Jennifer Erin Rorex
Introduction/Rationale
Many Americans know more about the violence inflicted upon Native American peoples in the United States than they do about Native survival and influence in the nation’s development, says Yale historian Ned Blackhawk. In his new book, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, Blackhawk aims to rectify this exclusion of Native peoples from historical narratives. It’s an omission that goes back to the country’s origins. “Indigenous absence has been a long tradition of American historical analysis.”[1] Blackhawk, a member of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians in Nevada, is one of many scholars and historians who are the forefront for a movement to promote a more accurate, Indigenous-centered history of the Americas.
Native nations pre-date the United States of America by hundreds of years. In fact, European and then U.S. leaders entered diplomatic negotiations with leaders of Native nations who inhabited these lands from the beginning. The outcomes of those negotiations were treaties, much like the ones the United States forges with foreign nations today. Despite these treaties, depictions of Native peoples as primitive or uncivilized is one of the catalyst Europeans used when colonizing America. These stereotypes often obscure and erase the specific histories of Native peoples, whose distinct cultures have been passed down for many generations—hardly primitive. Therefore, the larger culture needs to unlearn and rethink how the identities of Indigenous peoples are represented and taught.
In his preface to the book Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, author Daniel Heath Justice writes, “Indigenous writers, scholars, storytellers, and knowledge keepers have since our earliest ancestors emerged as distinct peoples, worked to articulate lived truths and imaginative possibilities through spoken, written, and inscribed forms and project them into a meaningful future”.[2] Justice’s book is about Indigenous peoples’ diverse literatures and why they are important to Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers.[3]
I believe there are better ways to bring Native stories and books about Native peoples into classrooms rather than focusing on Thanksgiving origin stories or historic fiction. Moreover, teachers should understand the literature that they teach in context, particularly the historical, political, and social context of colonialism in North America. As Justice explains, “Context is vital to understanding these matters, especially given how colonial government policies have combined with widespread popular stereotypes and everyday enacted practice to degrade and attempt to entirely eliminate Indigenous peoples and their cultural, artistic, and intellectual productions”.[4]
I am writing this curriculum unit to create a meaningful approach for the introduction of Native American Literature to my 6th grade multilingual (ML) students. There are enormous pedagogical benefits from choosing books for their classrooms that are tribally specific (that name a specific tribal nation and accurately represent that nation), written by Native writers, and set in the present day. I chose books that were relevant for my students because we live in Tulsa near both the Muscogee and Choctaw nations. I believe this unit will interest my students because they are already living a life of mixed cultures, coming mostly from colonial oppressive backgrounds. My unit will be relatable and interesting, with fun, hands-on engaging activities and higher-level analysis that will build on their literacy skills.
During the “Introduction to Indigenous Literatures” seminar at the Teachers Institute for Tulsa, I had to read an Indigenous poem out loud to a group of colleagues. I concluded that, as unfamiliar as I was with reading poetry, this must be how my ML students felt when I was tracking their fluency. I decided to experiment with poetry and fluency in my own classroom. My students loved the Joy Harjo poems “Remember” and “Ah, Ah.” The assignment I created was extremely successful in many ways; however, I quickly concluded that my students lacked a foundation in the history of the Americas that they would need to understand these poems fully. Moreover, I felt I had not explained to my students specifically who the Native Americans were and why they were important. I believe these topics are briefly discussed in many 6th grade social studies curriculum. I have included an extensive history that is relevant to any teacher who is interested in teaching this unit. I am filling any gaps that a teacher might need to breach this topic with factual and current historical scholarship. Thus, a project focusing on place and displacement was assigned as a trial for this curricular unit. It was a learning experience and overall, well received.
School Demographics
I teach at Will Rogers High School, a magnet school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Our namesake Will Rogers, a famous Cherokee, was beloved and contributed much to society in his time as a radio personality, an actor, a public speaker, a journalist, and a humorist. Another important note about Rogers is that the school is on post-removal ancestral Muscogee land. As a school culture, we celebrate diversity, value our multilingual learners, and take pride in our Culturally Responsive Teaching. We house the only secondary dual language program in the Tulsa Public Schools district, allowing elementary dual language students a place to continue receiving instruction in both Spanish and English language arts, as well as instruction in full Spanish in one or more content areas.
At Will Rogers Middle School, our current student body is 69.9% Hispanic, 13.7% Caucasian, 5.6% Multi-Race, 5.5% African American, 5.1% American Indian, and .1% Asian with 96.4% of our population on free and reduced lunch. I teach five sections of English Language Development (ELD). My classes consist of students who are learning English as a second language. I have students with ranging abilities, so it is important that I differentiate and scaffold my instruction, as well as build in some flexibility for those students who need it. My main goals for this unit are to build literacy, fluency, and English language proficiency. My students are reading anywhere from pre-k to sixth-grade levels. This year all but two are reading below the district or state levels. This unit will be written for 6th grade ELD students, however I feel that the information and texts will be beneficial for all 6th grade study skills classes that include Caucasian and African American, so I will extend my unit to those teachers and students during Native American Heritage month.
Content Objectives
This unit ultimately is focused on teaching the reading of two Native-authored stories for young readers. To provide useful and appropriate context, I begin with some general history of the Native peoples of America, or “Abya Yala” The Land Before the Europeans. Then I present some information about the Mvsokoke (Muscogee or Creek) and Choctaw peoples, from whom these two stories originate.
The Choctaw and Muscogee are two of the more than 500 native groups in the United States and 600 in Canada. Both are Indigenous peoples from the Southeastern Woodlands in the United States known as the Mississippian Culture. The Muscogee’s historical homelands encompassed what is now Georgia and Alabama. The Choctaw people are indeed part of the Muskogean linguistic group. Their traditional homeland was specifically the area that is now known as Mississippi. The literature that I will be teaching my students in this curriculum unit is mostly focused on the Muscogee and Choctaw Nations, as we are in Oklahoma and have relevance and access to these two tribes. They are part of what are now known as the “Five Tribes” in Oklahoma.
