Volume 14 Number 2
January 1975

Increasing awareness of the importance of issues concerning the American Indian in the American past and present has prompted many social studies teachers to seek materials and ideas for infusing American Indian studies into their courses.

The author was directly confronted with this task while working with the Indian Teacher Training Project at the University of Georgia (see Note 1). The American Indian students in the project were preparing to be secondary social studies teachers, and they were especially interested in the inclusion of crucial Indian issues in their courses. Their general objectives were to promote: (a) awareness of the roles of Indians in significant events past and present and (b) analysis of important ethical and legal issues involving the Indian in the political, social and economic structure of the United States.

In the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools and in local public schools in which they were getting field experience, most available textbooks provided only cursory or shallow discussions of Indian issues. Expensive films or curriculum packages were not always available, and some of these were unrealistic or lopsided in their presentation. What these student-teachers needed were easily available, inexpensive resources containing background information and various viewpoints which could be readily translated into classroom instructional material on issues concerning the American Indian.

A second and complementary source for instructional material is found in journals--especially the more popular news, historical and conservation journals. These offer summaries of information, specific viewpoints and dramatic and sometimes provocative descriptions of events surrounding recent and historical issues concerning the American Indian. Many of these journals are found in high school libraries and most are in community libraries.

While a number of full-length books discuss specific Indian issues in depth, this search was limited to shorter materials because few social studies teachers have the time to read and excerpt from several books. (However, such books should not be overlooked when compiling student reading lists. Librarians have helpful reviews of recently published volumes.)

To offer an example of how a readily available journal article and a government document may serve as the basic resources for the study of an Indian issue in a secondary social studies class, the preparation of the materials and the instructional sequence of a short unit is described below.

The issue of the Blue Lake land area claimed by the Taos Pueblo Indians was raised in class in conjunction with the study of conservation and government land policies in the United States at the turn of the century. Textbooks present the setting aside of millions of acres of national park area and the formation of the U.S. Forest Service by Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900s as a giant step forward for America. Typically there is no discussion of how these policies affected the American Indian. One example of an adverse effect on the Indian is evident in the creation of the 1 and 1/2 million acre Carson National Forest in 1906, which took away from the Taos Pueblo Indians the Blue Lake and the surrounding forest (a total of about 48,000 acres) which had been their sacred worship grounds for approximately 800 years. The Taos Pueblo had been struggling for more than 60 years to get the land back before the issue was resolved.

Several ethical-legal questions are involved in the Blue Lake controversy including religious freedom, land and conservation policies, lumbering rights and the definition of the general welfare. From the early 1900s the issue involved the Taos Pueblo and several other interest groups especially concerned with land use and/or civil rights. The case thus offers a good opportunity to analyze differing viewpoints and the conflicting values on which they are founded, as well as to examine specifically the treatment of the American Indian in the past and present.

The student-teachers expressed agreement that this was one of the crucial Indian issues worthy of analysis in history class. However, like most teachers they expressed reluctance over attempting such a unit of study without appropriate commercial materials on hand. Could a short history unit be based on several items from the library? It can be done without great difficulty.

Using The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, a very helpful article was found in the journal American West, presenting a dramatic description of the many years of conflict over the Blue Lake area (see Note 2). An excerpt from this article was selected, typed and reproduced by a simple ditto process for distribution to students. The resulting 3 1/2 page reading described the sources of the controversy, parties involved and recent efforts by the Taos Pueblo to have the land restored to their tribe.

The reading also reported the judgment of the Indian Claims Commission in 1965 that the Taos had been unjustly deprived of their land and the subsequent offer to buy the land for $300,000 which the Indians refused. It traced the growth in public support and the political actions which brought about the introduction of a Senate bill to provide for return of the land to the Indians. Portions of the article which described the interest groups favoring and opposing the bill were also included in the reading. However, the final sections of the article which revealed and analyzed the results of the Senate hearings were not included.

