Axe 8 – Territory and Memory

Unit 3 – Native American Worlds

Key question : What is left of Native Americans’ traditions
today?

(cf. worksheet 1 : First Peoples Now and Then)

Question n°3- Main characteristics :

The land fashioned the Native Americans.

Land = sacredness, « dust and blood of our ancestors »
Territory and memory : land = bearer of the memory of
their community (of their ancestors = forefathers)
- Native Americans = have a spiritual connection to the
land / Euro-Americans = land is something that must
exploited (resource)

VOCABULARY: The complete definitions are to be found

on the worksheet n°1 “First Peoples Then and Now”

Heritage: Features belonging to the culture of a particular

society … etc

Inheritance: Money or objects that someone gives you

when they die.

Legacy: Something that is a part of your history or that

remains from an earlier time or something that is a result of
events in the past.
(cf. worksheet 2: Different Times, Different Lands)

Correction (completed map)

Phonetic transcription:

Reminder: In English, words are stressed

(=accentués). They can have primary and
secondary stresses (accents primaires et
secondaires).
Iroquois: /ˈɪrəˌkwɔɪ/
Sioux: /’suː/
Cherokee: /ˈtʃɛrəˌkiː/
Cheyenne: /ʃaɪˈæn/ ou /ʃaɪˈɛn/
Apache: /əˈpætʃi/
There are two « standard » versions : SBE
(Southern British English) and GA (General Ameri-
can).

Question 2: (Compare maps 1 and 2) Native lands were

reduced to very small zones = Native American
reservations.
Tuesday 11th January 2022

1) Correction of the homework:

Find the phonetic transcription
for the following words on the
online Cambridge dictionary:

Written by Anaïs, Lisa and

Faustine:

2) (cf worksheet: DOC A: How First Peoples Lost their

Lands)
Preparation for an oral presentation in pairs or in groups of
3:
a) Describe the painting (according to your group – A or B)
b) Analyse the artist’s message
HOMEWORK: Be prepared to present the painting to the
rest of your class.
Thursday 13th January 2022

1) Oral presentations: (Mathilde and Lilith / Kenza,

Faustine and Esteban)
Present the painting (description and analysis of the
artist’s message)
Painting n°1: Attack at Dawn, Charles Schreyvogel, 1904.

Descriptive elements:
- A Native American village attacked by Euro-American
military men.
- Cavalrymen, Tepees
- Violence: weapons (swords, pistols and rifles), fumes,
wounded soldier in the middle
- Chaotic scene (bodies in movement, no expressions on their
faces)
 - Brown / Blue = two sides
- Native Americans = vulnerable. On the verge of defeat = they
are only 3 and surrounded by cavalrymen. Two are running
away and the other one is kneeling (in position of inferiority
towards the cavalryman)
- Aim: denounce the violence of those wars/ the barbaric acts
perpetrated against the Native Americans.

Painting n°2: The Trail of Tears, Max D. Standley, 1995.

- Road taken by a hundred of Native Americans/Covered

wagon
- Winter (leafless trees) + People burying a corpse on the left
=> Metaphor for death => Trail of Tears => tears = mourning
- In the foreground = crying old woman = ancestor mourning
the lost lands
- Gloomy atmosphere
- We don’t know where they’re going / they’re going into the
unknown => Are they going to survive?
- Escorted by military men (they’re forced to go away)
 - Women and children = vulnerable
- Aim: expose the cruelty of the federal government/the
predicament of Native Americans

2) Correction of the webquest:

The 3 main objectives:

- Bring Native Americans under U.S government
control.
- Minimize conflicts between N.A. and settlers.
- Encourage N. A to take on the ways of the white
man

Treaty? Treaty of Hopewell, 1785

The Trail of Tears: they were forced to leave their

lands, on foot, sometimes in chains with little food.

Forms of suffering: starvation, disease, exhaustion

The Indian Appropriations Act = 1851, creation of

Indian reservations + they were not allowed to leave
the reservation

Life on Indian reservations:

- Starvation
- Disease
 - Learned how to write and speak English
(obligation)
- Impossible to maintain their culture
- Attempt to convert them to Christianity and to
make them give up their spiritual beliefs
- Feuding tribes forced to live together in the same
reservation
- Struggle to become farmers (they were forced to)

Monday 17th January 2022

1) End of the webquest’s correction

The Dawes Act in 1887:

- Decrease of the land owned by Native Americans

by more than half
- Reservation lands = not good farmland
- More space was given to white settlers and
railroads
- Culture shock: gender roles (Before: women
farmed and men were hunters / women =>
domestic sphere / men: farmers)

Modern Indian reservations (status, main economic

resources, today’s living conditions)

- Sovereign = not subject to federal laws

- Main sources of revenue: tourism, dependent on
 the federal government for financial support,
gambling)
- Third-world country: housing = overcrowded and
below standards, people are stuck in a cycle of
poverty);

DOC B: (video) How the US stole Thousands of

Native American children (cf. worksheet given in
class)

PART 1: The historical context and the reasons

behind the creation of boarding schools

- A long and brutal legacy of attempting to

eradicate Native Americans: for centuries, they
colonized Native American lands and murdered
their populations. But, N. A. resisted.
- But, the N.A. population was steadily increasing =
obstacle to total American expansion.
- New solution => to absorb and assimilate them

- Richard Henry Pratt: ran an assimilation

experiment: he was in charge of prisoners of war

=> were taught how to speak English, they were
dressed in military uniforms and taught how to
write and read and how to do labour. To prove to
the federal government that they were capable of
being civilized.
- 1879: first off-reservation boarding school:
 Carlisle Industrial Boarding School
- Motto: kill the Indian and save the man.

II – The boarding school era

- School = genocide disguised as American

education.
- Children were forcibly taken from reservations
and place into the school hundreds even thousands
of miles away from their families, were given new
English names, their hair cut short, stripped of
their traditional clothing, and forbidden from
speaking their native languages.
- To indoctrinate them into Western society and
take away their identity.
- Victims of mental, physical and sexual abuse.
Thursday 20th January 2022

III –Intentional propaganda: creation of before and

after photos to show that his experiment was working.
Creation of 350 boarding schools

Remediation (final tasks): How to improve your

writing skills (cf. Powerpoint posted on Pronote)

(cf. worksheet – Prétérit et Prétérit en BE + -ING)

II – Native American ways of life

(cf. worksheet – Legendary Animals – 1)

1) The buffalo had a practical dimension and a

symbolic dimension (used in legends to explain
their beliefs and their conception of the world).
Moreover, Native Americans perceived buffalos
as brothers (=close relationship).
2) 1 = skull
2 = Horns
3 = Fur
4 = Ribs
5 = Flesh
6 = Hoofs
7 = Bones
8 = Skin

3. They used the buffalo for food and to build their

tepees (housing), tools (water bags, weapons…etc), to
make clothing, to build means of transportation +
spiritual dimension (sacred altar).

4. You deprived them of their means of subsistence

and of a sacred animal that is essential to their
identity.
b- The Oral Tradition of Storytelling

Thursday 27th January 2022

1) Correction of the exercises

1-

a. Linda came – her parents were waiting

b. Was walking up and down the room – was
sitting
c. She opened
d.She entered – she saw – her parents were
anxious
e. Her father shouted – she said

2)

a. A man was texting – while he was driving

b. he was writing

c. He wasn’t driving – was – didn’t pay any attention

d. he crashed

e.he injured – who was hit

f.flew