Indigenous, Native American, American Indian, Native and Indians all generally refer to the first peoples of the Americas and are used interchangeably herein. While problematic in their homogenization of distinctions, these terms offer insights into the histories of power and difference that comprise foundational chapters in the history of global colonialism.[5] These are the people of “Abya Yala”, the land before the Europeans. This term was taken from the Kuna people of Panama. Collectively the Indigenous to the Americas use this term with it finding resurgence through academia in the 60’s to present day school children though this curriculum.[6]
Even the word America refers to Europeans and discovery. In 1507 cartographers Matthias Ringmann and Martin Waldseemuller renamed the recently encountered “forth part” of the world after Americus Vesputius (Vespicci), it’s supposed discoverer. Unlike Columbus in the 1490s, in 1503 Vespucci claimed to have found not passage to Asia, but something more – he claimed to have discovered “a new World”. For centuries America and the New World have been ideas that convey a sense of wonder and possibility made manifest by discovery, a historical act in which explorers are protagonists. They think and name, conquer and settle, govern, and own. Native Americans remain absent or appear as hostile or passive objects awaiting discovery and domination. We need to build a more inclusive narrative, and this cannot be accomplished simply by adding new cast members to the dramas of the past. Our history must reckon with the fact that Indigenous peoples, African Americans, and millions of other non-white citizens have not enjoyed the self-evident truths of equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness proclaimed at the nation’s founding as inalienable rights belonging to all.[7]
Native peoples were not granted U.S, citizenship until 1924, by which time the federal government had seized hundreds of millions of acres of land from Native nations in more than three hundred treaties. Tens of thousands of Native peoples were killed by settler militias and U.S. armed forces during the Civil War era, and government-sponsored campaigns of child removal from reservation communities resulted in 40 percent of Indian children being forcibly separated from their families and taken to boarding schools by 1928.[8]
Exiled from the American origin story, Indigenous peoples await the telling of a history that includes them. It was their homelands, after all, that birthed America. Encounter – rather than discovery – must structure America’s origins story. For over five hundred years peoples have come from outside of North America to the homelands of Native peoples. The Native peoples collectively spoke hundreds of languages and lived in societies ranging from small family bands to large-scale empires with emperors and vassal subjects. Their encounters with newcomers began in well-documented form with Spanish explorers in the 1490’s.[9] The “New World” would become a place of violence.
How many Indigenous people have died in the Holocaust in the Western Hemisphere – Abya Yala – between 1492 and the present? The[SL1] [JR2] exact numbers of Native people who died because of invasion, conquest, and colonization during the past five and one-quarter centuries can never be known. But today it is possible to count the dead at least approximately to develop informed and reasonable, very rough, estimates of the total loss of Indigenous lives in this hemisphere and this country.
The introduction of Old-World diseases brought great depopulation to many Native tribes. On average many Native Americans lost 25–50% of their tribe to illness. Disease affected smaller tribes in a greater way, as epidemics often brought certain tribes to the brink of extinction. For example, the Native population before the arrival of Cortés’ invasion was estimated to be between 25-30 million in Mexico. However, half a century later the population was reduced to just three million, largely due to infectious diseases brought by the Spanish. In 1520 there were 700,000 Native Americans in Florida. However, by 1700 the number was reduced to 2,000 because of widespread disease.[10]
Russell Thornton, a Cherokee American anthropologist and professor of anthropology at the University of California at Los Angeles, is known for his studies of the population history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. In his book, American Indian Holocaust and Survival, he estimates a total population of 72 + million American Indians in the Western Hemisphere in 1492.[11] This 72 + million declined in a few centuries to perhaps only about 4 to 4.5 million.[12] [13]
More recent analyses suggest that due to the significant number of Native lives lost, the impact on Earth created a period of cold temperatures called the Little Ice Age. It lasted from the 16th century until the 19th century. During that time, temperatures dropped and large, slow-moving rivers of ice, glaciers, formed in northern Europe. Scientists explain that the decline in Native American population following the arrival of Europeans in the Americas was so dramatic that large patches of land, which had been cleared to create fields, saw the gradual return of trees. Carbon dioxide traps heat and helps the atmosphere stay warm. That’s why a massive withdrawal of carbon dioxide could cause a drop in temperature, thus creating a Little Ice Age.[14]
The Spanish 16th to 19th Century
I am attending to Spanish colonial history here because the Muscogee and Choctaw peoples inhabited lands along borderlands of Spanish and British colonial dominance, and that Spanish efforts at colonization did much to shape British efforts. As well, my student population is largely Hispanic and Latino; by tying in Spanish history and colonization, I can incorporate themes central to their individual cultures, in turn creating relevance and encouraging ownership over themes and topics in the unit.
To know America and its history requires knowledge of centuries of Spanish injustice.[15] Before the conquest of Mexico in 1519, Spanish settlements were limited to islands in the Caribbean. Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Cuba, and Hispaniola. These countries were claimed following Columbus’s final voyages, and these islands provided launching points for further expeditions like Juan Ponce de Leon’s 1513 exploration of Florida[16], which later became the site of St. Augustine, El Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest fort in North America, guarding Spain’s first North American settlement. Founded in 1565, St. Agustine served as an outpost to protect Spanish ships heading north from Cuba.[17]
Juan Ponce de Leon was an impoverished noble in Spain who accompanied Columbus to the Caribbean in 1493 and participated in many conquests thereafter. De Leon governed through terror. Spanish colonialism originated from a centuries-long consolidation of monarchial power of Iberia during the Reconquista in which Spain reclaimed its peninsula from the Muslim Moors restoring dominance of a Christian kingdom.[18] A distinctive masculine culture of violence had taught generations of Iberian men like De Leon to be experts in the technologies of violence. After 1492 these men increasingly sought their fortune abroad.[19] The Spanish conquistadors perpetrated horrors on a previously unimaginable scale. They brought with them deaths due to military campaigns, indiscriminate violence, animal attacks (mainly dogs, specifically greyhounds), slavery, and forced labor, and above all European pathogens. Of the 3 million inhabitants of Hispaniola at the time of Columbus’s arrival in 1493, only five hundred remained fifty years later.[20] The Spanish conquest was simultaneously a holocaust.[21]
After their conquest of the Caribbean, Spanish forces expanded into Mexico, which quickly became the center of Spain’s American empire. Home to tens of millions of Native peoples, Mexico was governed by an empire of its own, the Aztec or Nahua empire. Politically, the empire dominated from its capital of Tenochtitlan, a city ten times larger than Seville, where the Spanish ships originated.[22] The heterogeneity of the Nahua empire enabled the Spanish to conquer it in 1521 with help from the Tlaxcalans, who maintained their own autonomy under the Nahua rule. Indigenous-Spanish alliances grew common in sixteeth-century New Spain, as the Spanish viceroyalty of Mexico was known. In two months, Cortes extended Spanish influence south into the Mayan highlands and soon the Andean world.[23] Note, the lands claimed for the Spanish crown formally became extensions of the Spanish kingdom rather than colonies.
Indigenous-imperial relations explain the distinctions among Europe’s American colonies, several of which, including colonial New Mexico, had been a part of Spanish empires longer than they had been a part of the United States.[24] New Mexico was founded by the Spanish in 1598. They founded a second colony in the region of present-day California in 1769.[25] These two colonies were never linked due to the vast expanse of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
The Texas-Mexican War, also known as the Mexican American War, was a significant conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. The war stemmed from the U.S. annexation of Texas in and a dispute over the Texas border. The U.S. claimed the border was the Rio Grande, while Mexico argued it was the Nueces River. President James K. Polk, a proponent of “Manifest Destiny” — the belief that the U.S. was destined to expand across the continent — sent troops into the disputed area, leading to a skirmish with Mexican forces. This clash prompted the U.S. Congress to declare war, although Mexico never formally did so.
