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Description of the Film
The following activities have been designed for use as opening, before, during and after your students view the film, along with extension activities. By incorporating these activities into your existing curriculum, you will prepare your students for what they will see and hear during their films. As a part of a longer unit, this film helps to share the complexities of this time period in history, along with helping students to make connections with what happened then and what is still happening in our world today.
As one of the treaty signers in 1829 and 1833, Billy Caldwell and others negotiated the sale of 5,000,000 acres of land in northwest Illinois, resulting in the removal of all Native American tribes in the state of Illinois. Billy Caldwell, son of a Mohawk woman, Rising Sun and British Army Captain, William Caldwell was a leader in early Chicago. Although he was not a blood relative of the Great Lakes tribes in the area in 1833, Caldwell worked to negotiate the safe passage of the United Nations of Chippawa, Ottawa and Potawatomi out of the state of Illinois and west to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Today, Caldwell’s Band of Prairie People now live in Mayetta, Kansas as the federally-recognized tribe of Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. This documentary explores these actions through research and interviews with local subject experts.
Act 1 includes the history of Chicago, the western Great Lakes resources, the importance of fur trade, America at the crossroads, living in two worlds and information about Indian Country. Act 2 focuses on the United States Treaties and events that impacted the Chicagoland area. These include the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, the War of 1812, the 1816 Treaty and the creation of the I&M Canal, 1816 Fort Dearborn, the 1829 Treaty of Prairie du Chien, the 1830 Andrew Jackson Indian Removal Act, the 1832 Black Hawk War and the 1833 Treaty of Chicago. Act 3 includes the removal to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and the death of Billy Caldwell. The epilogue at the end of the film includes contemporary thoughts and views on how to activate changes and promote diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in America today.
This curriculum is divided into activities for before, during and after viewing. The activities for before were designed to contextualize and prepare your students to learn not only about the history, but from it. The after viewing activities will provide you with ways to reflect, connect and extend students’ thinking about what it means to live in two worlds and how these lessons connect to today.
Live stream preview
Official Trailer (Billy Caldwell Curriculum Film)