A Navajo trading post.
TRADING POSTS were important on the western frontier, not unlike the superstores of today. They provided a place to get supplies, a location for Native Americans and trappers to trade goods, and a place to get the latest news. Trading posts were often located near heavily traveled areas. For example. Fort Union Trading Post in North Dakota was located where the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers met. This allowed the post to draw traffic from people riding on horses or boats. Fort Union was also centrally located between several Native American bands or nations. Beaver fur was often
Traded for goods in the early years; later buffalo hides fetched the highest prices. Goods could be food, blankets, gunpowder, or supplies for the road. A blacksmith might be on site to reshoe a soldier’s horse.
Make a diorama of a trading post, making certain to include items that might be found at a trading post. This activity may need supervision during the cutting activities.
Materials
? Paper
? Pencil
? Sturdy cardboard or display board as base
? Glue
? Cardboard boxes in assorted shapes or sizes
? Miniature people and animals
? Miniature foodstuffs, landscaping, and/or building elements
? Modeling clay
? Poster or acrylic paints
? Scissors or a craft knife senting one foot. Sketch a diagram of how you want your diorama to look. Choose and gather the materials you’ll need.
First, create the background for your diorama, keeping in mind the environment trading posts existed in during the iSoos. For example, you probably wouldn’t find wild animals such as bears or mountain lions in a trading post.
Construct the trading post building and glue it onto the base. The building should be sturdy. It can be made of cardboard, craft sticks, or appropriately sized twigs (to represent logs). Using glue or putty, attach smaller objects you’ve created into the diorama.
THE ORIGIN OF SCALPING
People often associate scalping—removing the top part of the skin of the head with the hair—with Native Americans. But the first people known to engage in scalping were Scythians, a group living in southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia from 400 to 800 b. c. Other pre-Columbian sites in North America also showed evidence of scalping, although different methods were used. By the time of European contact in the Americas, scalping was reported among eastern groups like Muskogean, Iroquoian, and Algonquian speaking people.
Scalping, however, increased with the arrival of the Europeans, who encouraged scalping as evidence of a kill. Governor Charles Lawrence (born in Plymouth) decided that the best way to deal with the attacks by area natives in the Canadian territory of Nova Scotia was to issue a "scalp proclamation" in 1756 in which the scalp of a male native was worth 25 British pounds—over $3,000 today. The Mexican government also promoted the practice of scalping between 1835 and 1880 by paying a bounty for Native American scalps, particularly the Comanche and Apache.
The British pay for scalps.
Both the British and the French saw the region as a place to make money, and English trading posts and French forts sprang up throughout the wilderness.
Many Native Americans welcomed the French fur trappers. The fur trade with these French often benefitted both sides, and native people were typically welcomed at French forts with gifts. It wasn’t surprising that many natives sided with the French. Additionally, large numbers of British colonists had been taking native land, and many native people feared that these colonists would continue moving west, forcing them from their land as they had already done in New England.
In 1754, the first battle took place. George Washington’s colonial troops attempted to drive the French from the Ohio Valley by capturing Fort Duquesne. When Washington gained the lead in the beginning through a surprise attack, the English erected Fort Necessity. Slightly over a month later, the French struck back and quickly overwhelmed Washington’s troops.
The French remained successful in many battles in the early years of the war. The chief reason was their Native American allies. While some Indian nations signed agreements with the British or remained neutral, an increasingly larger number sided with the French, including many of the Algonquian people. At first, the combination of the French and the Native Americans proved almost overwhelming, with war tactics that may have included scalping. Finally, the British decided to put everything they had into winning that war.
The tide turned for the British when the white Americans known as colonials sought similar agreements with Native Americans, such as the Iroquois. In 1758, Brigadier General John Forbes held a council with area Native Americans and established peace. Without their native allies, the French abandoned Fort Duquesne to the British, who renamed it Fort Pitt. Fort Pitt later became the city of Pittsburgh.
The British Americans had often supplied Native American bands with whom they were friendly with food, clothing, seed, and blankets. These supplies were cut off to those Native American nations who fought alongside the French. With the defeat of the French in 1763, the British gained control of the northeastern United States and parts of Canada. The number of colonists reached 1,500,000 and continued to climb. The number of Native Americans began to drop drastically. The Native Americans who fought on the side of the British gained little for their efforts as new colonists began pouring onto native lands when the war with the French ended.
Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa Nation led attacks against the British to drive the colonists away from the Ohio Valley. Pontiac was a brilliant military strategist. With the help of different bands and nations, he organized a synchronized attack on British forts in May 1763 that devastated the British.
Although the British issued a directive that land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi river was reserved as Native American hunting grounds. Native Americans continued to fight the British for control of the area. Governor-General Jeffrey Amherst didn’t believe in fighting fair and suggested giving blankets infected with smallpox to the Native Americans. The British reportedly did Just this at a 1764 peace conference in Pittsburgh. Chief Pontiac continued to fight against settlers and soldiers but eventually lost to the British and agreed to peace in 1766.
World History
