Focus/Summary:
The Dawes Act of 1887 was constructed by the United States federal government as a means of controlling the Native Indian population. It included provisions for the division of land, called allotment, to Indians, the remainder sold to white Americans. The intended purpose of this land allotment was to instill in Native Indians a sense of land ownership and Protestant work ethic. It was seen as the "essential force to civilize the Indians." Another way for the federal government to "civilize" Indians was to provide a mandatory education for Indian children, pseudo-militarized boarding schools that inculcated students to behave in accordance with white agendas. By teaching them vocational skills that they could use as adults and by stripping them of Indian heritage and traditions, these students were supposed to become good Christians and hold occupations that always kept them second-class citizens. This lesson focuses on the struggles of power between the federal policies and its enforcers and Native populations, specifically those children in Indian schools.

Vital Themes and Narratives:
· Values, beliefs, political ideas, and institutions
· Patterns of social and political interaction

Habits of Mind:
· Students will perceive past events and issues as they were experienced by people at the time, to develop historical empathy as opposed to present-mindedness.
· Students will acquire at one and the same time a comprehension of diverse cultures and of shared humanity.
· Students will understand how things happen and how things change, how human intentions matter, but also how their consequences are shaped by the means of carrying them out, in a tangle of purpose and process.

Objectives:
· Students will exercise the Habits of Mind mentioned above.
· Students will analyze two pairs of photographs and discuss how power is being exerted in each pair.
· Students will research and investigate other ways power was exerted by the federal government against the American Indians and report their findings to the class.

Procedures:

Day One

1. Introduction--10 minutes
   1. Ask students if their parents or anyone other adults told them to change something they did, wore, or said.
   2. Students should be able to come up with different rules in their house that are responses by their parents to something for which they got in trouble.

B. Discuss systems of power.--20 minutes
1. Ideas of control/power
2. Necessity for an oppressed group to exist
3. Theories of paternalism
4. Methods for exerting control
a. laws and ordinances
b. punishment
c. incarceration
d. banishment

C. Discuss Dawes Act of 1887 and the American Indian school system, using Chilocco Indian School as an example.--20 minutes
1. Identify ways that the federal government exerted control in the form of land ownership and religious conversion over the American Indians.
2. Discuss methods of control used in Chilocco Indian School.
a. bugle calls, marching, and uniforms
b. codes of behavior
c. modes of punishment
3. Discuss ways that the students resisted this power.
a. resisting dress codes
b. production of alcohol
c. gangs
d. learning Indian languages, songs, and dances from each other

Day Two
D. Analyzing photographs-- TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT PHOTOGRAPHS--20 minutes
1. Students will analyze the pair of photographs of the group of children and answer the questions on the analysis guide.
2. Briefly discuss the questions on the guide and discuss also ways in which power is demonstrated in the photograph
3. Repeat steps for the pair of photographs of the boy.

E. Research and Investigation--30 minutes plus
1. Students will get into groups of three or four and visit the library and the Internet to research other ways in which power was exerted over American Indians. Students can look at land policies, religious agendas, other Indian schools, reservations, and other related issues.
2. Students will also investigate ways in which American Indians resisted the power over them in these other areas.
3. Students will report their findings to the class.

Sources:
Photographs from the Smithsonian Institution, reprinted in Calloway, Colin G. First
Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999.

Lomawaima, K. Tsianina. They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

Student Assessment:
A. Knowledge:
Students provide information based on knowledge obtained about systems of power exerted over American Indians and their resistance to it.

B. Reasoning:
Students learn through discussions about control, what motivated those in power, and why they may have exerted this power over a marginal group.

C. Communication:
Students convey their understanding to their classmates, learning from each other.