Summary
In this lesson, students will make observations and inferences about policies leading to a history of native peoples being dispossessed of their land. Students will explore the policy of allotment by participating in a simulation activity and completing an article analysis. To extend their learning, students will consider how the history of allotment relates to recent tribal sovereignty cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. Students complete an Emoji Reflection to showcase their understanding of the allotment process and its impact on Indian Territory.
Essential Question(s)
How have the policies and decisions of the U.S. government affected tribal sovereignty? How did the policy of allotment affect tribes in Indian Territory?
Snapshot
Engage
Students watch a video showing the land taken from Native Americans over time.
Explore
Students participate in an allotment simulation.
Explain
Students read an article about allotment in Indian Territory and complete a Honeycomb Harvest activity to document their understanding.
Extend
Students read and discuss an excerpt from the Supreme Court's opinion in the case of McGirt v. Oklahoma to identify how this recent case relates to the history of allotment in Indian Territory.
Evaluate
Students complete an Emoji Reflection activity to represent their knowledge of allotment policy from the perspective of the U.S. government and from the perspective of tribal nations in Indian Territory.
Materials
Lesson Slides (attached)
Allotment in Indian Territory article (attached, one per student)
Honeycomb Harvest cards (attached, one set per group of four) or Digital Honeycomb Harvest (attached)
McGirt v. Oklahoma Supreme Court Opinion excerpt (attached, one per student)
Emoji Reflection handout (attached, one per student)
Notebook paper
Copy paper
Envelopes or paper clips
Large sheets of paper
Glue
Pencils or colored pencils
Student devices with Internet access (optional)
Engage
Use the attached Lesson Slides to guide the lesson, and begin by displaying slide 2. Explain to students that they will view the brief video “The Invasion of America,” which shows changes to the amount of land that Native American tribes owned over time. Ask students to consider what types of U.S. policies contributed to the trends in land ownership that they observe in the video.
Display slide 3. After students have watched the video, ask them the question on this slide: What types of U.S. government policies made the land loss shown in the video a reality? Ask students to turn to an Elbow Partner to discuss this question. After students have had several minutes to discuss, invite them to share their responses with the whole class.
Display slide 4 and review any previously-studied policies that students did not mention. Conclude the discussion by explaining to students that this lesson will focus on a policy called "allotment," which the United States implemented in the late 19th century with the aim of taking even more Native American land.
Display slide 5 and tell students that they should be thinking about the following essential questions throughout the lesson: How have the policies and decisions of the U.S. government affected tribal sovereignty? How did the policy of allotment affect tribal nations in Indian Territory? Display slide 6 to share the learning objectives for this lesson.
Explore
Follow these steps to complete the allotment simulation activity:
Distribute a sheet of copy paper to each student.
Tell students that this paper represents tribal lands. Have them label the top of their paper "Tribal Lands," as shown on slide 8.
Explain that tribal lands were traditionally the shared, or communal, property of the tribe. So, figuratively speaking, tribal members collectively owned this entire piece of paper. Instruct students to draw 15 dots on their paper to represent the tribal members who owned this land, as shown on slide 9.
Explain that, in 1887, the U.S. government passed the Dawes Act, initiating the policy of allotting tribal lands. Allotment required that the land owned in common by the tribe be divided into small sections that would be owned by individual tribal members. To represent the division of land, instruct students to draw four evenly-spaced vertical lines down their papers and eight evenly-spaced horizontal lines across their paper, as shown on slide 10. Each student's paper should now be divided into 45 squares. Ask students: Before the land was divided up, how many squares were owned by the tribal nation?
To represent the allotment of land, ask students to look at where the dots on their paper are located in relationship to the grid that they have drawn. Students should shade in each square that contains a dot. When they are finished, students should have approximately 15 of the 45 squares on their paper shaded in, as shown on slide 11.
Ask students: After allotment had taken place, how many squares were owned by the tribal nation? Students should respond by noting that after allotment, the tribal nation owned only 15 of the 45 squares (representing the loss of approximately 2/3 of reservation land mentioned in the previous Teacher's Note), a much smaller amount of land than they had originally owned. Explain to students that after allotment, only the shaded areas on their paper remained tribal land, while the unshaded areas became known as "surplus lands" (as in extra) which the U.S. government then sold to white settlers.
Display slide 12. Ask students to turn their papers over and, with their groups, write down an observation about what happened as a result of the policy of allotment, completing the sentence, "As a result of allotment..."
After groups have finished writing, ask for volunteers to share with the whole class.
Explain to students that, while allotment was carried out across the United States, the rest of this lesson will focus on how allotment impacted Indian Territory.
Explain
Distribute copies of the attached Allotment in Indian Territory Student Reading. Ask students to read the article out loud with their groups. As students read, they should keep in mind the questions on slide 13.
Display slide 14. and give each group a set of Honeycomb Harvest cards. Students will complete a Honeycomb Harvest activity by placing the hexagon-shaped cards in a pattern to represent their understanding of the important ideas from the article. Cards that touch each other should be related in some way. For example, allotment and the U.S. government are related, because allotment was a policy carried out by the U.S. government. Emphasize to students that there is no right or wrong way to arrange the cards, as long as they can justify why they choose a given pattern. Allow about 15 minutes for groups to discuss and organize their honeycombs.