The U.S. military won a series of battles leading to the occupation of Mexico City. The conflict ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which Mexico ceded about half of its then then existing territory to the U.S. Much of the American West and Southwest was acquired by the United States in the 529,000 square mile cession by the Republic of Mexico, including present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.[26]
British Colonization in the 17th and 18th Centuries
Starting in the early seventeenth century, emigrants from England and Scotland started to set up settlements along the eastern seaboard of what is now called North America, ranging from present-day Massachusetts to Virginia and the Carolinas. They did so several decades after French colonists and missionaries had arrived in the more northern regions of North America, and about a century after Cortés had invaded the Caribbean and then Mexico.
The Northeastern region of North America witnessed a complex interplay between Native American societies and the rise of British colonial power. For clarity, Britain didn’t come into existence as a nation until 1708, with the Act of Union. I will use “British” for simplicity of reference, but before 1708 the colonists were English, Welsh, and/or Scottish. As English colonists settled along the eastern seaboard, they encountered diverse Indigenous cultures, each with its own history, traditions, and territorial claims. These interactions shaped the course of history, leading to both cooperation and conflict.
In 1524 Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano led an expedition around the area of Long Island. By then the residents already knew of Europeans. They had traded for their wondrous, if often dangerous, metals and wares, incorporating them into their fishing and farming economies. They had also experienced the ravages of European diseases and military invasions. From southern Maine to Long Island and from Cape Cod to the Hudson River, approximately 150,000 villagers lived in New England.[27] These Indigenous peoples had established their own societies, cultures, and ways of life. Verrazzano described a wonderous, nearly mythical Algonquian world. A century after his encounters settlers arrived, Puritans from England whose diseases and violent practices upended this world.[28]
For perspective, of the 150,000 Native villagers living in the Northeast in 1600’s, less than 10 percent remained a century later: 90 percent perished due to European diseases, settlement pressures, warfare, and enslavement. Those who survived experienced dispossession and soon comprised a caste of unfree laborers within a colonial society.[29]
According to British settler accounts of the 1620’s, this region’s Indigenous cultures possessed nothing remarkable, certainly nothing comparable to classical Europe. The British accounts definitely show prejudice against the Natives. Many histories of the United States present the narrative proclaiming European superiority. Despite recent scholarly and tribal efforts to the contrary, in the American historical imagination to know early America is still to know British America.[30]
The British had several motivations for establishing colonies in North America. The British mariners were enticed with the prospects of exploring lands across the Atlantic, others sought financial and religious opportunities, especially in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant Reformation would change Western European Christianity from a religion with one omnipotent power, the Roman Catholic Church, to encompass a myriad of new beliefs using a separate Protestant context.[31] The reformers expected Native peoples to either disappear or assimilate to become a Christian God’s children.[32]
Initially, territorial disputes arose as the English colonists sought to establish their settlements. However, over time, a complex relationship developed between the two groups. The Native Americans played a crucial role in helping the colonists build thriving communities. Indian slavery facilitated the earliest years of Puritan settlement, particularly using captives and translators.[33] As England’s American empire grew in the late 1600’s into the 1700’s, so did the displacement of Natives and the institution of organized slavery (Native and African), which would have profound and devastating effects.
The colonies matured, becoming increasingly powerful and influential. The English settlers transformed the landscape, established towns, and developed a distinct colonial society. Their main approach was to turn Algonquian lands into fenced Puritan pastures. Each colony’s formation required similar practices of Indigenous land theft, even as the exact nature of that land theft shifted a bit with different terrains and polities.[34]
The westward movement in the United States refers to the populating of British and other Europeans settlers to the land within the continental boundaries of the mainland United States. This process began shortly after the first colonial settlements were established along the Atlantic coast. Pioneers began to venture into the Blue Ridge Mountains, others into the backcountry regions of Virginia and the Carolinas, then reaching the Appalachian Mountains.
After the American Revolution, a flood of people crossed the mountains into the fertile lands between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River. Settlers continued into Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky, areas which transformed from wilderness into regions of farms and towns. The belief in manifest destiny, federally issued Indian removal acts, and economic promise intensified westward expansion in the 1800s. Pioneers traveled to Oregon and California using a network of trails leading west. This westward movement shaped the United States, turning vast wilderness into settled territories and contributing to the nation’s growth and identity.
Place and Displacement
The intertwined tale of place and displacement weaves through the history of Native American communities, leaving indelible marks on their lives and lands.
Place cradles the essence of identity—the sacred ground where stories echo through generations. For Native Americans, place transcends coordinates; it embodies ancestral whispers, ceremonies, and kinship. An example of place would be something along the lines of descriptions/phrases like these: The rolling plains of the Lakota Sioux, where buffalo once roamed freely. Or the red rock canyons of the Navajo Nation, where the wind carries tales of resilience. Each tribe’s place is a living tapestry, woven with threads of memory and belonging.
Displacement, alas, darkens this narrative. The arrival of European settlers brought upheaval—a seismic shift that fractured the sacred bond between people and land. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 tore families from their homes, forcing them westward. The infamous Trail of Tears etched anguish into the collective memory. The Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole—once rooted in their homelands—were displaced to unfamiliar territories. Imagine the heartache: elders clutching soil, children bewildered by distant horizons. Dreams shattered; languages silenced. The very fabric of existence torn.
The “Five Tribes”
The literature that I will be teaching my students in this curriculum unit is primarily focused on the Muscogee and Choctaw Nations, as Tulsans are geographically close to these two nations. They are part of what are now known as the “Five Tribes” in Oklahoma, (the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole Nations), the largest and most powerful tribes in the state who tend to lead discussions about Native rights and negotiations with the state government. All the “Five Tribes” come from the U.S. Southeast. They share some broader ties of cultural practice and (sometimes) language, and they were in the first wave of “Removal” to Indian territory. This term “Five Tribes” comes from the phrase “Five Civilized Tribes,” which was used in the Dawes Act. The Five Tribes were initially exempt from some parts of the Dawes Act.[35]
The term “civilized” was applied to these tribes because they had developed extensive economic ties with whites, adopted European customs, and often lived in settled communities. Many members practiced race-based chattel slavery of African peoples or their descendants.[36] Despite facing immense challenges, they maintained their much of their cultural identity while interacting with the changing world around them, even as they adapted to take on new customs.
