 (T494).
3 Quoted in Herman J. Viola, e Indian Legacy of Charles Bird King (Washington, D.C., 1976), 69-70. 

Continue or on Day 2

After Strategy

Assign a portrait to each student. Some students will have the same portrait and will work together to interpret from the biographic sketch the character trait that will be beneficial to the team when negotiating with the government. Students should be prepared to report to the class important facts about each portrait.

Class Activity:

Students give important facts and opinions about the Negotiating Team.

Have students place the names with important facts and opinions on index cards.   When all cards are read, place them on a board for review.

Students decide which people will become the 14 to act as the negotiating team. All other students become the representatives of the government.  

Continue or Day 3

Allow time for the student negotiating teams to make presentations of persuasive arguments for returning the land back to Native Americans.

Some students will become negotiators, while others will listen and make a decision. The teacher explains that the decision was a compromise.  

Teacher and students should make reasonable comments as the negotiating team make their arguments.

Assessment Strategies

Informal Assessment:  Students turn and talk giving facts about each picture.

Informal Assessment:  Teacher and students create a chart showing portraits with names and facts to remember.

Formal Assessment:  Students match names of Creek Indians with their pictures. 

Students create persuasive arguments and make presentations to the class.  Persuasive argument should give reasons why the government should return land to Creek.

A Creek War Journal has been included for optional grading.  It can be used with persuasive writings.  Students creative writing should include the problem, solution, and personal reflections or opinions of the students.  

Change the rubric title to Creek Negotiation with United States Government or other related title of your choosing.

Acceleration

Students should have an opportunity to create a chart explaining who was involved in the negotiation.

Students should create a Creek Family Tree of the negotiators. 

Students should make persuasive arguments. As representatives of the Creek, students should explain why their land should be returned to their tribe.

Students should have an opportunity to create a podcast or PowerPoint of the negotiating members' family tree, facts chart, or persuasive argument.

The persuasive arguments of students should show that they have an understanding of why the land was taken away and why the land should be returned.

The persuasive statements could be placed on a chart or students could make a podcast that would include pictures.

Give students permission to be creative without scripting everything they must do.

Suggested Reading List:

 Native American History for Kids http://www.historyforkids.net/native-americans.html

 Waldman, Carl, Atlas of the North American Indian, Infobase Publishing, 2009 

 Creeks in Alabama: http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1088

 Pritzker, Barry, Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Native American History, Culture, and Life, Oxford Press, 2000

Intervention

Students will have pictures of each Native American and a fact phrase or sentence about each.  

Students will be able to match and have a self-check on the back of the picture.  

Students should go last when making presentations to gain support from more confident presenters.

RTI:  Allow students who need extra help to be a part of the government team.  

The government team will include the teacher as facilitator.

Students who will represent the Creeks can give persuasive statements and other students and teacher may ask questions, make comments, and agree or disagree.

Total Duration

91 to 120 Minutes

Background/Preparation

Students should have knowledge of the First Americans. Students should understand that all land was owned by Native Americans until settlers came and claimed it. Native Americans divided the land into cultural areas. Later, it was divided differently until it was known as the United States of America. Teachers should access paintings, stories of each painting, and the biography of each person who negotiated the land dispute. The teacher should have background knowledge of the Creek Cultural Area found in the Encyclopedia of Alabama.

In 1775, author and trader James Adair described the Creek Indians as "more powerful than any nation" in the American South. Despite the fact that they served as able political and economic partners of the colonial and early U.S. government, the Creeks suffered the same fate as their fellow southeastern tribes, and many of them were forced from their lands in the 1830s. Creek culture is kept alive in Alabama among the Poarch Creek Band.

Feb 6, 2008 - The 1826 Treaty of Washington between the United States and the Creek Nation replaced the fraudulent 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs.

The following article from the Encyclopedia of Alabama provides information about the Creeks in Alabama: http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1088

 

Materials and Resources

This is a lesson plan that does not require in-class internet access. The school librarian will be helpful in locating resources for this lesson. The teacher should include research time in the library. The teacher may download portraits and the biographic summary of each portrait.

Additional materials and resources to be used with this lesson:

Portraits: Paddy Carr, Menawa, Sequoyah (1 copy of each portrait per small group)
Journal Notetaking Sheet (1 copy per student)
Journal Rubric (1 copy per student)
 

Technology Resources Needed

Devices that access the internet (optional)

Approved Date

2017-05-18
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