2016+Native+Americans

=Native American Pipeline Protests-2016=

You are familiar with the early history of relations between Native Americans and "Americans". Both groups took advantage of each other in Peacetime and Wartime for better and for worse. There were the stories of Jamestown and the Powhatan, the First Thanksgiving, Bacon's Rebellion, the French and Indian War, and Pontiac's Rebellion. At each stage, Native Americans lost territory and were forced to migrate West onto unfamiliar lands as Americans expanded their settlement. We'll study some of those next stages- up through the Civil War. After that, and with the closing of the frontier, Native tribes were assigned to reservations mostly west of the Mississippi and have struggled since to find their place in America while maintaining some traditions.

For the past several months Native Americans have taken a stand against a pipeline being built in the direction of sacred grounds on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. Once again preservation is in conflict with progress. Native Americans are standing up for the former, and Americans are pushing for the latter. Here are a couple of sources on the conflict.

Here is a link to the "Standing Their Ground" Article in the Current Issue of Scholastic. You can also reach it through the link in the menu which gives the log in.

Here is a good background article from Time Magazine

Here is a timeline of the protests from ABC News

Given what you've learned about Native Americans vs. Americans so far in our study of American History, and given what you read about this new conflict of perspectives, what do you think of the situation? What do you think that the best outcome could be?

This discussion will run until Sunday, November 13th.