These tribes played a crucial role during the era of Indian Removal, especially when dealing with the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Their stories are a testament to resilience, adaptation, and the complex interplay between tradition and progress. Even though treaties created safeguards against settlers, protections from the federal government were weak. Once gold was discovered on Cherokee lands, Georgia accelerated its laws to abolish the Cherokee. In fact, the motive for the Removal Act came from Georgia’s congressional representatives.[37]
Between 1819 and 1824 the Northern states — the Union — in accordance with Congress, established the territory for tribes removed from eastern North America, principally members of the “Five Civilized Tribes” who had signed removal treaties exchanging Southeast lands for those in Oklahoma. After the acts of secession that began the Civil War, tribal leaders understood that neutrality was not possible. Home to nearly one hundred thousand Native peoples from across North America, Indian Territory was now nestled within the Confederacy. Indian people needed little motivation to resist the Union government that had removed them from their homelands.[38] In 1861, treaties were signed, and the Five Tribes agreed to remain part of the Confederacy and provided the war with a Native militia. Disagreements between tribes divided between Union and Confederacy ideals created a Civil War within a Civil War.[39]
The Beginnings of Native Societies in the Americas, specifically the Choctaw and Muscogee, ancestors of Mississippian Culture
The Choctaw and Muscogee are two of the more than 500 native groups in the United States and 600 in Canada. The ancestors of Native Americans likely traveled to North America on a land bridge from Asia. This happened during an ice age around 12,000 years ago when sea levels were low because water was locked in ice. As hunters and gatherers, they were looking for food. Instead, they found a whole new world. Once they arrived in North America, the first people began to spread through the Americas. However, they did not migrate, or move, together – they split into smaller groups. The groups developed ways of life based on where they settled. Some remained hunters and gatherers. Others grew crops and were able to settle in one place and form lasting communities.[40]
Ancestors of Native Americans reached the Mississippi River Valley almost 12,000 years ago. The Mississippian Culture was a vast culture that rose around 800 A.D. and extended over much of the Southeast and middle of the continent. At its height, it may have included 6.7 million people.
The Choctaw
The Choctaw people, also known as the Chahta, are a Native American group with a rich history and cultural heritage. The Choctaw people have overcome centuries of hardship to become a strong, unified nation that has a bright future. Today, there are about 200,000 members of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and nearly 10,000 members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.[41] Here are some key points about the Choctaw:
Ancestors of Native Americans reached the Mississippi River Valley almost 12,000 years ago. Over time they became a farming society. Around 2,100 years ago, these people began building earthen mounds. The first mounds were used as burial places, but later mounds became the center of social and political life for the people, these were believed to be the ancestors of the Choctaw. The Choctaw people eventually settled in the southeastern woodlands, specifically the area that is now known as Mississippi. The weather there is often very hot for much of the year. Their traditional territory included forests, rivers, and fertile lands. The Choctaw’s environment, or surroundings, greatly affected their way of life.
The Choctaw language belongs to the Western Muskogean language family. They have a rich cultural heritage, including art, music, dance, and storytelling. Traditional Choctaw culture emphasizes faith, family, and community.
After the American Revolution, the new United States government wanted to assimilate Native Americans into white society. That assimilation required that Native Americans give up their traditional ways of life. The Choctaw had already been living in peace with white settlers, however, and had adopted some of their ways. As a peaceful people, the Choctaw didn’t want to fight the U.S. government, and a few individuals came to Oklahoma willingly; many faced the hardships of the Trail of Tears because they saw no other option for the future of the Choctaw people, and a few Choctaw individuals profiteered off the removal of their friends and families. Most Choctaw individuals did resist removal on some level, but the level varied from words of passive resistance, to taking up arms and fighting to the death.[42]
The Choctaw encountered European colonizers, particularly the French and later the British and Americans. They played a significant role in the colonial history of the Southeastern United States. The first interactions between the Choctaw and Europeans happened around 1540. They met Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto’s expedition — a meeting that ended in a bloody fight. However, relations with the Europeans weren’t as bad as they were between the Europeans and many other Native American groups. By the 1700’s, Europeans had officially started exploring and settling near the Choctaw, and the two groups began trading with each other.[43]
During the 1830s, the Choctaw Nation faced forced removal from their ancestral lands to Indian Territory now Oklahoma. The Choctaw were the first Native Americans to walk the infamous Trail of Tears journey. The journey was made on foot with little food or water. Despite immense hardship, the Choctaw adapted and rebuilt their communities in their new homeland.
The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is the largest of the three federally recognized bands of Choctaws and is the third largest federally recognized tribe in the United States. The Choctaw Nation’s reservation covers nearly 11,000 square miles in southeastern Oklahoma. The region’s topography includes mountains, rivers, lakes, and woodlands. Fishing, hunting, and camping are popular activities, especially in the eastern part of the reservation.
The Choctaw people have overcome centuries of hardship. Today, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is a sovereign nation that offers opportunities for growth and prosperity. Choctaw culture continues to thrive through events, powwows, language programs, and community initiatives. The Choctaw people hold a deep connection to their heritage, and their resilience and contributions are an integral part of American history.[44]
The Muscogee
The Muscogee Nation, also known as the Mvskoke or Muscogee Creek Nation, is a federally recognized Native American tribe based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. “Mvskoke” is one of the traditional, non-Anglicized spellings of the more widely known “Muscogee” and used to describe the language, people, and culture. “Muscogee (Creek) Nation” is the constitutional name of the Muscogee government and nation. We use it here to describe the government or specific offices.[45]
Their history and cultural heritage are deeply rooted in the Southeastern Woodlands. Almost 100 years after the dark days of the allotment era, the Muscogee people are actively engaged in the process of accepting and asserting the rights and responsibilities of a sovereign nation. As a culturally distinct people the Muscogee are also aware of the necessity for knowing and understanding their extraordinary historical and cultural inheritance.[46] Here are some key points about the Muscogee Nation:
The Muscogee were comprised of not just a single tribe, but a union of several, forming the Muscogee confederacy. The growth of the confederacy was a combination of population growth, conquering and absorbing other tribes, and taking in refugees from tribes destroyed by European encroachment. Much as the lives of their ancestors were forever changed by the Spanish conquistadors, the Muscogee faced challenges brought on by the colonial European powers (Spain, England, and France) in the 1600’s and early 1700’s, in addition to the newly independent Americans in the late 1700’s into the 1800’s. The English called the Muscogee the “Creek”, probably due to the large number of rivers, creeks, and streams in their lands.[47]
The Muscogee people are part of the larger Creek Confederacy, which includes related Indigenous groups. Their traditional homeland was in what is now Georgia and Alabama. Creek oral tradition, recorded in the eighteenth century, told a legend of migration of one group of ancestral Creeks who established a colony at the Ocmulgee site near present Macon, Georgia. From that colony grew the pivotal towns of Cusseta and Coweta, in the period of A.D. 900–1000. The historic Creek Confederacy eventually became widespread and influential. Early-twentieth-century scientists speculated that Mississippian migrants had left their homeland in the central Mississippi Valley and journeyed onto the Macon Plateau, settling at Ocmulgee before beginning their regional expansion.[48]
As with the Choctaw, the Muscogee Nation has a rich cultural heritage, including art, music, dance, and storytelling. Their traditional culture also emphasizes faith, family, and community.
