The West: Won or Lost?
References:
Books & Media
Foner, Eric and John Garraty, editors. The Reader’s Companion to American History. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
This book has a comprehensive history of Native Cultures from pages 544 to 559. It is especially helpful in explaining the cultural origins and the interactions between the native cultures and the white settlers. It was quite useful as I created the historical background necessary to create lecture notes.
Foner, Eric. The New American History. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997.
The chapter on Western History, chapter nine, by Richard White was helpful as I began working on the background information for the unit. I used the information to help formulate part of my lecture on westward movement and the societies that were created.
Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2005.,br /> This book is a must read for anyone examining Native American culture and/or history. The information that I have learned has helped me connect the information I am giving to students and has made me a much more informed historian.
Nabokov, Peter. Native American Testimony: Chronicle of Indian — White Relations from Prophecy to the Present, 1492 — 2000. New York: Penguin, 1999.
The information and personal stories are useful for my own preparation, but also will be used as primary documents in class. The book contains a great number of personal narratives that will aid in student understanding of Native American perspective.
Oates, Stephen B. and Charles Errico, editors. Portrait of America, Volumes One and Two. 8th Edition. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
This book will be most useful in my own understanding of the conflict arising from early colonization. Chapters one and two (pages 2 – 30) from volume one deal specifically with the interactions between Native Americans and the settlers upon the “discovery” of the land. Other chapters of interest include chapters 20 and 22 for the examination of growing technology and the experiences of moving westward. I will examine both chapter 21 in volume one and chapter three in volume two to ensure continuity within the larger unit.
Websites
http://historymatters.gmu.edu
Useful way to navigate to other websites dealing with this era.
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/
Provides photographs and background information and firsthand accounts — several of my primary documents will come from this site. Most of the documents that I have found useful are found in Episode Four. The site is not printer-friendly; you will probably want to cut and paste them into a word document.
http://coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/
Useful archive of newspaper articles from the Rocky Mountain News Weekly — several of the articles from 1864 will be primary sources used in class. It is easy to navigate by date, location, or by publication.
http://www.longmontfyi.com/local-story.asp?id=5367
Provides background information on a recent controversy concerning Colonel John Chivington. The article might be useful to discuss current conditions for Native Americans.
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nytimes/
The website is useful in that it provides a way to search through New York Times articles that are no longer in the free domain. A fee is required to purchase articles, but it is small and the abstract is enough that you know what you are getting. For a variety of reasons I did not use the articles from the New York Times, but I might in the future.
http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/chivington.html
Provides background information on Col. Chivington — good site as long as it is compared to others for accuracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chivington
Provides background information on Col. Chivington — good site as long as it is compared to others for accuracy.
http://www.saskschools.ca/~gregory/firstnations/index.html
This website was designed for fourth graders which makes it a great find for the high school teacher. The information is clear, concise, yet it is also informative. The high school student can easily create an idea of how the Native Americans on the Great Plains lived their lives due to the way that the cultural characteristics are broken down.
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm054.html
The Library of Congress has a great background on the Winter Count that I found useful for students to examine as they prepared their presentations in lesson one.