Last updated: October 1, 2021
Lesson Plan
Chouteau Trade/Osage Nation 7th & 8th Grade
- Grade Level:
- Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade
- Subject:
- Social Studies
- Lesson Duration:
- 60 Minutes
- State Standards:
- Missouri: #3B. Geographic study: Explain how the physical & human characteristics of regions in the Americas prior to c. 1870. Economic concepts:Theme 1-A, Examine the opportunity costs & benefits of economic decisions on society and individuals.
- Additional Standards:
- Kansas: Consider reasons for settlement & consider beliefs, ideas, diversity, relationships between various people, relationships between them and their environment, change over time.
Oklahoma: 8.7.3Analyze policies & decisions on American Indian nations - Thinking Skills:
- Remembering: Recalling or recognizing information ideas, and principles. Understanding: Understand the main idea of material heard, viewed, or read. Interpret or summarize the ideas in own words. Applying: Apply an abstract idea in a concrete situation to solve a problem or relate it to a prior experience. Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts. Creating: Bring together parts (elements, compounds) of knowledge to form a whole and build relationships for NEW situations. Evaluating: Make informed judgements about the value of ideas or materials. Use standards and criteria to support opinions and views.
Essential Question
What are the cons/negatives of trade?
Objective
Students will be able to trace and discuss the path and challenges of trade.
Background
Chouteau: Was the name of a highly successful ethnically French fur-trading family based in Saint Louis, Missouri, which they helped found. Their ancestors Chouteau and Laclede initially settled in New Orleans.
Osage Nation: is a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Great Plains. The tribe developed in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 700 B.C. along with other groups of its language family.
Zebulon Pike: Zebulon Montgomery Pike was an American brigadier general and explorer for whom Pike's Peak in Colorado was named.
Manuel de Lisa: was a Spanish citizen and later, became an American citizen who, while living on the western frontier, became a land owner, merchant, fur trader, United States Indian agent, and explorer.
North American fur trader: refers to the commercial trade in furs in North America. Various indigenous peoples of the Americas traded furs with other tribes during the pre-Columbian era. Europeans started their participation in the North American fur trade from the initial period of their colonization of the Americas onward, extending the trade's reach to Europe. European merchants from France, England and the Dutch Republic established trading posts and forts in various regions of North America to conduct the trade with local indigenous tribes. The trade reached the peak of its economic importance in the19th century, by which time it relied upon elaborately developed trade networks.
Catholic Missionaries: The Jesuits and Osage were linked for decades through the Osage Mission, which was established in 1847 near present-day St. Paul, Kansas. There is a strong tie between many different tribes and a number of different Christian churches. The Osage have had a pretty strong tie to Catholicism.
Preparation
Read the synopsis of Chouteau family:
Manuel De Lisa
Zebulon Pike
Catholic Missionaries for Osage:
Abstract: In 1820, Osage chiefs traveled from southeast Kansas to St. Louis to ask Bishop Louis DuBourg to visit their villages, promising that "he could pour waters on many heads." Through their experience with French traders, the Osage had come to trust Catholic priests; thus, as Protestant clergy began to petition the government for the right to establish missions on Osage lands, the chiefs turned to the "Chief of the Black Robes." By negotiating a relationship with the Roman Catholic Church, the Osage hoped to preserve their identity as "Children of the Middle Waters."
Materials
Lesson Hook/Preview
Ask students if they have ever seen or been put in a position where they had to trade an item they really wanted to keep because they were desperate for an item that someone else had. Discuss the challenges that come with trade: reduction of resources and imbalance of power due to shifting end goals.
Procedure
Have students read Osage and create a map that depicts the beginning of the trade between European powers, the best trading times with the Chouteau Family for the Osage (why?), and the decline of the Osage way of life due to the excessive European trade and desire for expansion of territory.
The student's map should include the following components:
*Illustrate a reason WHY trade began between the Osage and Europeans
*Illustrate what was traded in the beginning
*Illustrate the relationship (balance or imbalance?)
*Illustrate the trade with the Chouteau Family
*Illustrate why the Chouteau Family were successful trading partners with the Osage
*Illustrate the relationship (balance or imbalance?)
*Illustrate the reason for the shift from sustenance trade to profit trade
*Illustrate the impact of trading more for profit and expansion had on the Osage
*Illustrate how the relationship ended (balance or imbalance?)
Discuss: What are the most common reasons that relationships end? How are those reasons tied to what happened between the Chouteau Family and the Osage?
What are some ways in which relationships can be repaired? How would you repair the relationship between the people of the Osage and the U.S. Government?
Supports for Struggling Learners
Students that are struggling can be given a key: Highlight information from the websites of information for clarity and to reduce the frustration of searching for information.
Enrichment Activities
Have students research the ways that the U.S. Government worked to rectify the wrongs of the past with the Osage people? What is the U.S. Government doing or what has it done to do the next right thing for the people of the Osage?