dawnland TEACHER’S GUIDE – FIRST INQUIRY BY DR. MISHY LESSER A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT CULTURAL SURVIVAL AND STOLEN CHILDREN BY ADAM MAZO AND BEN PENDER-CUDLIP COPYRIGHT © 2019 MISHY LESSER AND UPSTANDER FILMS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS DAWNLAND TEACHER’S GUIDE TABLE OF CONTENTS A. INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................................................................3 B. PREPARING TO TEACH DAWNLAND .................................................................................................................17 C. THE COMPELLING QUESTION TO SUPPORT INQUIRY .........................................................................................22 D. FIRST INQUIRY: FROM TURTLE ISLAND TO THE AMERICAS ...................................................................................24 The First Inquiry spans millennia, beginning tens of thousands of years ago and ending in the eighteenth century with scalp proclamations that targeted Native people for elimination. Many important moments, events, documents, sources, and voices were left out of the lessons you are about to read because they can be accessed elsewhere. We encourage teachers to consult and use the excellent resources developed by Tribal educators, such as: • Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State • Indian Education for All (Montana) • Haudenosaunee Guide for Educators Lesson 1: The peopling of Turtle Island ................................................................................................................ 26 Lesson 2: The Caribbean Basin: Laboratory for Genocide ..................................................................................... 36 Lesson 3: Abductions, pathogens, and knowledge exchange in Algonquian country ............................................... 47 Lesson 4: Powhatan Confederacy saves occupiers from starvation ......................................................................... 57 Lesson 5: Strangers in the land and maps that beckon .......................................................................................... 64 Lesson 6: Puritans invade in pursuit of a new promised land for themselves ............................................................. 76 Lesson 7: Massasoit and his complex legacy ....................................................................................................... 83 Lesson 8: Pequot War, Treaty of Hartford, and Enslaved Indigenous peoples in New England ................................... 89 Lesson 9: Alliances crumble and occupation intensifies ......................................................................................... 96 Lesson 10: Pometacomet’s Resistance/King Philip’s War ....................................................................................... 102 Lesson 11: Turbulence continues ........................................................................................................................ 117 Lesson 12: Settler colonialism and scalp proclamations ........................................................................................ 124 A Teacher’s Personal Reflection ........................................................................................................................... 133 Taking Informed Action: First Inquiry .................................................................................................................... 135 Endnotes .......................................................................................................................................................... 136 References: First Inquiry ..................................................................................................................................... 143 Appendix: National Council for the Social Studies C3 Framework .......................................................................... 144 DAWNLAND TEACHER’S GUIDE — TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 THIS GUIDE WAS CREATED WITH SUPPORT FROM: BRABSON LIBRARY AND EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION Revised, June 28, 2019 DAWNLAND TEACHER’S GUIDE — TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 INTRODUCTION TO TEACHER’S GUIDE Penobscot historian, Maria Girouard, teaches about the Seven Fires Prophecies. “The seventh fire…is a time when the world is be-fouled, when the rivers run bitter with disrespect, the fish become too poisoned to be fit to eat. [W]e live in that time now. [A] period of great hope is prophesied next – the 8th fire, an eternal fire of peace. Some native ancestors call it the great healing – a road of spirituality rather than materialism…. The old traditions say that this new time, this move toward a more harmonious world will begin in the East and will sweep across the continent like the dawn of a new day. So, here we are, perfectly positioned in Wabanaki land where the light from a new day first touches Turtle Island.”1 Figure 1 Turtle Island, Courtesy Shannon Thunderbird. Figure 2 Wabanaki Country, Cartography by Stacy Morin. The Wabanaki,2 the People of the Dawn, have historically lived in what is currently called Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, and New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island (maritime provinces of what is now Canada). The Penobscot are one of the tribal nations in the Wabanaki Confederacy, which also includes the Abenaki, Maliseet, Micmac, and Passamaquoddy.3 Maps of Wabanaki space and place names are a helpful first step to begin the journey toward understanding the relationship between Wabanaki people and their homeland.4 DAWNLAND TEACHER’S GUIDE — INTRODUCTION 3 If the move toward a more harmonious world starts in the East, surely a sign of this beginning is the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission (MWTRC). Figure 3 Hermon, Me -- February 12, 2013 -- The five commissioners of the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Matthew Dunlap, gkisedtanamoogk (cq), Carol Wishcamper, Gail Werrbach, and Sandra White Hawk (left to right). Credit: Bangor Daily News Upstander Project’s documentary film,Dawnland , tells the story of the TRC and the individuals who testified before it. This five-part guide was written for those who want to use the film to teach about the MWTRC, the conditions that summoned its creation, and the promise it holds for others who seek truth and justice. Dawnland may not surprise some who grew up in Indian Country, but it will likely shock those raised elsewhere. It is our hope that viewers of the film and users of this guide will find answers to the question: What is the relationship between the taking of the land and the taking of the children? We also hope they come away understanding why Native peoples, especially mothers and grandmothers, pushed long and hard for passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a federal law signed by President Carter in 1978, and why Wabanaki community members, parents, social workers, tribal leaders, and their allies created a truth commission in Maine (MWTRC) to address harms caused by repeated violations of ICWA. Figure 4 Washington, D.C. April 8, 1974 U.S. Senate Hearings 1974 on Indian child welfare. Cheryl DeCoteau was one of many Native parents to testify. This hearing led to the passage of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act. Credit NBCUniversal. DAWNLAND TEACHER’S GUIDE — INTRODUCTION 4 Figure 5 April 8, 1974, Washington, D.C. U.S. Senate Hearings on Indian child welfare. Credit NBCUniversal. Figure 6 The Indian Child Welfare Act, 1978. From 2012 – 2015 the MWTRC gathered testimony about experiences in child welfare from Wabanaki people and those who worked in the child welfare system. The MWTRC represents a creative and courageous response to child welfare policies and practices that caused incalculable emotional, social, and cultural harm to generations of Wabanaki parents and children. To do justice to their stories, we need to engage with the history of Indigenous peoples in North America, especially in New England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This swath of history, usually taught from only one perspective—that of English colonial settlers—is the focus of our first inquiry. We aim to disturb those who knew only one interpretation and leave them full of questions and concern. This guide was created to help teachers get the most out of the documentary film,Dawnland, and its companion short films. It is tightly bound to the films and aims to help connect the dots between the viewing and learning processes. The inquiries suggest how scenes from Dawnland and its companion short films and the lessons in the guide best interact. DAWNLAND TEACHER’S GUIDE — INTRODUCTION 5 Figure 7 Dawnland co-directors Ben Pender-Cudlip and Adam Mazo filming on the reservation of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Motahkomikik (Indian Township) in Passamaquoddy Territory. The guide is based on the following assumptions: many students in what is currently the United States, especially those who did not grow up with a connection to tribal nations, learn about Indigenous peoples briefly in the early grades, and then not again until high school, if that. They also “learn” from films, sports events, cartoons, and the like. In many cases what students learn reinforces tired and destructive stereotypes, such as this one reported by a teacher in New York in 2016 at an Upstander Project workshop: “Native Americans: are they even real people?” The erasure of Native peoples from the dominant narrative is a key pillar of settler colonialism