Page 141 - SpringBoard_ELD_Grade6_Flipbook

Letter
treacherous: not to be trusted
ACtiVitY 3.3
My Notes
interpret the text using Close reading
Learning Target
• Express inferences and conclusions drawn based on close reading of grade-level texts and viewing of multimedia using some frequently used verbs.
Read and annotate
Read “The First Americans” by Scott H. Peters, Grand Council Fire American Indians. Annotate the text as you read.
■ Use the My Notes area to write questions or ideas you have about the letter. ■ Underline words and phrases that help you identify the author’s claim.
■ Put “P” next to appeals to pathos.
■ Put “L” next to appeals to logos.
■ Circle unknown words.
The First Americans by Scott H. Peters, Grand Council Fire of American Indians
December 1, 1927
To the mayor of Chicago:
You tell all white men “America First.” We believe in that. We are the only ones, truly, that are one hundred percent. We therefore ask you, while you are teaching schoolchildren about America First, teach them truth about the First Americans.
We do not know if school histories are pro-British, but we do know that they are unjust to the life of our people—the American Indian. They call all white victories battles and all Indian victories massacres. The battle with Custer has been taught to schoolchildren as a fearful massacre on our part. We ask that this, as well as other incidents, be told fairly. If the Custer battle was a massacre, what was Wounded Knee?
History books teach that Indians were murderers—is it murder to fight in self defense? Indians killed white men because white men took their lands, ruined their hunting grounds, burned their forests, destroyed their buffalo. White men penned our people on reservations, then took away the reservations. White men who rise to protect their property are called patriots—Indians who do the same are called murderers.
White men call Indians treacherous—but no mention is made of broken treaties on the part of the white man. White men say that Indians were always fighting. It was only our lack of skill in white man’s warfare that led to our defeat. An Indian mother prayed that her boy be a great medicine man rather than a great warrior. It is true that we had our own small battles, but in the main we were peace loving and home loving.
White men called Indians thieves—and yet we lived in frail skin lodges and needed no locks or iron bars. White men call Indians savages. What is civilization?
118 SpringBoard® English Language Development grade 6
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