It’s time for our first call-in show! We know things are chaotic for you and every other educator right now. We feel it too, so this seems like the perfect time to talk. Pick up the phone and dial 888-59-STORY (888-597-8679). Our lines are open until Sunday night, April 19. Teaching hard history is even harder right now, so let’s talk about resources you can use if you’re teaching virtually. Ask us your questions; tell us your stories. And let us know how you’re doing.

Whether you work with elementary, middle or high school students or whether you teach social studies or English language arts, the coming months are a good time to plan how you can bring accurate, foundational content about enslavement into your lessons. Tell us how you’ve been introducing your students to enslavement. What have you learned? What can we do to help? And we’ll try to have you on the show next week. P.S. If you like, you can also email us at [email protected].

Indian Removal was a brutal and complicated effort that textbooks often simplify. It is also inseparably related to slavery. Enslavers seeking profit drove demand for Indigenous lands, displacing hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people. Some of these Indigenous people participated in chattel slavery. Focusing on the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations, this episode pulls the lens back to show how Removal and enslavement must be taught together. This story must be told if we're going to understand the full hard history of American enslavement.

You can find a complete transcript in the show notes for this episode, along with a list of resources to help you teach the hard history explored in this episode. 

And educators! Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Learning for Justice. Listen for the special code word, then visit learningforjustice.org/podcastpd.

The Americas were built on the lands, labor and lives of Indigenous peoples. Despite being erased from history textbooks after the so-called first Thanksgiving, Indigenous peoples did not disappear. Colonial settlers relied on the cooperation, exploitation and forced labor of their Native neighbors to survive and thrive in what became North America. Focusing on New England, historian Margaret Newell introduces us to the Charter Generation of systematically enslaved people across this continent.

You can find a complete transcript in the show notes for this episode, along with a list of resources to help you teach the hard history explored in this episode. 

And educators! Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Learning for Justice. Listen for the special code word, then visit learningforjustice.org/podcastpd.

From 1936 to 1938, the Federal Writers’ Project collected stories from people who had been enslaved. The WPA Slave Narrative Collection at the Library of Congress is a valuable resource; these oral histories are also problematic. Interpreting these narratives within literary and historical context, students can develop primary source literacy. Historian Cynthia Lynn Lyerly outlines unique insights these texts can add to your curriculum.

You can find a complete transcript in the show notes for this episode, along with a list of resources to help you teach the hard history explored in this episode. 

And educators! Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Learning for Justice. Listen for the special code word, then visit learningforjustice.org/podcastpd. 

To better understand the United States’ past and present, we need to better understand Indigenous identities—and our classrooms play a huge role. This starts with examining what’s missing from our social studies, history, civics and government curricula. Throughout this episode, we reference the K-5 Framework for Teaching Hard History as we shed light on key topics like sovereignty, land and erasure.

You can find a complete transcript in the show notes for this episode, along with a list of resources to help you teach the hard history explored in this episode. 

And educators! Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Learning for Justice. Listen for the special code word, then visit learningforjustice.org/podcastpd.

Educators can no longer ignore our country’s history of Indigenous enslavement. Our students need a fuller understanding of the pivotal history of slavery to comprehend the present and develop a vision for our nation’s future. In this mid-season recap, we highlight key lessons about this consequential part of American history—along with teaching strategies and resources—through the voices of leading scholars and educators featured so far.

Educators! Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Learning for Justice. Listen for the special code word, then visit learningforjustice.org/podcastpd.

And you can find a complete transcript on our website, along with resources to help you teach the hard history explored in this episode. Resources like these... 

Guests

• Maureen Costello (Episode 1): Teaching Tolerance
• Eduardo Díaz (Episode 1): Smithsonian Latino Center
• Renée Gokey (Episode 1): National Museum of the American Indian
• Christina Snyder (Episodes 2 and 3): McCabe Greer Professor of History, Penn State University
• Debbie Reese (Episode 6): American Indians in Children's Literature
• Andrés Reséndez (Episodes 7 and 8): The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America

References:

• Teaching Tolerance: Frameworks, Teaching Hard History
• Teaching Tolerance: Lesson, Rethinking Discovery
• Christina Snyder, Slavery in Indian Country: The Changing Face of Captivity in Early America
• Christina Snyder, Great Crossings; Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson
• Teaching Hard History, Summary Objective 2 (Colonial enslavement of Indigenous people)
• Andrés Reséndez, A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca
• Spain, Requerimiento: The Spanish Requirement of 1513
• Teaching Tolerance, Teaching Thanksgiving in a Socially Responsible Way
• The New York Times, Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving Is Wrong
• Teaching Tolerance, Emancipation Proclamation
• Teaching Hard History, Summary Objective 16 (Lincoln and the Dakota 38)
• The New York Times, Lincoln and the Sioux
• Spanish forced labor, Encomienda
• Spanish forced labor, Repartimiento
• Southern United States, Convict leasing
• PBS: Slavery by Another Name, Slavery v. Peonage

Throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the forced labor and bondage of Indigenous peoples was integral to the economic and political history of what became the Southwestern United States. Historian and author Andrés Reséndez outlines the significance of silver mining, Indigenous enslavement and resistance in the history of New Mexico and Latin America. We also examine how, as white settlers moved west, so-called “free soil” states like California continued to institutionalize coerced labor.

