High Level Document Based Question- This DBQ adheres to New York State Learning
Standard 3- Geography, Commencement Level, Key Idea #1. Additionally, this lesson
plan corresponds with the National Social Studies Curriculum Standards thematic strands
of culture and power, authority & governance.
This Document Based Question (DBQ) may be used in the classroom in various ways.
First, students may build their own DBQ scaffolding questions in pairs, as a group, or on
their own in class using the images from the Native American Discovery Kit. Second, the
teacher may decide to select specific images to include as scaffolding questions. Finally,
literature and/or images can be selected either by the teacher or the students and included
with the following primary sources to form a comprehensive DBQ assignment.
However, at least four primary sources from the Native American Discovery Kit must be
used as scaffolding documents.
Directions:
This Document Based Question (DBQ) consists of two parts. Part A includes
scaffolding questions for each primary source. Answer each scaffolding question
in the space provided. Part B is the DBQ. Write an essay that fully answers the
DBQ.
Historical Context:
As Manifest Destiny took hold, Native Americans faced a fundamental challenge:
how to preserve their cultures in spite of their loss of land. As historians have
noted, Native Americans met this challenge by adopting two basic survival
strategies. While some Native Americans chose physical resistance, others
responded with adapting or assimilating. Conflict vs. cooperation has been a
repetitive theme in Native American Removal and history.
Document Based Question:
How has conflict and/or cooperation shaped the ownership and cultural use of
Native American lands?
Task:
Answer each scaffolding question in the space provided based on the
corresponding primary source. Answer the DBQ using information from at least
five of the primary sources in Part A and your knowledge of United States
history.
Guidelines:
-Support your essay with specific facts and details
-Write in an organized and logical manner
-Include a clearly developed introduction and conclusion
-Include information from at least five of the documents in Part A
Part A:
Document 1
…Prematurely taken
from the woodland
Giving birth
to children that grew
in a world that is white.
Prematurely
you put your hair up and
covered it
with a net.
Prematurely grey
they called it.
Hair binding.
Damming the flow.
With no words, quietly
the hair fell out
formed webs on your dresser
on your pillow in your brush.
These tangled strands pushed to the back of a drawer
wait for me.
To untangle
To comb through
To weave together the split fibers
and make a material
Strong enough
To encompass our lives.
Beth Brant
“For All My Grandmothers” from Mohawk Trail
1985
Scaffolding Question:
What does the author mean by “prematurely taken from the woodland” and “these
tangled strands…wait for me”?
Document 2
“Upon descending into the valley of Cimarron, on the morning of the 19th of June, a band
of Indians on horseback suddenly appeared before us from behind the ravines – an
imposing array of death-dealing savages! There was no merriment in this! It was
genuine alarm – a tangible reality. These warriors, however, as we soon discovered, were
only the vanguard of a ‘countless host,’ who were by this time pouring over the opposite
ridge”.
Josiah Gregg
Commerce of the Prairies
1831
Scaffolding Question:
What is this Westward Bound traveler’s opinion of Native Americans?
Document 3
“If any man or any nation outside the Five Nations shall obey the laws of the Great Peace
and make known their disposition to the Lords of the Confederacy, they may trace the
Roots to the Tree and if their minds are clean and they are obedient and promise to obey
the wishes of the Confederate Council, they shall be welcomed to take shelter beneath the
Tree of Long Leaves”.
Iroquois
The Great Binding Law of the League of the Iroquois
1500s
Scaffolding Question:
What is required under Iroquois Law to be welcomed on their land?
Document 4
Scaffolding Question:
Where and to what extent did colonial settlers encroach on Native American
lands?