The Pawnee Treaties of 1833 and 1857

Why Do Some Treaties Fail?
This lesson provides Native perspectives, images, documents, and other sources to help students and teachers understand the difficult choices and consequences the Pawnee Nation faced when entering into treaty negotiations with the United States. Scroll to begin an exploration of why some treaties fail.
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This lesson provides Native perspectives, images, documents, and other sources to help students and teachers understand the difficult choices and consequences the Pawnee Nation faced when entering into treaty negotiations with the United States. Scroll to begin an exploration of why some treaties fail.
Lesson Information
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Essential Understandings
Essential Understandings Right
Academic Standards
Academic Standards Right
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Lesson Information


Grades:

9–12

Nations:

Pawnee

Subjects:

Government & Civics, Geography, History, Social Studies

Keywords:

Pawnee, treaty, treaties, assimilation, removal, westward expansion, boarding schools, reservation schools, missions, missionaries, disease, smallpox, cholera, reservations, scouts, Pawnee scouts

Regions:

North America, Plains, Southwest


FULL LESSON
LESSON AT-A-GLANCE
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Essential Understandings


Framework for Essential Understandings about American Indians:
Select from these thematic key concepts to guide and focus instruction in your subject and content area.
This resource addresses the following Essential Understandings:
Essential Understanding 1:
American Indian Cultures:

Interactions with Europeans and Americans brought accelerated and often devastating changes to American Indian cultures.

Native People continue to fight to maintain the integrity and viability of indigenous societies. American Indian history is one of cultural persistence, creative adaptation, renewal, and resilience.

Essential Understanding 2:
Time, Continuity, and Change:

Hearing and understanding American Indian history from Indian perspectives provides an important point of view to the discussion of history and cultures in the Americas. Indian perspectives expand the social, political, and economic dialogue.

Essential Understanding 6:
Power, Authority, and Governance:

Today, tribal governments operate under self-chosen traditional or constitution-based governmental structures. Based on treaties, laws, and court decisions, they operate as sovereign nations within the United States, enacting and enforcing laws and managing judicial systems, social well-being, natural resources, and economic, educational, and other programs for their members. Tribal governments are also responsible for interactions with American federal, state, and municipal governments.

A variety of political, economic, legal, military, and social policies were used by Europeans and Americans to remove and relocate American Indians and to destroy their cultures. U.S. policies regarding American Indians were the result of major national debate. Many of these policies had a devastating effect on established American Indian governing principles and systems. Other policies sought to strengthen and restore tribal self-government.

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Academic Standards


Common Core State Standards
STAGE OF INQUIRY
9–10 Grades
11–12 Grades
Overarching Standards/Summative Performance Task

Anchor Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1Write [construct] arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.1Write [construct] arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
Supporting Question 1

Anchor Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2
Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1.AIntroduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that establishes clear relationships among the claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.1.AIntroduce precise, knowledgeable claim(s), establish the significance of the claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that logically sequences the claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
Supporting Question 2

Anchor Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.1Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1Write [construct] arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.1Write [construct] arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
Contemporary Connections

Anchor Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.2Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.2Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.
College, Career & Civic Life–C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards
STAGE OF INQUIRY
STANDARDS
Overarching Standards/Summative Performance Task
D1.5.9-12
Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions, taking into consideration multiple points of view represented in the sources, the types of sources available, and the potential uses of the sources.
D4.1.9-12
Construct arguments using precise and knowledgeable claims, with evidence from multiple sources, while acknowledging counterclaims and evidentiary weaknesses.
Supporting Question 1
D3.3.9-12
Identify evidence that draws information directly and substantively from multiple sources to detect inconsistencies in evidence in order to revise or strengthen claims.
Supporting Question 2
D4.2.9-12
Construct explanations using sound reasoning, correct sequence (linear or non-linear), examples, and details with significant and pertinent information and data, while acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of the explanation given its purpose (e.g., cause and effect, chronological, procedural, technical).
Contemporary Connections
D4.6.9-12
Use disciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses to understand the characteristics and causes of local, regional, and global problems; instances of such problems in multiple contexts; and challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address these problems over time and place.
D4.7.9-12
Assess options for individual and collective action to address local, regional, and global problems by engaging in self-reflection, strategy identification, and complex causal reasoning.
D4.8.9-12
Apply a range of deliberative and democratic strategies and procedures to make decisions and take action in their classrooms, schools, and out-of-school civic contexts.
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What Happened Before, During, and After the 1833 Treaty with the Pawnee?

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Learn more about why the Pawnee Nation made a treaty with the United States in 1833 and what the consequences of the treaty can tell us about the choices nations make.

Teacher Instructions Student Instructions

Before the 1833 Treaty

The 1833 Treaty

After the 1833 Treaty
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How Did Coercion and Assimilation Lead to the Failure of the 1857 Treaty with the Pawnee?

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Consider why the Pawnee sought a second treaty with the United States in 1857 and how the Pawnee’s actions demonstrate agency.
Teacher Instructions
Student Instructions

U.S. Coercion and Assimilation

Pawnee Actions
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Why Do Some Treaties Fail?

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Construct an evidence-based argument about the reasons that the U.S. treaties with the Pawnee Nation were set up to fail.

Create Evidence Kit

Teacher Instructions
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Contemporary Connections

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Explore a Pawnee Indian Veteran’s Homecoming Powwow.

Explore

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Related Resources

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Credits

The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) expresses gratitude to the people of the American Indian Nations whose histories, cultures, and contemporary lives are represented on these pages. The museum also thanks the following staff and other contributors for their work in the creation of these lessons:


Museum Director: Kevin Gover (Pawnee)


Associate Director for Museum Learning and Programs: Maria Marable-Bunch


Producer: Edwin Schupman (Muscogee), NMAI


Content Managers, Developers, and Lead Writers: Colleen Call Smith and MaryBeth Yerdon, NMAI


Reviewers:

Mark Hirsch, Ph.D., NMAI


Audio:

Mark Christal, NMAI


Voice Talent:

Herb Adson (Pawnee), Pawnee Nation Language Program


Web:

David Chang

Laurie Swindull, NMAI

Jason Wigfield

Cheryl Wilson, NMAI

Deanna Wood, NMAI


Editing:

Martha Davidson

Anne Litchfield


Rights and Permissions:

Wendy Hurlock-Baker, NMAI

Colleen Call Smith, NMAI

MaryBeth Yerdon, NMAI


Illustrations:

Michael Sheyahshe (Caddo) - writer / colors

Maria Wolf Lopez - pencils / inks


Contract Management:

Vilma Ortiz-Sanchez, NMAI


Special thanks to:

Herb Adson and the Pawnee Language and Culture Program, for sharing their knowledge of the Pawnee language.


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