EDUCATORS
Teachers and Students—Early American History Curriculum
Welcome to Early American Studies
Our focus on this feature for teachers and students will be on Buffalo in the Northern Great Plains states, where they were highly integrated into the Native culture—and even today are still culturally linked in many ways.
A series of 4th Grade North Dakota Studies units is available as a resource on the people, places, events and fascinating history of Buffalo in the state.
Curriculum at the State Historical Society has recently revamped its units on American Indians of North Dakota. North Dakota learners study first the history and culture of local tribes: the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Chippewa and Great Sioux Nation.
Development of the 4th Grade ND series began in 2006. After much brainstorming with stakeholders and others, a project team of professional educators, historians and graphic artists was assembled to design, research, write and implement this curriculum of our early history. Project team memberset team members invested hundreds of hours of time to make this unique learning opportunity available to teachers, students and other learners. We think it is well done!!
On our Buffao Website we plan to cover the highlights of this topic during the next year—especially for our American History teachers—first with grades 4 and 8 in ND and then adding information from other states.
We probably won’t give you the entire load at once—but will instead keep filling out the curricula as we go through the year.
This is a solid topic because we have a number of Native tribes and reservations in North Dakota, and they have varied cultures, languages and histories.
Through the Native American’s long legacy in this land there have been numerous disasters and tragedies. Also many times to honor and celebrate. These authors have given their subjects an even-handed treatment—the situation is as it is.
It’s a good place to start. It is important to understand that in our earliest human knowledge—both oral history and archaeological discoveries—have confirmed that the many tribes of the US and Canada cared for their own people for hundreds and thousands of years.
They were independent and survived solely by their own efforts, yet in many ways they relied on each other and never ceased thanking the buffalo for their help in survival.
Regarded as their relatives, the Buffalo were vitally important to Native culture from the beginning, furnishing early people with food, clothing, shelter and much, much more.
Is it any wonder that the Buffalo became a vital part of their culture? That losing them was a disaster that is being healed even now as tribes return Buffalo to their lands?