Historically the Muscogee Nation was one of the largest groups of aboriginals in North America before Columbus and before new European diseases and epidemics, battles for survival, and forcible removal to Oklahoma in the 1830’s severely reduced their numbers. There is a considerable amount of literature about their conflicts with Europeans and later Americans.[49]
The phrase, the Creek mind, signifies the world of values, the sacred path, based on Creek’s understanding of nature and their culture. The are regional diversities and differing shades of perceptions in different individuals.[50] Despite the historical lack of written language, Creeks had an elaborate and complex civilization.[51]
The Muscogee encountered European colonizers, including the French, British, and later the Americans. They played a significant role in the colonial history of the Southeastern United States.
In the early years of the eighteenth-century Southeast, there was a complex business of politics and diplomacy between Indian and white. Native leaders exchanged gifts to ritually cement agreements, and Europeans were expected to do the same. But on a grander scale, Indians and Europeans traded their products in marketplaces and trading posts planted throughout the region. The ritual significance of gift exchange remained, but the desire for profits and goods soon began to dominate the trade. Europeans and Indian both prospered as they adapted to the styles and interest, as well as valuables, of the other. Captives for the slave markets, and deerskins for the English tanners purchased tools, utensils, weapons, and clothing—items which Muscogee man and women valued and incorporated into their daily lives. Trade often defined peace, bound people together, and provided the foundation for political relationships.[52]
Their life after European contact was changed forever, but the Muscogee strived to maintain their important traditions and way of life. In the early 19th century, like other Native American nations, the Muscogee faced forced removal from their ancestral lands. In the removal treaty of 1832, Muscogee leadership exchanged the last of the cherished Muscogee ancestral homelands for new lands in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The infamous Trail of Tears led them to the new homeland after the treaty of Washington in 1827. But for most Muscogee people the process of severing ties to a land they felt so much a part of proved impossible. The U.S. Army enforced the removal of more than 20,000 Muscogee to Indian Territory in 1836 and 37, where they were forced to adapt and built their communities.[53]
In recent years, the Muscogee have focused on asserting their identity and sovereignty. They retired the term “Creek” from their tribal name, emphasizing their distinct Mvskoke identity. The Muscogee’s resilience and contributions are an integral part of American history, and their ongoing efforts to maintain their heritage and sovereignty continue to shape their community. About fifty-five thousand people are members of Muscogee Nation, the fourth largest Native American nation in the United States.[54] Today the Muscogee are headquartered in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. They have tribal jurisdiction in Creek, Hughes, Okfuskee, Okmulgee, McIntosh, Muskogee, Tulsa, and Wagoner counties in Oklahoma.[55]
Decolonization
Decolonization theory refers to a framework that aims to challenge and dismantle the ongoing colonial legacies and mentalities that persist within institutions and systems of governance. Decolonization involves “writing back” against colonialism by centering Indigenous perspectives, land, sovereignty, and ways of thinking. It demands an Indigenous framework and recognizes the need to recover authentic humanity by interrogating colonialism’s impact on the inner world and psyche. The memory and the testimony of Indigenous peoples operate as counter-narratives that reconstruct the history of these peoples and of these countries out of the historical debris of their collective memories. The fragmented memory and the testimony of Indigenous peoples, their experiences as victims, and the memory of those who died in the process become the essential ingredients that leave open/unfinished the very act of making of history and historiography, theology, and ethics. They demonstrate that historical events are irreducible to the written registry; what happened is always far more than what we manage to record. Decolonization challenges the myth of a postcolonial age and asserts that neocolonialism persists globally. It calls for active resistance against ongoing colonial practices and the reclamation of Indigenous knowledge and ways of being.
In practice, Indigenous youth protesting the Dakota Access pipeline, Indigenous takedown of confederate monuments, and people of color rewriting historical representations in New York’s American Museum of Natural History are examples of decolonization.[56]
Reconciliation
Canada is ahead of the United States in making reparations towards the Indigenous.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was established as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. This historic agreement aimed to address the harms suffered by survivors of the Indian Residential Schools system and work toward a more just and equitable future for Indigenous peoples in Canada. In June 2015, the TRC held an event in which the commission presented the executive summary of its findings. This summary included 94 “calls to action” (or recommendations) to further reconciliation between Canadians and Indigenous Peoples. Later that year, the TRC released its entire 6-volume final report, which provides a comprehensive account of the history of Indian Residential Schools and their lasting impact.[57]
The Government of Canada provides an educational resource on its website. Their webpage Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada says that reconciliation is not a task for the aboriginal groups. Reconciliation, they say, is about “establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in this country.” The report continues by stating: “In order for that to happen, there has to be awareness of the past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour.” The reports provide a broad version of reconciliation that includes the memory of the past and the reclamation of the free self-determination of Indigenous peoples as condition for the construction of the future. The fundamental demand in the reports rests on the creation of an imaginary where the creation of a space for the coexistence of the many multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multilingual nations is possible.[58]
I propose that the search for reconciliation expressed in these official reports is based on a recovery of the memory of the past and the dignity of the peoples. The reports also offer glimpses of two way-of-life proposals diametrically opposite to the present rapacious neoliberal capitalist imaginary in which life itself is commodified, and the rich diversity of peoples and their cultures and knowledges are seen as new products for consumption and profit-making. These documents show how Indigenous communities seek to recover their relationship with the earth based on the material, spiritual, and communal interweaving of life on earth.[59]
A just reconciliation requires more than simply talking about the need to heal the deep wounds of history. Words of apology alone are insufficient; concrete actions on both symbolic and material fronts are required. Reparations for historical injustices must include not only apology, financial redress, legal reform, and policy change, but also the rewriting of national history and public commemoration.
Many Indigenous communities actively work to revive and reclaim their cultural heritage. Native artists express resilience through various forms: beadwork, pottery, painting, storytelling, and music. Community bonds play a crucial role in Native resilience. Native resilience often centers around a deep connection to the land, water, and natural resources. Indigenous activists fight for land rights, sovereignty, and social justice. Education is a tool for empowerment. In celebrating Native resilience, we honor the strength of those who continue to thrive despite historical injustices. Their stories inspire us to recognize the resilience within ourselves and work toward a more just and inclusive world.