The students read the handout. The contents were discussed to clarify the sequence of events and delineate the various interest groups. In further discussions they estimated the relative influence of various groups on numbers of the Senate subcommittee and attempted to predict what decision would result. (The source of the handout and the means of locating and producing it were also noted.)

The testimony, questions and answers, letters and written statements give a number of arguments for and against the restoration of the Blue Lake land to the Indians. Those favoring return of the land to the Indians include the Secretary of Interior, the Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians, an officer of the New Mexico State Democratic Party and the President of The New Mexico Council of Churches. The Chief Forester of the American Forestry Association, a spokesman for the New Mexico Wildlife and Conservation Association, the head of a large lumber company and a member of the Sportsmen’s Legislative Action Committee are among those voicing opposition to the bill.

Several statements in favor of the bill were machine-copied from this document, and an equal number in opposition, plus a series of statements and dialogues which shed some light on the views of several Senators on the subcommittee. This material was passed out to the student-teachers so that each individual had a role to play.

In preparation for the role play session, each student-teacher read over the statement he had received, outlined his position and prepared to argue that position in his own words. Five students who were playing the roles of Senators met, and the chairman set up procedures for the hearing (see Note 5).

In two subsequent class sessions the subcommittee hearings were enacted by the group. Each interest group spokesman presented a statement, no more than five minutes in length, and then responded to questions from the Senators. The Indian student-teachers played their roles well, some with convincing gusto, even though several had roles based on values very different from their own. At the end of the enacted hearings the chairman of the Senate subcommittee summarized the points pro and con. The subcommittee then voted on a motion to pass the bill to the Senate floor for debate and action. The motion passed. Supporters of the bill cheered.

At this point a second excerpt from the journal article was handed out so that students might read about the action finally taken in both houses of Congress in December, 1970, whereby the 48,000-acre Blue Lake area was restored to the Taos Pueblo. A value-analysis session followed in which the student-teachers compared the value positions of the various individuals represented in their role play, identified the multiple sources of the controversy and evaluated the means for resolution. (If the role-play committee votes differently from the real committee that can be analyzed too.)

In a unit-evaluation discussion several of the Indian student teachers admitted that they had not previously given much thought to the values and viewpoints of either opponents or supporters of recent Indian causes but had oversimplified in labeling people and groups as "pro-Indian" or "anti-Indian." Some members of the group who had previous knowledge of the Blue Lake issue indicated that they had greatly broadened their own perspectives on the issue through reading, role play and discussion.

Additionally, the whole group had participated in lessons that were not dependent on a sterile textbook account or expensive commercial curriculum material. Consequently they expressed greater confidence in the instructional potential of teacher-prepared materials which may better serve both affective and higher level cognitive objectives. They then began developing their own lessons on Indian issues related to the content of social studies courses they would soon be teaching.

For the short unit of study described above, the teacher preparation time for locating and reading over the article and document, and then Xeroxing selected portions of each, was about four hours--a Sunday afternoon in the library. Planning for the equivalent of five high school class periods and typing up the handouts required another hour and a half. Probably, this is not much more time than many teachers spend in preparation for a week’s classes using ready-made, sometimes "teacher-proof," instructional materials which overlook Indian issues.

The study of significant ethical and legal issues regarding the American Indian in the American past and present should not be limited to the BIA schools. It belongs in the social studies of all American schools. Teachers seeking to integrate the study of Indian issues into their social studies courses will probably have to prepare the appropriate instructional materials themselves. It can be done, however, utilizing available library resources and without "moving mountains."

1. The Indian Teacher Training Project in Secondary Social Science Education at the University of Georgia, 1971-1973, was funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of Interior.

2. Dabney Otis Collins, "Battle for Blue Lake," American West, Vol. 8 (September, 1971), pp. 32-37.

3. Issued by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 20402.

4. "Taos Indians-Blue Lake Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, United States Senate," 90th Congress, 2nd Session, September 19 and 20, 1968. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968.

5. Procedures for role playing a Senate committee hearing are clearly described for student participants in Charles N. Quigley and Richard P. Longaker, Voices for Justice (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1970), pp. 74-84.