Using a modification of the Three Stray, One Stays strategy, ask a pair of students from each group to rotate to another group. But before they rotate, have them take a picture of their present group's honeycomb pattern using a phone or other device.
Once the new groups have formed, each pair should take turns explaining the connections between their honeycomb cards and justifying how they arranged their patterns. As students are discussing, walk around the room to clarify any misconceptions.
At the conclusion of the discussion, ask students to return to their original groups, and then give them an opportunity to make adjustments to their honeycomb patterns based on the conversations that they had with other groups.
Once they are happy with their arrangements, groups should annotate their Honeycomb Harvest to explain the connections between the different concepts. Provide each group with a large sheet of paper and glue, and ask them to glue the honeycomb to the paper and add their annotations directly on the paper.
Extend
Display slide 15. Explain to students that the history of allotment has recently come up as a central issue in two United States Supreme Court cases: Sharp v. Murphy (originally Carpenter v. Murphy) and McGirt v. Oklahoma. Both cases address the same general question: Does the Muscogee (Creek) Nation reservation in Oklahoma still exist, or was it disestablished by Congress? When the Supreme Court presented its decision in this case, it was in essence answering this question. When the Supreme Court makes a ruling in a case, it issues a "majority opinion," which documents the court's decision and explains the reasoning behind that decision.
Distribute copies of the attached McGirt v. Oklahoma Supreme Court Majority Opinion excerpt, and tell students that they will be exploring the decision in this case. Ask them to read the excerpt with their groups and consider the question on slide 15: How does the history of allotment relate to the ruling in the case of McGirt v. Oklahoma?
Ask students to discuss the question on slide 16 and find a piece of evidence in the text that supports their reasoning. When students have prepared their responses, bring the class back together and call on each group to share their thoughts.
Guide the discussion to acknowledge that the history of allotment is relevant to the court's ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma because the case debated whether the allotment of tribal land was enough to technically dissolve a reservation. The ruling in this case hinged, in major part, on how the Supreme Court answered that question. Review both sides of the argument with students:
The state of Oklahoma argued that the congressional act calling for the allotment of tribal land was an intentional act that disestablished reservations.
The defendants in this case, along with tribal nations, argued that because Congress did not expressly state that the Creek reservation and others were officially dissolved (because allotment is not the same thing as cession), allotment does not automatically end reservation status.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court (in a 5-4 vote) ruled in favor of McGirt and the Creek Nation, upholding the Creek reservation boundaries established in the 1866 treaty for the purposes of federal criminal law. This Supreme Court decision was an important recognition of tribal sovereignty and treaty rights.
Evaluate
Display slide 17. Distribute a copy of the attached Emoji Reflection handout to each student. To complete the Emoji Reflection activity, students must choose three emojis to explain the U.S. government's perspective toward allotment in Indian Territory and three emojis to explain the Native Americans' perspective toward allotment in Indian Territory. Ask students to circle the three emojis that represent the different perspectives, and then write a short response to explain why they chose each emoji. Encourage them to use specific details and reasoning as evidence to support their choices.
Once students have finished their Emoji Reflections, invite them to share their responses with their small groups or with the whole class.
Resources
eHistory. (n.d.). Invasion of America: How the United States took over an eighth of the world [Digital map]. http://usg.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=eb6ca76e008543a89349ff2517db47e6
eHistory.org. (2014, June 2). The invasion of America [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/pJxrTzfG2bo
EmperorTigerstar. (2016, November 25). The loss of Native American lands within the US: Every year [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zadq5dl2G8Q
Gibson, A. M. (1965). Oklahoma: A history of five centuries (Second ed.). Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
Goble, D., & Baird, W. D. (2007). The story of Oklahoma. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
Indian Land Tenure Foundation. (n.d.). Land tenure history. Retrieved June 26, 2020 from https://iltf.org/land-issues/history/
K20 Center. (n.d.). Elbow Partners. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/ccc07ea2d6099763c2dbc9d05b00c4b4
K20 Center. (n.d.). Honeycomb Harvest. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/6f19b778b73e4c339d1a7d9653001825
K20 Center. (n.d.). Three Stray, One Stays. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/816ff8a793dedf6ff5046224f8028bdc
K20 Center. (n.d.). Emoji Reflection. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/927
K20 Center. (n.d.). Google Classroom. Tech Tools. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/tech-tool/628
Kidwell, C. S. (n.d.). Allotment. The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved June 26, 2020, from https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=AL011
Mann, R. (2020, April 30). Argument preview: Justices to hear second set of arguments on reservation status of eastern Oklahoma. Map of Oklahoma Territories, 1885. SCOTUSblog. https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/04/argument-preview-justices-to-hear-second-set-of-arguments-on-reservation-status-of-eastern-oklahoma/
Mann, R. (2020, July 9). Opinion analysis: Justices toe hard line in affirming reservation status for eastern Oklahoma. SCOTUSblog. https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/07/opinion-analysis-justices-toe-hard-line-in-affirming-reservation-status-for-eastern-oklahoma/
National Congress of American Indians. (2020). Tribal nations and the United States: An introduction. http://www.ncai.org/tribalnations/introduction/Indian_Country_101_Updated_February_2019.pdf
Supreme Court of the United States. (2020, July 9). 18-9526 McGirt v. Oklahoma (07/09/2020). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf