Native American History Web Sites
The Earliest Americans ★★★★☆
The National Park Service asked the Society for American Archaeology to lead an initiative to nominate archeological sites as National Historic Landmarks. This website highlights historic contexts related to Early American archeological sites for regions east of the Mississippi.
The West (PBS) ★★★★☆
A worthwhile supplement to Ken Burn’s documentary. Has a timeline, glossary, biographies, a photo gallery, maps, documents, and more. A great general site on the West and Native Americans in the West
Index of Native American Resources on the Web ★★★★☆
Many categories of links from WWW Virtual Library — American Indians
Native Culture Links ★★★★☆
The goal of this site is to facilitate communication among Native peoples and between Indians and non-Indians by providing access to home pages of Native American Nations and organizations, and to other sites that provide solid information about American Indians. It is actively maintained by a mixed-blood Mohawk urban Indian, formerly a librarian for 14 years at the University of Pittsburgh, and Social Sciences Subject Editor for anthropology, history, and sociology for CHOICE Magazine.
First Nations Histories ★★★★☆
Provides a geographic overview of First Nation (Indian) histories as well as a location list of native tribes in the United States and Canada. Has a search function as well.
Native American Documents Project(Cal State) ★★★★☆
This project was begun in 1992 by Prof. E.A. Schwartz to develop methods for making documents of federal Indian policy history accessible by computer. This site includes a number of indexes and explanatory articles as well as a search engine.
Lesson Plans, Teacher Guides, Activities, and more
Cultures Collide
This lesson plan focuses on the conflicts that arise between Native Americans and American citizens. Students will research how each group views the land and how cultural conflict is not confined to the United States. This is a PBS lesson plan intended for middle school students. PBS recommends the purchase of the film A Falconer’s Memoir to go along with the plan.
Reservation Controversies
The LOC has provided this lesson plan that centers on reservation controversies. The lesson plan lets students discover how hard it is to define certain terms and how these terms are often the source of conflict.
Indian Boarding Schools
In the late 1800s, the United States supported an educational experiment that the government hoped would change the traditions and customs of American Indians. In this LOC lesson plan, students think critically about these special boarding schools, created all over the United States with the goal of “civilizing” American Indian youth.
Declarations of Independence: Exploring American Indian Rights to Self-Governance
In this New York Times lesson, students will examine what they know about American Indians past and present, then research key issues facing American Indian tribes today. To synthesize their learning, students will write letters taking the perspective of an American Indian examining questions of tribe recognition.(November 25, 2002)
Native Americans – Searching for Knowledge and Understanding
In this middle school lesson students will study Native Americans in order to become familiar with the contributions to and influences on American society particularly, but not exclusively, in the Western region of the United States. This lesson will focus on some of the cultural history, writings and symbols of the southwestern tribes. After researching, studying and comparing the differences among the various tribes in small groups, students will produce individual reports about a specific Native American perspective.