The United States and its

people….

The Native Americanshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1X4IglIo_Y

In the past….

Some tribes…

BLACKFOOT

CHEYENNE

SIOUX

NAVAJO

APACHE

CHEROKEE

SEMINOLE

HOUSES…..• Each Native American tribe needed a type of housing that would fit their

lifestyle and their climate. • Tribes that moved from place to place needed houses that were portable

or easy to build, while tribes that stayed in one place wanted to build

houses that would last a long time.

Wigwam Longhouse Grass house

asi Chickee pueblos

Earthen house

Plankhouse

Tepee

EUROPEAN COLONIZATIONOriginal Population: 18 million (but some historians say 50 million)

From the 16th through the 19th centuries, the population of Native Americans declined in the following ways:

- epidemic diseases brought from Europe like: – chicken pox – measles - smallpox

-wars between European explorers and colonists, as well as between tribes:

Some important wars:

- Seven Years War 1754/1763 between French and British- American Revolutionary War (War of Independence): 1775 – 1783- 3 Seminole Wars (1816/18 – 1835/1842 – 1855/58)- Great Sioux War of 1876–77- Battle of Little Bighorn (1876): General George A. Custer and 250 soldiers under his immediate command confronted Sioux warriors on the Little Bighorn River and were wiped out in the fight.- Wounded Knee (1890): Big Foot took command of the final band of fighting Lakota (Sioux). They were trapped at Wounded Knee Creek and destroyed by the U.S. Army.- Last conflicts in 1918

- displacement from their lands:

• 1830 the Indian Removal Act was passed – tribes in the east were forcibly removed to lands west of the Mississippi

• 1833 On January 12, a law was passed making it unlawful for any Indian to remain within the boundaries of the state of Florida

• 1834 Indian Intercourse Act - Congress created Indian Territory in the west that included the land area in all of present-day Kansas, most of Oklahoma, and parts of what later became Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming.

• 1838 Trail of Tears President Jackson sent federal troops to forcibly remove almost 17,000 Cherokee who had refused to move westward and had remained in Georgia: native americans walked about 1200 miles and 4000 died.

• - internal warfare

- enslavement

. Many Native Americans were exported to work in plantations in the Caribbeans

What Native Americans taught the Europeans:

• How to grow crops like: corn, squash, beans• How to grow tomatoes and potatoes• Medicine: medicines that treated some of the oldest

known diseases were used and spread by Native Americans; many had important medical uses and are still used today

• Democracy: Benjamin Franklin was an admirer of Iroquois confederacy, which could be considered a kind of federal system (they were 6 tribes with a representative each, elected by the tribe – women could vote as well!)

Native Americans… NOW…

• Now (2003 Census) there are about 2.7 million Native Americans in the United States

• Many of them live in a reservation (there are 310 reservations in the United States)

• In 2000, eight of ten Americans with Native American ancestry were of mixed blood

• There are 562 federally recognized tribal governments in the United States. These tribes possess the right to form their own government, to enforce laws (both civil and criminal), to tax, to establish requirements for membership, to license and regulate activities

The Pilgrim Fathers…

• In 1620 one hundred Puritans boarded the ‘Mayflower’ for the New World

• They landed near Cape Cod in Massachussetts• In the autumn of 1621, they produced their first

successful harvest and in gratitude, celebrated their first Thanksgiving . Thanksgiving became a national holiday in the United States in 1863

The early Pioneers…• Pioneers were the first people to settle in the frontiers of North America.

Although many of the pioneers were farmers, others were doctors, shopkeepers, blacksmiths, missionaries, lawyers, and so on.

• Many went to Oregon, Texas, and other areas of the frontier for the inexpensive or even possibly free land. This land was available for homesteading. They wanted the rich, fertile land for their crops. Other people went to the frontier in order to prospect for gold, to hunt and trade fur pelts, and for many other reasons.

Pioneers on the prairies built houses out of sod if they could not find trees to use for wood.

What is Homesteading?

• In 1862 The Homestead Act was passed. Applicants had freehold title to up to 160 acres (65 hectares) of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River.

• Homesteading was ended in 1976

Glossarymatch the words to the corresponding meaning:

• Chicken pox• Smallpox• Measles• To wipe out• Fight• Frontier• Blacksmith• Crop• Fur pelt• harvest

1. Orecchioni2. Cancellare3. Battaglia4. Raccolto5. Pelliccia6. Raccolto7. pelliccia8. vaiolo9. varicella10. fabbro

African Americans (or Black Americans)

• The majority of African Americans descend from slaves

• Massachusetts was the first colony to legalize slavery in 1641

• In all, about 10-12 million Africans were transported to the Western coast

Slave Market, Public Square, Louisville, Georgia

• In 1787 Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance and barred slavery from the large Northwest Territory• In 1808 importing slaves into the United States became illegal• In 1863, during the American Civil War (1861–1865), President

Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the southern states at war with the North.

• The 13th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865, outlawed slavery in all the United States.

• In 1868, the 14th amendment granted full U.S. citizenship to African-Americans. The 15th amendment, ratified in 1870, extended the right to vote to black males.

But discrimination continued…..:

1955: Historic bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., marking the emergence of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. and the beginning of the end of segregation on buses in Southern cities. This marked the beginning of the Freedom Movement, which continued through the '60s with the Sit-In Movement and Freedom Rides.

Aug. 28, 1963• Some 300,000 people participated in the

March on Washington, the largest civil rights demonstration to that date.

April 4, 1968• Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in

Memphis, Tenn., triggered a national crisis with rioting in more than 100 cities.

The Asian Americans• 1850s…Many Chinese were recruited to work for the Transcontinental

railroad• 1858 California passes a law to bar entry of Chinese and "Mongolians”.• 1859 Chinese excluded from San Francisco public schools• 1862 California imposes a "police tax" of $2.50 a month on every

Chinese.• 1882 Chinese Exclusion Law suspends U.S. immigration of laborers for

ten years. (It was renewed in 1892, 1902, 1912)• 1924

- Immigration Act denies entry to virtually all Asians.