Native resilience and the revival of cultural traditions are essential narratives that deserve recognition and celebration. Native resilience is a testament to the enduring strength, adaptability, and determination of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous communities have faced centuries of colonization, forced displacement, cultural suppression, and violence. Despite these immense challenges, Native peoples have demonstrated remarkable resilience by preserving their languages, traditions, and spiritual practices.
The Jingle Dress Dance exemplifies this resilience and cultural continuity. The Jingle Dress Dance is a powerful expression of healing, strength, and tradition among Indigenous communities, particularly among the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people. The Jingle Dress Dance has its origins in the early 20th century, during a time when the Anishinaabe faced challenges such as the Spanish flu pandemic and cultural suppression. Despite historical trauma, forced assimilation, and the suppression of Indigenous practices, the Jingle Dress Dance persisted. In recent decades, there has been a resurgence of interest in Indigenous traditions, including the Jingle Dress Dance. The Jingle Dress Dance is not just about individual performance; it’s about community connection. In celebrating the Jingle Dress Dance, we honor the strength, resilience, and cultural legacy of Native peoples. It serves as a reminder that traditions can withstand adversity and continue to thrive, even in the face of historical challenges.
In conclusion, this curricular unit was researched and written to acknowledge Native American peoples. My aim is to teach students about Native Americans and to inspire a renaissance. This revival of art and literature has been happening since the 1960’s and it is now time for students reap the benefits of the many Native and nonnative scholars who have diligently sought to dissemble and understand the false and, frankly, harmful stereotypes and images of Native American peoples. I want to teach my students how to appreciate and engage with another culture. I would like to introduce them to our ancestors of Abya Yala.
Teaching Strategies
This unit was written with the goal of increasing literacy through Indigenous Literature. I will be teaching the historical, political, social context of colonialism, in the Americas with a primary focus on North America. In addition, the unit contains a secondary focus of the theme of place and displacement among Natives.
In the first half of the unit, I will be focusing on two children’s fiction books: Jingle Dancer and The Cloud Artist. I plan to compare these two works and the respective Native tribes from which they emerge: the Muscogee and the Choctaw. This is where in my lesson I would create connections to my immigrant Hispanic/Latino population to the more accurate and more relevant history for both cultures. One teaching strategy would be for students to research objects that are special to each Native culture and compare them to objects that are culturally significant to them. We would be looking closely at the Jingle Dress and its origin story. Another fun activity would be to teach though the eyes of a cartographer. Students should explore maps of the US identifying the regions of the origins of each tribe then create maps of their families’ ancestral lands. With the maps we could also explore the trail of tears to Oklahoma. This would be enriching if students were able to research and find firsthand accounts to share with the class and to write their own personal narrative. Lastly, I wanted to add that I would be exploring other related content in the form of as Do Now or Warm Welcome, classroom engagement activities, focusing on cultural practices such as stick ball and language– Muscogee writing. Students would learn to write a word or two. I would really express how overcoming the obstacle in learning a second language is like a superpower and commend the efforts of my multilingual students, with the hope of encouraging them for the seal of biliteracy.
The second half of the unit focuses on a third text, Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry. The anthology was created by Joy Harjo, the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate. Joy Harjo is a poet, musician, and author of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She has made significant contributions to Native American literature and poetry. In 2019 she was appointed as the first Native U.S. Poet Laureate. At that time Joy Harjo initiated the “Living Nations, Living Words” project. Its purpose is to introduce the country to Native poets who live in these lands. This is a project that features work by forty-seven contemporary Native poets through an interactive ArcGIS Story Map and a newly developed Library of Congress audio collection.[60] The Library of Congress houses the accompanying website with maps, the poets, their poem, and a discussion. Each poem and discussion are read by the author, which is great for the student auditorily. Harjo’s project is one of the most fascinating, engaging and deeply emotional teaching resources. I plan to use both the text and the online component simultaneously. The url to the online component is https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/living-nations-living-words/.
The project will be used as the basis of an independent research project for my students. They will be completing the project based on the poems included in the project. It will be a scaffolded and differentiated research project; my student population is sixth grade students with English language proficiency ranging from 1-6 on a WIDA scale, placing them between beginner and proficient. This places what they can do in most of the grade level content anywhere between pre-k to fifth grade abilities in the four content areas of reading, listening, writing, and speaking. Each student will choose a poet to research. Each poet has one published poem in the anthology expressing the theme of place or displace. The students will be practicing fluency by reading and recording themselves reading their chosen poem. I track their fluency throughout the year. Poetry will be an optional choice as opposed to fictional passages and journal articles. For those students at a higher level, they are encouraged to find a topic that interests them as they have conducted their primary research of their poet, the poet’s tribe, and those in lower level will be working on Joy Harjo’s poems Ah, Ah and Remember Me. In the research I hope that my students find that some tribes exist in both the United States and Mexico. My expectation would be for one of the students to research and present that interesting existence. This is where the necessary differentiation occurs between my higher-and lower-level students and where a strong understanding of the anthology can be paired to reach your gifted and talented students.
Other curriculum connections may include: relations to nature, nature as a character, oral storytelling, four directions, foods like fry bread and Indian tacos, regalia, kinship, generosity, honor, reciprocity, characters as role models for Native American students, battles between Natives and Europeans, and/or disease like The Spanish Flu that eradicated many Native people.
I am also looking for non-fiction books to include for students to use as reference but have not yet found the most appropriate in terms of the above-mentioned criteria. These would be books that are tribally specific (that name a specific tribal nation and accurately present that nation) and written by Native writers. The books that I have selected this time are described in detail below.
Book Overviews
Jingle Dancer is written by Cynthia Leitich Smith, a New York Times bestselling author and member of the Muscogee Nation. The book is a lyrical text. Jenna, the main character, is a member of the Muscogee Nation living with her family in Oklahoma. She loves the tradition of jingle dancing that has been shared over generations in her family and intertribal community. She hopes to dance at the next powwow, but with the day quickly approaching, she has a problem: how will her dress sing if it has no jingles? The book tells an affirming story of a contemporary Native American girl who turns to her family and community to find a way to complete her jingle dress that is incomplete without the cone-shaped jingles. She borrows one row from Great-aunt Sis, whose aching legs keep her from dancing; another from Mrs. Scott, who sells fry bread; one from Cousin Elizabeth, whose work keeps her away from the festivities; and a fourth row from Grandma, who helps Jenna sew the jingles to her dress, assemble her regalia, and practice her bounce-steps. When the big day arrives, the girl feels proud to represent these four women and carry on their tradition.
