Title: The Original New Haveners
Duration: 40 minutes
Objectives: Students will be able to:
- Understand the purpose of the unit and what they will be discussing.
- Define the word “haven” and apply it to New Haven based on geographical features
Vocabulary: Haven, Hypothesize, Native, Wigwam, Quinnipiac
Materials: Construction paper for K-W-L Chart, Smart Board and New Haven images, chrome books, world map, and digital or printed flip books.
Anticipatory Set: The teacher will project an old picture of New Haven, CT prior to its city development, to observe and discuss. Students should share details noted in the image. Then project a current New Haven, CT image side by side with the original. Share with students that people from diverse backgrounds have shaped what New Haven is today.
Direct Instruction: Flip book activities- discuss the word “haven” and what it might mean while projecting the world map and marking New Haven. Then write a child friendly definition with student support. Students will draw their own representation of what New Haven used to look like and what it looks like now. Then, students will hypothesize about how New Haven changed while considering the definition of “haven.”
New Haven- Discuss the definition in pieces with the class by first giving examples of the word haven in sentences. As an example, the teacher might project a picture of a boat nearing the shore with a covered shelter during a storm. Explain that the boat was looking for shelter and safety. Then discuss what the word ‘new’ means and what it might imply when placed next to the word ‘haven.’ Write a classroom definition of the word together and encourage the students to think about the geography of New Haven. More specifically, explain to students that the word haven is a port.
Tell the students that the original people who lived on the land we now call New Haven originally were the Quinnipiac Tribe. They are Native to this land:
This area of Connecticut was first populated between 10,000 and 7,000 B.C. The only evidence of those origins survives in stone artifacts, with the first artifacts from New Haven dated to around 6,000 B.C. While no one is sure if these are from the Quinnipiac’s themselves, evidence suggests that they were living in the area for centuries before contact with Europeans. Rough estimates say that they were about 250 to 460 strong at the time of contact with Europeans. Their land was roughly 300 square miles, including current day New Haven, Cheshire, Prospect, Wallingford, Meriden, Branford as well as several other outlying towns. The Quinnipiac’s lived in wigwams that were built by the women of the tribe. Much of the work in the village was done by women, who controlled most of the household goods and supplies. Quinnipiac society, like other Algonquin tribes, was matriarchal. After marriage, the young man would move into the young woman’s household and was absorbed into her family. They did not live in longhouses, as did many other northeastern tribes. (New Haven Museum, 2011).
(Share and discuss the Wigwam and why it was important to the Quinnipiac people. Teachers can use the digital flip book to edit and add student demographics to the world map).
Students might wonder where the Quinnipiac Tribe is today as they think about and observe their community. This is one area where Critical Race Theory unmasks and exposes history in truthful accounts that have otherwise been withheld by ineffective language. Students should understand that the colonists exploited the Quinnipiac people by using their resources and overtaking their land. As the colonists learned about the land and its resources, they no longer needed the help and support of the Quinnipiac people to sustain themselves and to begin building a new life. As they had acquired knowledge from the Quinnipiac Tribe, the colonists committed native genocide, acquiring acreages of land owned by the Quinnipiac people. The Quinnipiac people were forced to sell their property, enter into treaties that held false promises of reserved property, and deliberately killed the Quinnipiac people to overtake their land and resources. Then, the colonists proclaimed that the land was “discovered” as a way to hide behind their genocide.
*Homework- students should ask family members what their ethnic background is and where their ancestors came from.
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Images and Citations:
- “Map of the Connecticut, New Haven, and Saybrook colonies.” Kmusser, 2006. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.,
- https://libapps.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/41502/images/thomas_hooker.jpg “From the Connecticut State Library website”.
- “The Port of New Haven.” Sage, Ross, CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons
- Wigwam Image, Photo courtesy of Ana Arellano. The Cheshire Herald, 2022.
- Holquist, Sebastian. “Who Were The Quinnipiacs? School Program New Haven Museum.” New Haven Museum, 2011. https://www.newhavenmuseum.org/images/stories/Education-Community%20resizes/Quinnipiac_School_Program_Activities.pdf.