Week 4 — Reading a Treaty, Placing a Removal: Native Nations on the Record

Assignment 4 of the term — place the week's laws in time, read a treaty as an agreement between nations, and explain it to someone who has it wrong.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based report. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the reasoning you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Community History Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together. It builds on Week 3, where you drew the line between immigrant peoples and colonized or incorporated peoples and met Blauner's internal colonialism.

The task

This week's record is real and documented. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized removal treaties with tribes living east of the Mississippi River, and the Cherokee removal under the Treaty of New Echota, ratified in 1836, is known as the Trail of Tears. The Fort Laramie Treaty (1868), between the United States and the Sioux Nation, set aside the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, which are sacred to the Sioux people; after gold was found following an 1874 expedition, the government confiscated the land in 1877. The Dawes Act of 1887 divided reservation land into individual allotments and opened the land not allotted for sale. Settler colonialism, from Wolfe (2006), says settlers come to stay and take the land, so colonialism is an ongoing structure rather than a single past event.

A cousin hears you are studying this and says, "Tribes are a racial group that got special deals from the government, and all of that is ancient history anyway." Your job is to answer the way ethnic studies would, starting from a few plain subtractions that place the week's laws and frameworks in time.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic:

1. The Indian Removal Act came in 1830, and the Fort Laramie Treaty came in 1868. How many years after the removal law did the treaty come?
2. The Fort Laramie Treaty came in 1868, and the government confiscated the Black Hills in 1877. How many years after the treaty was the land confiscated?
3. The Fort Laramie Treaty came in 1868, and the Dawes Act came in 1887. How many years after the treaty did the Dawes Act come?
4. Blauner's internal colonialism appeared in 1969, and Wolfe's settler colonialism appeared in 2006. How many years after Blauner's article did Wolfe's article appear?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: state what the Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized, and explain why the Cherokee removal on the Trail of Tears is called a forced removal rather than a voluntary move.
• Problem 2: read the Fort Laramie Treaty (1868) in the field's order (what it says, who made it, whom it affected, and what happened next), and explain why it is an agreement between two nations rather than a gift; describe the present-day Black Hills dispute without taking a side.
• Problem 3: state what the Dawes Act of 1887 did with reservation land and with the land not allotted, and name what allotment took as well as what it gave, using Week 3's question of what a law expected the people it affected to become.
• Problem 4: explain settler colonialism as an ongoing structure rather than a single past event, and set it beside Blauner's internal colonialism in two or three sentences.

Explain it to a non-expert

Your cousin thinks tribes are a racial group with special deals and that the history is over. Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains why tribal citizenship is a political status rather than a racial category, why a treaty is an agreement between nations rather than a deal handed out, and why Native nations are governments that exist and govern now, and that names one limit, such as that sources give different figures for the deaths on the Trail of Tears, or that a framework is a tool rather than a verdict on every case. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a neighbor who says a union's contract with an employer is "a favor the company did for the workers." Model answer: "A contract is an agreement between two parties, and each side gives something and is promised something: the workers agree to do the work, and the company agrees to pay and to follow the terms. Calling it a favor hides the promises the company made. One caveat is fair: a contract records what was promised, not whether each side kept its word, so you would still check what happened afterward."

Use that pattern for your cousin, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the cousin before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Reply in your own words. Show calculations when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one calculation or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you. Check every claim it makes about a real nation, law, person, or date against the chapter or an issuing-body source such as the National Archives before you use it.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introductory ethnic studies course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about Native nations, treaties, removal, allotment, and settler colonialism. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, and never invent a law, a court case, a date, a statistic, a quotation, or a custom of any real nation. State documented history plainly: removal was forced, and the Black Hills were confiscated in 1877. Speak of Native nations in the present tense, name no living politician or party, and give no verdict on the present-day Black Hills dispute.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The record: the Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized removal treaties with tribes living east of the Mississippi River; the Cherokee removal under the Treaty of New Echota, ratified in 1836, is known as the Trail of Tears; the Fort Laramie Treaty (1868), between the United States and the Sioux Nation, set aside the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, which are sacred to the Sioux people, and after gold was found following an 1874 expedition the government confiscated the land in 1877; the Dawes Act of 1887 divided reservation land into individual allotments and opened the land not allotted for sale. Tribal sovereignty is the inherent right of Native nations to govern themselves, and tribal citizenship is a political status, not a racial category. Settler colonialism (Wolfe, 2006) says settlers come to stay and take the land, so colonialism is an ongoing structure rather than a single past event; internal colonialism (Blauner, 1969) sets groups that entered by force apart from groups that entered as immigrants.
PROBLEM P1: The Indian Removal Act came in 1830, and the Fort Laramie Treaty came in 1868. How many years after the removal law did the treaty come?
PROBLEM P2: The Fort Laramie Treaty came in 1868, and the government confiscated the Black Hills in 1877. How many years after the treaty was the land confiscated?
PROBLEM P3: The Fort Laramie Treaty came in 1868, and the Dawes Act came in 1887. How many years after the treaty did the Dawes Act come?
PROBLEM P4: Blauner's internal colonialism appeared in 1969, and Wolfe's settler colonialism appeared in 2006. How many years after Blauner's article did Wolfe's article appear?
After the four results, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, what the 1830 law authorized plus why the Cherokee removal is a forced removal rather than a voluntary move; for P2, the treaty read in the field's order plus why it is an agreement between nations rather than a gift, with the Black Hills dispute described without a verdict; for P3, what the Dawes Act did plus what allotment took as well as gave; for P4, settler colonialism explained as an ongoing structure and set beside internal colonialism. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a cousin who thinks tribes are a racial group with special deals and that the history is over, explaining tribal citizenship as a political status, the treaty as an agreement between nations, and Native nations governing now, with one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: placing each event in time (40 points), reading the record in the field's terms (32 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and showing work so it can be checked (12 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 5 placing points, 4 reading points, 2 clarity points, or 1.5 showing-work points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my message to the cousin only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
PLACING UNITS: A correct years-between value = 2; the right years and subtraction with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing value or the wrong years or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
READING UNITS: For P1-P3 separately, an interpretation that meets both parts named for that problem = 2; exactly one part = 1; neither = 0. For P4, BOTH settler colonialism explained as an ongoing structure and set beside internal colonialism AND a message to the cousin that explains tribal citizenship as a political status, the treaty as an agreement between nations, and Native nations governing now, with a named limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reading = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, and removal called voluntary, a treaty called a gift, tribal citizenship called racial, or Native nations described only in the past tense is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reading error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to ethnic studies, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the message to the cousin with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-WORK UNITS: For each problem, checkable years and steps = 2; a relevant but incomplete year or step = 1; a result alone or no method = 0. A visible method stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my reply. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word reply is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied all four results and their brief interpretations AND written my message to the cousin AND revised at least one calculation or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score; it may end in .5 and must not be rounded to a whole number. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my calculations and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with all four results, their brief interpretations, and your message to the cousin — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled hand-drawn timeline of the four problems with a short explanation; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 4 skills — placing the week's laws and frameworks in time, reading the Fort Laramie Treaty (1868) as an agreement between nations, stating removal and allotment plainly, and setting settler colonialism beside internal colonialism — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same four problems, the four brief interpretations, and the message to the cousin. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and write a second draft. Add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one calculation or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have about the week's record. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The calculations, reasoning, revision, and final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not let it call the removal a voluntary move, call the treaty a gift, describe Native nations only in the past tense, or settle the Black Hills dispute. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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