The Cloud Artist is a Choctaw tale written by Sherri Mare. It is a captivating bilingual picture book that celebrates Choctaw heritage. It follows Leona, a little Choctaw girl, who possesses a unique gift, she uses the sky as a canvas and paints with the clouds. She delights her people by creating beautiful cloud art. When a traveling man learns of her gift and invites her to join the carnival, the Cloud Artist must decide about what kind of artist she wants to be. Leona’s Choctaw background infuses the story. References to Choctaw history, such as the Trail of Tears, subtly remind readers of the tribe’s resilience and struggles. Also, Leona’s connection to her Choctaw family and their storytelling tradition adds depth. The tale is passed down through generations, emphasizing the importance of family ties.
Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry is a collection of poetry edited by Joy Harjo, the first Native American poet to serve as a U.S. Poet Laureate. Her signature laureate project gathers works of contemporary Native poets into a national, fully digital map of story, sound, and space.
Additional Resources
The Rediscovery of America written by Ned Blackhawk. Covering over 500 years of U.S. history, the book interweaves Native and non-Native histories, from the earliest days of Spanish colonization, through the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, the world wars, and the rise of Native American self-determination in the 20th century.
Spotlight on Native Americans: Choctaw This book introduces readers to the Choctaw tribe, a Native American group originally from the Southeastern United States. This text discusses traditional clothing, diet, customs, and housing of the Choctaw tribe, as well as how their way of life changed after interactions with European peoples. This book also covers what the Choctaw tribe is like today, including where they live and how they keep their past alive. Readers will find a rich learning experience through engaging text and color photographs. This book supports history curricula, both regional and national.
Spotlight on Native Americans: Muscogee This book details the history of the Muscogee (Creek) people–Muscogee is their ancestral name–and their traditions, mythology, and art date back to around AD 1500 with roots buried deep along the Mississippi River. In this richly illustrated exploration of Muscogee culture and history, readers will discover that these traditions are alive today. However, difficulties are not unknown to the Muscogee people. They suffered great losses along the Trail of Tears, but as a result, the Muscogee took up leadership in the activist movements of modern Native Americans. It is a culture that thrives today, and readers are invited to appreciate the past and glimpse into the future of Muscogee.
Trail of Tears: A Captivating Guide to the Forced Removals of Cherokee, Muscogee Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Nations This book explores the cruel history of the Trail of Tears. One of the darkest and cruelest chapters in the history of the United States occurred when the nation’s young government decided to remove the native peoples from their lands in the name of profit. Having helped settlers for hundreds of years, five Native American tribes found it increasingly more difficult to relate to and trust the country that had once acted as their allies. The native peoples had fought alongside the Americans to gain freedom from England, the nation that the colonists deemed oppressive and unfair. The native peoples acted as benefactors and teachers, helping the colonists to gain an advantage against an army that was far superior to the small forces that the colonists could muster. The new country owed a lot of its existence to the native peoples, yet the settlers, who were of European descent, did not see it that way.
Appendix on Implementing District Standards
The WIDA English Language Development (ELD) Standards represent the social, instructional, and academic language that students need to engage with peers, educators, and the curriculum in schools. The following standards are the standards that I will be focusing on during this unit.
English Language Development Standard 1: English language learners communicate for Social and Instructional purposes within the school setting. Standard 1 draws on students’ personal experiences as they interact with teachers and peers. It works in conjunction with Standards 2-5 that address the language of the content areas.
English Language Development Standard 2: English language learners communicate information, ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of Language Arts. To be more specific here is the connection to the Common Core State Language Standards, Conventions of Standard English #1–2 (Grade 6): Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar when writing or speaking; Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing. Examples context for language use: Students provide written feedback to each other about their use of conventions and mechanics in original written texts as part of the writing process by student peer editing.
English Language Development Standard 5: English language learners communicate information, ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of Social Studies.
In addition, I will focus on The Language of the Humanities: Culturally knowledgeable students are able to engage effectively in learning activities that are based on traditional ways of knowing and learning in order to gather oral and written history information from the local community and provide an appropriate interpretation of its cultural meaning and significance. Example context for language use: Students will discuss the cultural significance of different community activities based on information from interviews with elders or long-term residents of the local community to identify relevant information to include in student-created resources (e.g., websites, publications) about their community.
Notes
[1] “Book ‘unmakes’ U.S. history to include long-excluded Native Americans”, Yale News, assessed April 20, 2024, https://news.yale.edu/2023/05/02/book-unmakes-us-history-include-long-excluded-native-americans.
[2] Justice, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, xvii.
[3] Justice, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, xvii.
[4] Justice, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, xix.
[5] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 449.
[6] Echazú and Gomez de Santos, How Indigenous & Black People are Fighting Colonialism in the Academy, Chacruna, https://chacruna.net/indigenous-black-academics-decolonization/, accessed April 24, 2024.
[7] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 2.
[8] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 2-3.
[9] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 3.
[10] David Childs, Learning from history: pandemics are nothing new in native communities. Democracy and Me, April 8, 2020, https://www.democracyandme.org/learning-from-history-pandemics-are-nothing-new-in-native-communities/ Available at: Accessed April 21, 2024.
[11] Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival, 42.
[12] Dobyns, “Estimating Aboriginal American Population: An appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemisphere Estimate”, 415.
[13] Thornton and Marsh-Thornton, “Estimating Prehistoric American Indian Population Size for United States Area: Implications of the Nineteenth Century Population Decline and Nadir”, 48.
[14] Ornes, Did Columbus contribute to a Little Ice Age? ScienceNewsExplores, November 2, 2011, Society for Science & the Public 2000–2024, https://www.snexplores.org/article/did-columbus-contribute-little-ice-age.
[15] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 22.
[16] Bolton, The Spanish Boarderlands: A Chronicle of Old Florida and the Southwest, 4. Gibson, Spain in America, 25.
[17] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 20.
[18] Radulovic, “Reconquista: How the Christian Kingdoms Took Spain from the Moors,” accessed March 1, 2024, https://www.thecollector.com/reconquista-christian-reconquest-of-spain.
[19] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 23.
[20] Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States, 7.
[21] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 24.
[22] Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortes, 4-5.
[23] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 24-25.
[24] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 4.
[25] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 17.
[26] Martinez, Dispute Resolution and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Parallels and Possible
Lessons for Dispute Resolution under NAFTA, 5 Sw. J. L. & TRADE AM. 147 (1998)
See Klein, supra note 7, at 201. See also Bowden, supra note 9, at 468-70; CHARLES F.
WILKINSON, THE AMERICAN WEST: A NARRATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY AND A STUDY IN REGIONALISM 7, 23 (1989).
[27] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 48.
[28] Lipman, The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast, 19-53.
[29] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 51.
[30] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 49.
[31] Bishop, Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, Conclusion.
[32] Kupperman, The Jamestown Project, 12-42.
[33] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 52.
[34] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 50.
