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North Carolina History Digital Textbook Project

We have a story to tell: Native peoples of the Chesapeake region

From the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution

We have a story to tell: Native peoples of the Chesapeake region

Black and white drawing of American Indian men fishing. In the foreground four men are in a canoe; the two at the ends of the boat are standing, and the two in the middle are sitting. In the background, other men stand or row canoes in the water.

Republished with permission from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, We Have a Story to Tell: Native Peoples of the Chesapeake Region explores historical and current issues faced by the Indians of the Chesapeake Bay.

The first chapter provides teachers with background information, a lesson plan, and discussion questions. Readings in chapter two trace relations between Indians and Whites back to the establishment of the Jamestown colony in 1607, and discuss the resulting challenges that have arisen over the subsequent 400 years. Included in this discussion are the impact of wars, treaties, assimilation, poverty, and racism on Chesapeake Indian communities. We Have a Story to Tell also examines Indians’ responses to these challenges, including the American Indian Movement of the 1960s and ’70s and the struggle for legal recognition.

The final chapter introduces a student project that uses primary resources to engage students with one of three issues faced by Chesapeake Indians: The effects of treaty-making, the denial of civil rights, and the importance of legal recognition.