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Chapter 11 - The Early Reservation Years, 1880 - 1920

Additional Information and Resources for Chapter 11

Educational Trunks

To Learn A New Way from the Montana Historical Society. Created by Salish educator Julie Cajune, this trunk explores the reservation, allotment, and boarding school periods as experienced by Montana Indians.

Websites and Online Lesson Plans

"Picturing the Past: Understanding Cultural Change and Continuity among Montana's Indians through Historic Photographs" is a flexible two-day learning activity that challenges students to examine historical photographs while considering issues of cultural change and continuity over time.

The Eastman House has an online "Discovery Kit" titled Beyond the Image: Depicting Native Americans. The kit includes classroom-ready lesson plans and study materials that can be used in direct online interaction or as downloadable slide shows and printable resources.

OPI's Indian Education Division has pulled together a list of resources that "help to provide insight into the impact the law had on Indian communities and provide multiple perspectives."

OPI has model middle school and high school IEFA lesson plans on allotment.

OPI also has model middle school and high school IEFA lesson plans on boarding schools.

"A Beautiful Tradition: Ingenuity and Adaptation in a Century of Plateau Women's Art" offers a classroom study unit based on women's beadwork and tied to Indian Education for All Essential Understandings.

The Internet Archives has digitized all of the Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior from 1863 through 1938. Access these full-text, machine searchable documents here.

"Indian Boarding Schools: Civilizing the Native Spirit" is a lesson plan from the Library of Congress that uses primary source material posted on the American Memory Project website.

Stan Juneau's "History and Foundation of American Indian Policy" (2001) is a useful and accessible overview of the ways federal Indian policy has impacted Montana tribes.

The Indian Land Tenure Foundation has excellent information on allotment and its consequences, including a video - a portion of which is posted on OPI's Indian Education Department's website. At the Indian Land Tenure Foundation you can also access free lesson plans (registration required).

Marquette University has digitized photographs and articles from The Indian Sentinel, 1902-1962, fundraising magazine published by the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions that talked about the church's evangelization efforts (including boarding schools.) If you direct students to this material, you may wish to use it as an opportunity to have them analyze bias and intent (since this material was obviously created from a specific point of view to support a specific purpose.)
 

Videos or DVDs

Chapter 4, "Dislocation/Relocation" (17 minutes) and Chapter 2 "Homesteading" (17 minutes) of Montana Mosaic: 20th Century People and Events. (Check your library. OPI donated a copy of this DVD to every public school in Montana. The DVD is also available as streaming video.)

Contrary Warriors: A Film of the Crow Tribe - 60 minutes

Why Save a Language, Regional Learning Project - 27 minutes 

Possible Fieldtrips

Chief Plenty Coups National Historic Landmark, Pryor. (Related IEFA lesson plans are available.)

People's Center, Pablo

Wherelandwriteshistory

Midwinter Fair, Browning, MT, 1920s, Montana Historical Society Photo Archives 955-532

 

Wherelandwriteshistory

Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, PA, 1892, photo by Choate, Montana Historical Society Photo Archives 956-052

 

Wherelandwriteshistory

Indian Land for Sale poster, courtesy Library of Congress, Broadside Portfolio 240, Number 24, Rare Book Collection

Alignment to Content Standards and Essential Understandings Regarding Montana Indians (EU)

Tests and Answer Keys