You can find a complete transcript in the show notes for this episode, along with a list of resources to help you teach the hard history explored in this episode. 

And educators! Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Learning for Justice. Listen for the special code word, then visit learningforjustice.org/podcastpd.

A hundred years before the first ship carrying enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia, Europeans introduced the commercial practice of enslavement in “The New World.” And for the next 400 years, millions of Indigenous people throughout the Americas were enslaved through several forms of forced labor and bondage. Historian and author Andrés Reséndez calls this “The Other Slavery,” and his work is changing our understanding of the transatlantic slave trade.

Educators! Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Learning for Justice. Listen for the special code word, then visit learningforjustice.org/podcastpd.

And you can find a complete transcript on our website, along with resources to help you teach the hard history explored in this episode. Resources like these... 

• Teaching Hard History, Summary Objective 1
• Teaching Hard History, Summary Objective 2

Andrés Reséndez History, University of California, Davis

• The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
• A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca

References:

• Ancient History Encyclopedia, Atahualpa
• Spanish forced labor, Encomienda
• Spanish forced labor, Repartimiento
• Southern United States, Convict leasing
• PBS: Slavery by Another Name, Slavery v. Peonage
• Interviews with Historians, Brett Rushforth
• Portuguese slave trade, São Jorge da Mina
• American Heritage, Columbus and Genocide
• Massimo Livi-Bacci, The Depopulation of Hispanic America after the Conquest
• Spain, New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians
• Nancy E. van Deusen, Global Indios: The Indigenous Struggle for Justice in Sixteenth-Century Spain

And you'll find a full episode transcript on our site.

Andrés Reséndez is the author of The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. His work has changed conventional wisdom about the institution of slavery in the Atlantic World. Over the next two episodes, host Hasan Kwame Jeffries and Reséndez will discuss key turning points in this history—exploring how it expands our understanding of the transatlantic slave trade and the lasting legacy of colonialism, which continues to reverberate in our communities. Be sure to join us.

And you'll find a full episode transcript on our site.

Each autumn, Thanksgiving brings a disturbing amount of inaccurate information and troubling myths into classrooms across the United States. Most students don’t learn much about the history of Native nations—and even less about Indigenous peoples today. Dr. Debbie Reese explains what to look for and what to avoid (or teach with a critical lens) when selecting children’s books by and about Indigenous people. She also recommends specific books to counter common misconceptions in your classroom.

Educators! Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Learning for Justice. Listen for the special code word, then visit learningforjustice.org/podcastpd.

And you can find a complete transcript on our website, along with resources to help you teach the hard history explored in this episode. Resources like these... 

• Teaching Tolerance, I Am the Blood of the Conqueror; I Am the Blood of the Conquered
• Teaching Tolerance, Teaching Thanksgiving in a Socially Responsible Way
• ReadWriteThink: Debbie Reese, Native Americans Today: Lesson Plan

Dr. Debbie Reese Editor/Publisher, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) | Twitter

References:

• AICL, A critical look at O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins
• Andrea L. Rogers, Mary and the Trail of Tears: A Cherokee Removal Survival Story
• Traci Sorell, We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga
• The New York Times, Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving Is Wrong
• Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
• Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (adapted by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese), An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People
• Carole Lindstrom, We Are Water Protectors
• First People, How the Chipmunk Got his Stripes
• National Indian Education Association, Policy Issues: Education
• Leilani Sabzalian, Indigenous Studies in Education, University of Oregon
• Sarah Shear, K-12 Teacher Resources
• Cynthia Leitich Smith, Hearts Unbroken
• National Indian Child Welfare Association, Indian Child Welfare Act
• AICL, L. Frank Baum: Author of Wizard of Oz books and racist editorials on American Indians
• Charlene Willing McManis, Indian No More
• Teaching Hard History, Summary Objective 16 (Lincoln and the Dakota 38)
• The New York Times, Lincoln and the Sioux
• Eric Gansworth, Writer and Visual Artist: Books
• Robbie Robertson, Testimony

And you'll find a full episode transcript on our site.