[35] Dr. Laura Stevens, email 3/2024.
[36] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 310.
[37] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 244.
[38] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 310.
[39] Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America, 311.
[40] Quinlivan, Spotlight on Native Americans Choctaw, 4-5.
[41] Quinlivan, Spotlight on Native Americans Choctaw, 4.
[42]https://choctawnationculture.com/media/33962/2014.06%20Choctaw%20resistance%20to%20removal%20from%20ancient%20homeland%20part%201.pdf
[43] Quinlivan, Spotlight on Native Americans Choctaw, 8.
[44] https://www.choctawnation.com/about/reservation/, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, accessed April 23, 2024.
[45] The Students, The PSIG Project, https://www.psigproject.org/students, accessed April 23, 2024.
[46] Muscogee History, Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes, https://www.fivecivilizedtribes.org/Muscogee-History.html#:~:text=The%20Muscogee%20people%20are%20descendents,of%20their%20elaborate%20ceremonial%20complexes., accessed April 23, 2024.
[47] National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/liri/learn/historyculture/the-muscogee-creek-1600-1840.htm, Assessed May 12, 2024.
[48] The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Oklahoma Historical Society, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=CR006, accessed April 23, 2024.
[49] Chaudhuri, A sacred path : the way of the Muscogee Creeks, 1.
[50] Chaudhuri, A sacred path : the way of the Muscogee Creeks, 1.
[51] Chaudhuri, A sacred path : the way of the Muscogee Creeks, 2.
[52] Braund, Deerskins & duffels : the Creek Indian trade with Anglo-America, 1685-1815, xi.
[53] Muscogee History, Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes, https://www.fivecivilizedtribes.org/Muscogee-History.html#:~:text=The%20Muscogee%20people%20are%20descendents,of%20their%20elaborate%20ceremonial%20complexes., accessed April 23, 2024.
[54] Waterby, Spotlight on Native Americans, 4.
[55] MUSCOGEE (CREEK) NATION, Southern Plains Tribal Health Board, https://spthb.org/about-us/who-we-serve/muscogee-nation/, accessed April 23, 2024.
[56] https://www.racialequitytools.org/resources/fundamentals/core-concepts/decolonization-theory-and-practice
[57] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Canada, https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1450124405592/1529106060525, accessed April 24, 2024.
[58] ,160-161.
[59] ,161.
Bibliography
Bishop, Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, Conclusion.
Blackhawk, Ned. Rediscovery of America: Native peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. history. S.l.: Yale Univ Press, 2024. 2-4, 17, 20, 22-25, 48-52, 244, 310, 311, 449.
Bolton, Herbert E., The Spanish Borderlands: A Chronicle of Old Florida and the Southwest (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921), 4.
Braund, Kathryn E. 1996. Deerskins and Duffels. U of Nebraska Press. xi.
Childs, David. Learning from history: pandemics are nothing new in native communities. Democracy and Me, April 8, 2020, https://www.democracyandme.org/learning-from-history-pandemics-are-nothing-new-in-native-communities/ Available at: Accessed April 21, 2024.
Chaudhuri, Jean, and Joyotpaul Chaudhuri. 2001. A Sacred Path. 1-2.
de Santos, Echazú and Gomez. How Indigenous & Black People are Fighting Colonialism in the Academy, Chacruna, https://chacruna.net/indigenous-black-academics-decolonization/, accessed April 24, 2024.
Dobyns, “Estimating Aboriginal American Population: An appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemisphere Estimate”, 415.
The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Oklahoma Historical Society, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=CR006, accessed April 23, 2024.
Gibson, Charles. Spain in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 25.
Gonzalez, Susan. “Book ‘unmakes’ U.S. history to include long-excluded Native Americans”, Yale News, assessed April 20, 2024, https://news.yale.edu/2023/05/02/book-unmakes-us-history-include-long-excluded-native-americans.
Justice, Daniel Heath. Why Indigenous Literatures Matter. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018. xvii, xix.
Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. The Jamestown Project (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 12-42.
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonization Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2nd ed. (London: Zed Books, 2012); Patrick Wolf, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” Journal of Genocide Research (December 2006): 387–409. For an application of “settler colonialism” to U.S. history, see Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (Boston: Beacon, 2014).
Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States (New York: Norton, 2018), 7. For an overview of the demographic estimates and decline of Hispaniola’s Indigenous population – “seemingly one of the greatest of all genocides”
Lipman, Andrew. The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 19-53.
MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Reformation (New York, 2005). For a clear understand of the Protestant Reformation.
Martinez, George A. Dispute Resolution and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Parallels and Possible
Lessons for Dispute Resolution under NAFTA, 5 Sw. J. L. & TRADE AM. 147 (1998). See Klein, supra note 7, at 201. See also Bowden, supra note 9, at 468-70; CHARLES F.
WILKINSON, THE AMERICAN WEST: A NARRATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY AND A STUDY IN REGIONALISM 7, 23 (1989).
Muscogee History, Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes, https://www.fivecivilizedtribes.org/Muscogee-History.html#:~:text=The%20Muscogee%20people%20are%20descendents,of%20their%20elaborate%20ceremonial%20complexes., accessed April 23, 2024.
MUSCOGEE (CREEK) NATION, Southern Plains Tribal Health Board, https://spthb.org/about-us/who-we-serve/muscogee-nation/, accessed April 23, 2024.
National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/liri/learn/historyculture/the-muscogee-creek-1600-1840.htm, Assessed May 12, 2024.
Ornes, Stephen. Did Columbus contribute to a Little Ice Age? ScienceNewsExplores, November 2, 2011, Society for Science & the Public 2000–2024, https://www.snexplores.org/article/did-columbus-contribute-little-ice-age.
Quinlivan, Ada. 2015. Choctaw. The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 4-5.
Radulovic, Igor. “Reconquista: How the Christian Kingdoms Took Spain from the Moors,” accessed March 1, 2024, https://www.thecollector.com/reconquista-christian-reconquest-of-spain.
Restall, Matthew. When Montezuma met Cortés the true story of the meeting that changed history. New York, NY: Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2019, 4-5.
Stevens, Dr. Laura. email 3/2024.
The Students, The PSIG Project, https://www.psigproject.org/students, accessed April 23, 2024.
Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A population history since 1492. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990., 42.
Thornton and Marsh-Thornton, “Estimating Prehistoric American Indian Population Size for United States Area: Implications of the Nineteenth Century Population Decline and Nadir”, 48.
Waterby, Ralph. 2015. Muscogee (Creek). The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. 4
https://www.racialequitytools.org/resources/fundamentals/core-concepts/decolonization-theory-and-practice This is an interesting collection of information on decolonization.
https://www.choctawnation.com/about/reservation/, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, accessed April 23, 2024.