Home | Lessons & Resources | Early Encounters in Native New York: Did Native People Really Sell Manhattan?
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Early Encounters in Native New York: Did Native People Really Sell Manhattan?

This online lesson provides Native perspectives, images, documents, and other sources to help students and teachers understand how the 17th century fur trade brought together two cultures, one Native and the other Dutch, with different values and ideas about exchange. Examine these differences to determine whether the exchange that took place on Manhattan in 1626 was really a land sale or not.

Resource Information

grades   4 5
nations
Delaware, Lenape, Mahican, Shinnecock, Unkechaug
subjects
Economics, English Language Arts, History, Geography, Social Studies
regions
North America, Northeastern Atlantic coast
keywords
Native New York, Lenape, Mahican, Manahatta, Mohican, Munsee, Shinnecock, Unkechaug, Dutch, Henry Hudson, Schaghen, Delaware, Fort Nassau, Half Moon, fur trade, exchange, trade, land exchange, relationships, value systems, wampum, beaver, Manhattan, sale of Manhattan
Essential Understandings

1: American Indian Culture
Kinship and extended family relationships have always been and continue to be essential in the shaping of American Indian cultures.

American Indian cultures have always been dynamic and changing.

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

There is no single American Indian culture or language.

For millennia, American Indians have shaped and been shaped by their culture and environment. Elders in each generation teach the next generation their values, traditions, and beliefs through their own tribal languages, social practices, arts, music, ceremonies, and customs.

2: Time, Continuity, and Change
European contact resulted in devastating loss of life, disruption of tradition, and enormous loss of lands for American Indians.

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

Indigenous people played a significant role in the history of the Americas. Many of these historically important events and developments in the Americas shaped the modern wold.

3: People, Places, and Environments
Well-developed systems of trails, including some hard-surfaced roads, interlaced the Western Hemisphere prior to European contact. These trading routes made possible the exchange of foods and other goods. Many of the trails were later used by Euro-Americans as roads and highways.

7: Production, Distribution, and Consumption
For thousands of years American Indians developed and operated vast trade networks throughout the Western Hemisphere.

American Indians traded, exchanged, gifted, and negotiated the purchase of goods, foods, technologies, domestic animals, ideas, and cultural practices with one another.

American Indians played influential and powerful roles in trade and exchange economies with partners in Europe during the colonial period. These activities also supported the development and growth of the United States.

8: Science, Technology, and Society
Major social, cultural, and economic changes took place in American Indian cultures as a result of the acquisition of goods and technologies from Europeans and others.

Much American Indian knowledge was destroyed in the years after contact with Europeans. Nevertheless, the intergenerational transfer of traditional knowledge, the recovery of cultural practices, and the creation of new knowledge continue in American Indian communities today.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ESSENTIAL UNDERSTANDINGS →

Academic Standards

College, Career, & Civic Life—C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards

Overarching Standards/Summative Performance Task

D1.5.3-5
Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions, taking into consideration the different opinions people have about how to answer the questions.

D4.1.3-5
Construct arguments using claims and evidence from multiple sources.


Supporting Question 1

D3.3.3-5
Identify evidence that draws information from multiple sources in response to compelling questions.


Supporting Question 2

D3.3.3-5
Identify evidence that draws information from multiple sources in response to compelling questions.


Supporting Question 3

D3.4.3-5
Use evidence to develop claims in response to compelling questions.


Common Core State Standards

Overarching Standards/Summative Performance Task

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.


Supporting Question 1

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.

4 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.9
Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

5 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.3
Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.


Supporting Question 2

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.

4 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.1
Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

5 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.9
Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.


Supporting Question 3

4 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.9
Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.

5 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.6
Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.9
Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.


Contemporary Connections

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.

4 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.

5 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.2
Write information/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.