Tuesday, March 4, 2008

National History Day Reflection

For my NHD project i worked with Reshay Johnson. It was pretty impossible because she really likes to socialize with everybody. So when i was trying to do the project she was elsewhere talking to everyone. I learned the process of doing a documentary. It is not very easy. The most challenging part was time management and the annotated bibliography. At the end we came to the conclusion of a good project.
It all started December 11th when my social studies teacher Marc Brasof took our 6&7 period class across the street street to the Atwater Kent Museum to get our class thinking about the topics for NHD . That’s when we discover out topic for our NHD project . When we toured the second floor we saw a wampum belt and it said that this wampum belt was given to William Penn as a gift from the Leni Lenape tribe after signing The Great Peace Treaty. Then that’s when we decide we wanted to do our project on William Penn signing a treaty with the Native American Leni Lenape tribe.
Prior to our research we knew a little bit about our topic due to pass projects we did on Philadelphia. We knew various information on our topic before we researched, for example we knew William Penn was given this land by King Charles 2 but, we did not know why so much land was given to him we also knew William Penn was a Quaker and a men of peaceful means.
My partner and I conducted our research by going to several museums, interviewing, and talking to different historians about our topic for example my partner and I went to the Atwater Kent Museum and talked to historians there,The Historical Society Of Philadelphia, The Penn Treaty Park, and The National Archives of Philadelphia and we talked to different historians who worked there. All the museums , archives and historical land marks we visited and historians we talked to provided us with a variety of important information we could us for our NHD project. We also gained both primary and secondary resources from the experience. We also went to the library and found books on our topic.
The most important resources in our NHD project was the primary sources because they showed pictures and actual treaties that were signed. The secondary resources was just as important as the primary resources because they contained information out of textbooks and the information was very useful. Throughout our NHD project we use a variety of both primary and secondary sources, for example we took pictures of actual treaties signed .We face one challenge which was pulling our project together with limited time, we over came this by putting more time and effort in to our project.
We choose to create a documentary because we felt that it would be self explanatory.
The steps we took in creating this project was making Video story boards, making goals and , outlining the major facts etc.
The Creation of Peace: William Penn & Leni Lanpe is our topic for this years contest.
Our topic relates to this years NHD theme conflict and compromise because Europeans and Leni Lenape tribe had conflict over who owned the land etc. They also made a compromise which was the treaty. This improved relations between Europeans and The Leni Lenape.

1 comment:

Myron said...

Georgia.

I am pleased that your History Project was on William Penn's treaty with the Leni Lenape. You have most of your facts right.

The grant from the English King was pure arrogance. The English believed in the "Right of Discovery." In other words they could possess all the land they discovered.

According to English law, William Penn did not have to make another thraty with the "savages."

The name Leni Lenape means "Pure (as in being a Christian) abiding with the Pure." The Leni Lenape were Christians. They were Chistians in Greenland before the Little Ice Ages (1300-1400 AD. They walked to America. See Web site www.frozentrail.org and look on Amazon.com for Frozen Trail to Merica.

There were a few Englishman, like Roger Williams, who knew that the North East America Indians spoke Old Norse. Williams was banished from the Puritan settlements.

It was (still is) easier to exterminate "savages" and take their land than to consider the possibities that the Christians ,standing on shore, really do possess the land.

History is often fiction to cover messy facts like exterminating 95% of the people standing on shore.

Thanks to people like you, the better truths may eventually come out.

Best Wishes to your continued studies.

Myron Paine, Ph. D. Author of the Frozen Trail to Merica