Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Shawnees, a midwest tribe whose numbers included the now legendary Tecumseh. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two–longish, perhaps in need of editing down to something simpler–sentences with two comprehension questions.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“The Coushattas (pronounced coo-SHAH-tuh), or Koasatis, lived in what is now the state of Alabama, especially where the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers merge to form the Alabama River. They were a Muskogean-speaking people and were closely related to the Creek tribe in history, language, and culture. The Coushattas lived near another Muskogean people, the Alabamas. Both Coushattas and Alabamas were part of the Creek Confederacy. The Coushattas, village farmers, are classified, along with these other tribes, in the Southeast Culture Area.
It is thought that the Coushattas had contact with the Spanish expedition of 1539-43 led by Hernando de Soto, and, after De Soto’s death, led by Moscoso de Alvaro. Other Spanish explorers passed through their territories in the 1500s and 1600s.
In the 1700s, after Rene Robert Cavelier de la Salle’s 1682 voyage of exploration along the lower Mississippi River, the French became established in the region, founding the settlement of Mobile on the Gulf of Mexico in 1710. They became allies and trading partners with many of the Muskogean tribes of the region. Meanwhile, the English were pushing inland from the Atlantic Coast and developing relations with the Creeks living to the east of the Coushattas.
When the French were forced to give up their holdings in 1763 after they lost the French and Indian War against the British, most of the Coushattas dispersed. Some moved to Louisiana. Others joined the Seminoles in Florida, Others went to Texas.
Those that stayed in Alabama threw their lot in with the Creeks and were relocated west of the Mississippi to the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) at the time of the Trail of Tears in the 1830s; their descendants still live there today. Descendants of those Coushattas who moved to Louisiana presently have a non-reservation community near the town of Kinder, as well as a recently purchased 15-acre reservation. Those in Texas were granted reservation lands in Polk County along with the Alabamas.
Excerpted from: Waldman, Carl. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. New York: Facts on File, 1988.
“Joseph Brant: (1742-1807) Mohawk Indian chief and Christian missionary. Brant was converted to the Anglican Church while attending a school for Indians in Connecticut. He fought for the British in the French and Indian War (1754-63). He led four of the six Iroquois nations on the British side in the American Revolution, winning several notable battles. After the war Brant was granted land along the Grand River in Ontario, where he ruled peacefully and continued his missionary work.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Until I read this reading on St. Augustine, Florida, I was unaware, as the text’s first sentence points out, that St. Augustine “…is the oldest continuously occupied settlement established by Europeans in the United States.” You probably already know, given the theme of this month’s posts, that indigenous peoples in Florida didn’t fare well after the arrival of the Spanish in that state. In fact, they suffered the same devastation as the Taino in the Caribbean.
If you’re interested in this, Raoul Peck, in his series Exterminate All the Brutes, documents all of this compellingly–to say the very least.
In any event, here is the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that attends the reading above. This reading ties in with the the material below: the British briefly gained control of Florida in 1763 after the French and Indian War. Then, during the American Revolution, Spain sided with the Americans and consequently regained possession of Florida. The state became territory of the United States in 1821 under the terms of the Adams-Onis Treaty.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Nipmuc: In the state of Massachusetts, the low coastal plains rise up to an inland plateau. The plateau is separated from even higher country to the west, the Berkshire Hills, by the Connecticut River. On this central plateau, covered with rich topsoil and dense woods, and coursed by swift-flowing rivers, once lived bands of Algonquians. But there were many different bands and villages, but they came to be known together as Nipmucs.
Their name, pronounced NIP-muck, is derived from the Algonquian word nipmaug, for “fresh water fishing place.” The fact that they primarily used inland freshwater lakes and rivers for their fishing rather than the Atlantic Ocean marks their major difference from many other New England Algonquians who lived closer to the coast. In other ways–such as their hunting and farming methods, their tools, and their beliefs–they were much like their other Algonquian neighbors. The Nipmucs were noted in particular for their basketmaking, weaving, and leatherwork.
Historically, too, their story is linked to other area tribes. The Nipmucs were associated in early colonial years with the Massachuset tribe, and many of them also became Praying Indians. But then in 1675, most of the Nipmuc braves joined the Wampanoags and Narragansets in King Philip’s War. At the end of the war, Many Nipmuc survivors joined Algonquian kinsmen, such as the Mahicans on the Hudson River. Others joined Algonquians in Canada.
The Nipmucs have one of the smallest reservations in the East, only 11.9 acres. It is called the Hassanamisco Reservation, after a village and tribal name. The Hassanamiscos once held the territory around what is now Grafton, Massachusetts. Before 1728, the reservation consisted of 8,000 acres. But most of the land was lost when tribal leaders were tricked into selling it for no payment at all. In 1848, the state set aside the tiny piece that now remains.”
Excerpted from: Waldman, Carl. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. New York: Facts on File, 1988.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Pocahontas. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension question. Just the basics on this important, but misunderstood, figure in American history.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Sitting Bull: (1834?-1890) Native American chief. Sitting Bull was the leader of the Sioux forces, along with Crazy Horse, during the Sioux War of 1876-1877 and was present at the battle of the Little Big Horn, during which a U.S. contingent under George A. Custer was wiped out. Forced to flee to Canada, he returned to the U.S. in 1881 and was settled on a reservation. He was killed by Indian police.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
OK, moving right along on this chilly November morning: Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Sacajawea. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one long sentence (which could be easily broken into two) and two comprehension questions.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“N[avarre] Scott Momaday: (1934-2024) Native American novelist, essayist, and poet, Momaday was born in Lawton, Oklahoma. He studied at the University of New Mexico and received his Ph.D. at Stanford in 1963. His first novel, House Made of Dawn (1969), received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Momaday’s work blends myth and tribal history with family tales and personal recollection: his essay collection, The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969), examines his own cultural history through the native tradition of living in nature. He has also published The Gourd Dancer (1976), a collection of poems; The Names: A Memoir (1977), a family history and autobiography; The Ancient Child, (1989), a novel. A literature professor for many years, Momaday has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
This week’s Text, in observance of the second week of National Native American Heritage Month 2025, is this reading on the French and Indian War along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. You most likely already know this, but it’s worth mentioning that this conflict is also known as the Seven Years War.
And, as the Wikipedia article (which you’ll find in the hyperlink under the last three words in the preceding paragraph) points out, this was a Great Power conflict, global in scope. I expect that this conflict will remain a part of most secondary social studies curricula.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
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