Last updated: September 30, 2024
Lesson Plan
Business Ventures
Mexican real - considering profit and risk at Bent's Fort
NPS/D. Ocheltree
- Grade Level:
- Upper Elementary: Third Grade through Fifth Grade
- Subject:
- Social Studies
- Lesson Duration:
- 60 Minutes
- Common Core Standards:
- 3.L.4, 3.L.4.a, 4.L.4, 4.L.4.a, 5.L.4, 5.L.4.a
- State Standards:
- 4th History 1.1 b. Identify cause and effect relationships using primary sources to understand the history of Colorado's development Geography 2.2 c. Analyze how people use geographic factors in creating settlements...adapted to physical environment
- Additional Standards:
- 4th Economics 3.1 Explain how people respond to positive and negative incentives. 4th Personal Financial Literacy 5.1 Determine the opportunity cost when making a choice.
- Thinking Skills:
- Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts.
Essential Question
1. What choices did the Bent, St. Vrain, & Company make which enabled their business venture to thrive?
2. What factors threatened their success?
Objective
Identify and analyze the consequences of business decisions in terms of financial and political well-being.
Background
At about fourteen years of age, Lewis H. Garrard, read John C. Fremont’s Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, an account published in U.S. newspapers in 1843. Fremont’s descriptive account enticed Lewis to venture West by himself only three years later. Garrard wrote his own book of experiences lasting from 1846-1847 titled Wah-to-yah and the Taos Trail. “Wah-to-yah” is a Comanche word meaning “double peaks,” which described the mountainous Spanish Peaks found in southeastern Huerfano County, Colorado. As Lewis set off, Ceran St. Vrain, the founding partner of the Bent, St. Vrain, & Company, guided his wagon from Independence, Missouri to the trading operation along the Arkansas River, known as Bent’s Fort, in September of 1846.
This lesson provides a hands-on activity of business planning as a means to examine the initiation of commerce at Bent's Fort in 1833. The proprietors of Bent, St. Vrain, and Company, Charles Bent and Ceran St. Vrain had multiple factors to consider before landing on this location. Logistics were also a major consideration for making a profit in this remote area of the southwest. Ultimately, they decided to construct a fort-like adobe structure with buffalo robes as the primary trade good. Robes were obtained in partnership with the Cheyenne and Arapaho nations on whose lands the fort was erected. Situated on the Santa Fe Trail just north of the Arkansas River and the Mexican border, Bent had easy access to natural resources as well as the markets and routes necessary for trade. Management of Fort William or Bent's Fort was given to Charles' younger brother, William. Charles and Ceran continued further south to New Mexico to develop additional trading posts. While their business plan seems to show ample forethought, the U.S./Mexican war in 1846 risked the continuance of fair trade among their business partnerships in America, Mexico, and overseas. The decisions they made as businessmen during this time not only the longevity of their company, but also their own personal safety.
Preparation
Materials Needed:
- Lewis Garrard Business Ventures narrative text
- Early map of Santa Fe Trail
- Business Plan Form
- (optional) U.S./Mexican War background in additional resources
Materials
Companion map for narrative text as a reference for Bent's Fort location
Download Map of Bent's Fort on Santa Fe Trail
Companion document for students to use during Business Ventures lesson
Download Lewis Garrard Business Plan
Companion text to Business Ventures lesson plan containing quotes from Lewis Garrard's experience with Bent's Fort and proprietors.
Download Lewis Garrard Business Ventures narrative text
Lesson Hook/Preview
Activity:
Prompt students to imagine starting a business selling pencils (or other self-selected school-appropriate item) at school. Use the Business Plan form to make decisions on product, location, costs, and logistics. Each student will write their own plan individually even if they intend to include other business partner peers within the class. Give approximately 20 minutes for initial planning.
Procedure
1. Have students share their business plan with one or two other students so that the listeners can give feedback on the soundness of their decision-making.
2. As a whole group, have students share out the planning obstacles they identified either in their own plan or a peer's plan and suggest how they might overcome them.
3. Read and discuss the following "sticky problem":
Sticky Problem: During most of the sixteen years that Bent, St. Vrain, & Co. operated, it was economically successful. American citizens and traders, like Lewis Garrard, usually saw Bent's Fort as a place of safety and well-being. However, at different times, other Native American nations and New Mexicans viewed the trading post as a threat.
What about Bent’s Fort might have been threatening to other people in the Borderland region? What could Charles and William Bent or Ceran St. Vrain have done to make sure their trading post was peaceful and fair to everyone?
As pairs or individuals, give students three minutes to consider the sticky problem and jot down their responses. Call on volunteers to share out.
4. Assign reading of “Business Ventures” narrative aloud in pairs to identify textual answers to the earlier sticky problem prompt. Hand out reference Santa Fe Trail map for reference.
5. After students have engaged with the text, assemble whole group to clarify what is meant by Garrard’s statement: “Bent’s Fort contained much of the value and was an important post, [therefore] a Mexican expedition [or conflict] might well be expected” (119). The context of the U.S./Mexican war informs Garrard's conclusion. Prompt group to consider how war might impact the success of a business. Note that war has the potential to both ruin or boost profits.
6. Reflect on earlier Business Plan activity. Would your plan change if you knew ahead of time that war was coming to your location? What would you do differently after war in your region had begun? Would you close or change location? Would you refuse to do business with some of your partners? Do you think your business will make as much money now that some of your customers are at war with your country? Could you stay neutral?
7. Conclusion: Pass out Exit Ticket
Vocabulary
proximity - the state of being close
principal - main or most important
watchword - core aim
peer - to look
elastic - springy
melodius - musical
Assessment Materials
Lewis Garrard Business Ventures Exit TicketExit Ticket containing essential question for Lewis Garrard Business Venture lesson.
1. What choices did the Bent, St. Vrain, & Company make which enabled their business venture to thrive?
2. What factors threatened their success?
An Exit Ticket assessment containing the Business Ventures lesson's essential questions.
Rubric/Answer Key
Lewis Garrard Business Ventures Exit TicketAnswers to Business Ventures Exit Ticket containing the lesson's essential questions.
1. What choices did the Bent, St. Vrain, & Co. make which enabled their venture to thrive? (possible answers) Bent, St. Vrain, & Company chose a location that was close to: natural resources such as water from the Arkansas River, timber from cottonwood trees, herds of migrating buffalo, the trade route of the Santa Fe Trail, the homelands of the Cheyenne and Arapaho who brought buffalo robes to market, and the border from Mexico to encourage trade relationships.
2. What factors threatened their success? (possible answers) The different communities that traded at Bent’s Fort did not always get along. U.S. policies and relationships with Native American tribal nations and Mexico had a serious impact on BSV & Co.’s ability to trade freely without making enemies. Once the U.S./Mexican war began, since Charles Bent and Ceran St. Vrain were U.S. citizens helping the military, their business and trade goods became a war target.
Exit Ticket Answer Key to Lewis Garrard's lesson titled Business Ventures
Supports for Struggling Learners
For students with writing challenges, pair them with a peer or allow verbal responses for the Business Plan activity.
Pre-read vocabulary definitions before assigning narrative text reading.
Enrichment Activities
Enrichment Reflection:
Bent's Fort was not the only trading post operated by Charles and William Bent and their partner, Ceran St. Vrain. Consider how their success may have been different if they had not expanded their markets further north into the Colorado territory or further south into Mexican territory. Suppose BSV had set up a trading post in the heart of St. Louis, how might its products, partners, safety and profits been different?