Visualizing Expansion Lesson 2: Native American Cartography and European Exploration

Visualizing Expansion Lesson 2: Native American Cartography and European Exploration

This lesson shows students how Native American knowledge of land and traditions of mapping interacted with European understandings of physical space during initial points of contact and early European exploration of North America. It can be used on its own during a unit on the age of exploration, or with some or all of the rest of the lessons in this unit for a deeper exploration of maps and visual sources in Native American history.
Essential Questions: What can maps and art teach us about the past? What does a visual depiction of land reveal about the people who made it? How did Native Americans and white settlers engage with expansion into the Plains differently? How did Native American cartographers interact with European Explorers during early points of contact?

Ellen Schneider

50 minutes

• Students will understand that European maps and knowledge is not superior or more objective than Native American knowledge of space.
• Students will understand that European explorers in North America worked directly with Native American guides and cartographers to make sense of their new environment; they did not somehow conquer the land or its people on their own.
• Identify traits on maps within Native and European cartographical traditions
• Multiple traditions of knowledge came
together when Europeans began to
settle in North America
• Analyze visual sources to learn about
early European understandings of the land of North America

• Projector or copies of the lesson 2 powerpoint for each student
• Copies of lesson 2 worksheet for each student

Introduction (10 minutes)
• As a whole class, brainstorm students' existing knowledge of North American exploration, and built a list on the board.
o What do you know about European explorers in North America? o Where did they go?
o What kind of things did they do?
o Whowerethey?
o What were their interactions with Native Americans like?
• Encourage students to identify which narratives around Exploration they're skeptical of,
or could be categorized as historical myths. Annotate your initial list with questions or qualifications that come out of this discussion. If students aren't able to identify these on their own, ask them about the feasibility of Columbus "discovering America" when there were already people living there.
o What are some thing you have heard about these explorers that we don't totally believe?
o Do any of these accounts seem biased towards Europeans or unfair to Native Americans?
o What do the people we listed have in common? Who gets left out?
Lecture/Discussion: How do Europeans and Native Americans make maps? (10 minutes)
• Illustrate mini lecture with accompanying powerpoint (SLIDE 2)
• Tell students that, when Europeans and Native Americans came together in North
America, Explorers often asked Native Americans for directions and information about the new place, but history doesn't always like to give Native Americans credit for their work or knowledge. Europeans and Native Americans make maps and document land differently, and their mission is to prove Europeans relied on Native American cartographers to understand the land that was new to them by finding evidence in the maps they left behind.
• Point out evidence of European traditions of mapmaking in a modern map of Iowa (SLIDE 3)
o Solicit observations from students about the map, guide them to observing:
▪ Political boundaries: state and county outlines
▪ Waterways are shown with distinct beginnings and endings
▪ The size of each item is mathematically to scale, it is a miniature version
of what you would see from an airplane
• Point out evidence of Native American traditions of mapmaking in 1721 "map of Indians to the Northwest of South Carolina" (SLIDE 4)
o Solicit observations from students about the map, guide them to observing the following by encouraging them to think about where this map differs from what you would see from an airplane above the region.
▪ Political boundaries: where people generally live is marked by circles
▪ Pathways aren't marked differently if they're rivers, roads, or trails, and
every bend isn't important
▪ The size of each item is based on how many people live there, not how
much space they take up
Model finding Native American traditions in European maps (15 minutes) (SLIDE 5)
• "De Soto map" of what is now the Southeastern coast of the United States, 1544
• Describe the source: this map of the Southeastern coast of what would become the United
States was created by a member of the Spanish explorer De Soto's team as they explored the region.
o Begin by asking students to describe what they see on this map. Work together to identify rivers, mountains, and coastlines
o Do we think they encountered Native guides when interacting with this new space? (yes)
o What about it looks traditionally European? What doesn't?
• Think Aloud: Consider the rivers in the top central section. They do not connect in
a way that necessarily makes sense for rivers, especially when considering the rivers in the Iowa map
o What on this map do we think is the result of contact with Native American knowledges of the land?
o If students get stuck here, remind them of how the Native American cartographer depicted rivers and pathways in the same way, while the creator of the map of Iowa showed each river's beginning and ending point.
• Read aloud the following excerpt from De Vorsey article, "Silent Witnesses: Native American Maps" This text can be summarized instead, depending on students' comfort with the academic language and concepts being discussed. (SLIDE 6)
o "The reason for these "unnatural" depictions of rivers on the De Soto map is rooted in a basic difference in the ways Europeans and Native Americans treated networks in their mapping traditions. In European maps...Trails or portages would be shown as different and distinct from the rivers in a region. With Native American cartographers, however, such systems were usually shown as combined and undifferentiated. To them the overall transport system was of principal concern- not whether one segment had to be walked, while another required a canoe for passage. Thus, what the European author of the De Soto map depicted...as weirdly forking rivers resulted from his misunderstanding of Indian route maps. In this encounter map we can see the misunderstandings that flowed from fundamental cultural difference"
Students analyze early Explorer's maps for evidence of Native American knowledge (15 minutes)
• Use worksheet at the end of this plan This exercise can be completed for homework, depending on time
• "Cortés's Map," 1524 (SLIDE 7)
o If students are getting stuck, remind them of the circles based on how many
people live there in the Native American map from the presentation, and
prompt them to consider conceptions of scale based on importance versus
physical size.
• This map of the Aztec capital was included in a letter from Cortés, conqueror of Mexico, and drawn by a member of his team. The rectangular area in the center is a representation of the Great Temple, which only took up two percent of the city's land.
o Students should make the connection between the Native American tradition of allotting more space on the map to more important things