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Show W E S H A L L R E M A I N : U TA H I N D I A N C U R R I C U L U M G U I D E 22 Procedure Ask the students what they know about Columbus, and have a brief discussion about the story of Columbus and why he is so famous. Ask the students what they think "discovered" means. Point out that while people say that Columbus "discovered" America, there were already people in America with families and communities who called it their home. When Columbus met these first Americans, it was a moment of "first contact" for both the Indians and the Europeans. Explain that first contact was an exchange of cultures and ideas; you might want to briefly mention some of the foods and animals that would have been exchanged between the Indians and the Europeans (e.g. Indians: corn, potatoes, tomatoes; Europeans: wheat, horses, cattle). Note that contact changed the cultures of both the Europeans and the Indians. Explain that, for native people, this process often led to very difficult changes, as Europeans brought diseases that the Indians had never encountered and, thus, for which they had no immunities. In addition, European settlers often treated the Indians very badly. Point out that while first contact was an enormously challenging process for all Indian communities, native people survived. Next, ask the students to think about what "first contact" might have been like for the Indians living in what is now Utah. Show them the Map of the Ancestral Lands of Utah's Indians. Give them the blank map of Utah, and have them draw in the ancestral territory of the each tribe and fill in each of those territories with a different color. Using information in the At a Glance, the brief histories of each tribe, and material from the films, explain what life was life for each of Utah's tribes. Next, show the students the Map of European Expansion into of the Great Basin. Have them draw in and label the routes that explorers and settlers from Spain and the United States took through Utah. Have them look at the ancestral Indian lands that these routes went through and think about the Indians these explorers and emigrants would have met. Using material from the At a Glance and the films, explain what these encounters were like. This may be a difficult topic for some students, but you can emphasize that Utah's Indians adapted and survived and that their descendents are alive and an important part of Utah's culture today. AN INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN INDIAN HISTORY Student Materials Blank Map of the Original Territories of Utah's Indians Additional Materials Needed Crayons or colored pencils Time Frame Two thirty-minute periods |