The Great State of Franklin

As a form of review I often throw a couple dozen vocabulary words up on the board and ask students to write the words down in column one and in column two identify the word by the historical era it best belongs to. Students need to be able to explain to me, to the class, or to a partner why they wrote down the particular historical unit as their answer. Depending on the capabilities of the group or the needs of certain students I might also list all of the unit names we had discussed up to that point as a memory jogger.
For example, if I wrote the word Constitution on the board I would expect my students to correctly identify the historical unit as “Building a New Nation” while the vocabulary word potlatch would match up with “Native Americans.”

Let’s see how well you do…..the units are Native Americans, Exploration, Colonization, French and Indian War, American Revolution, and Forming a New Nation. The vocabulary words are circumnavigate, liberty, artisan, origin story, Ohio River Valley, and James Madison.

Commence to matching them up.

So, how did you match them up?

Here’s the best way….Native Americans/origin story, Exploration/circumnavigate, Colonization/artisan, French and Indian War/Ohio River Valley, American Revolution/liberty, James Madison/Forming a New Nation.

What about the word secession?

Which unit of history would it best go with?

The Civil War…right?

What if I changed the direction for the activity from which is the best unit to match the word up with to which historical period or unit is the earliest time period the word could fit?

If “that” was my direction then the Civil War would NOT be correct.

Nope….in fact the time period right after the American Revolution would be the correct historical time period.

Why?

Ever hear of the state of Franklin? Yep, it existed.

In April, 1784 the state of North Carolina gave the new United States government control of 29 million acres between the Mississippi River and the Allegheny Mountains (Appalachian) due to the extreme amount of debt the new nation found itself under.

This action, however, did not please many of the inhabitants of the area who did not want to suddenly find themselves as Spanish or French colonists should the Confederation government of the U.S. decide to sell the territory for debt relief. Apparently the legislature of North Carolina also became a bit wary as to what the national government would do with the land, so they took their offer off the table.

By August, 1784 the people living in this area had had it with the uncertainty of their fate. Were they citizens of North Carolina? Were they citizens of a new colony? The people declared they were free from North Carolina, and on May 16, 1785, a delegation asked the U.S. Congress for statehood. Their proposed name was Frankland.

Under the Articles of Confederation that governed this nation at the time a two-thirds majority of states had to vote in favor of statehood….they fell short with just seven states voting in favor.
Frankland’s leaders even opted to change the name to Franklin, after Benjamin Franklin, in hopes that members of the confederation congress would go for that, and the fact that the U.S. government did not officially declare them a state did not deter them.

A constitution was adopted, a government was seated at Greeneville, and John Sevier was elected governor. The “state”, however, could never support itself and since it was not officially recognized by the U.S. government, and because it ignored the fact that North Carolina controlled the territory, Franklin could not benefit from any military assistance.

North Carolina troops finally moved in when Franklin’s “government” refused to accept North Carolina’s offer to waive back taxes. One battle ensued at Colonel Tipton's farm in present day Johnson City, Tennessee.

After failing to garner a loan from Spain (which is ironic since so many citizens had not wanted to be beholden to the French or the Spanish), John Sevier finally turned himself into North Carolina authorities in February, 1788. His only punishment was to declare an oath of allegiance to North Carolina.

All differences between the state of North Carolina and the want-to-be state of Franklin were forgotten by the citizens of the territory when Native Americans began to heavily attack the white Franklin settlements in March, 1788. The citizens of Franklin were more than ready to declare they were in fact North Carolinians.

By 1790, the territory that had once claimed to be the state of Franklin was ceded by the government of North Carolina once more to the national government where it would become part of the Southwest Territory…..and would later become part of Tennessee where it remains today.

It’s not unusual for citizens to suddenly change the name of a proposed state or county to something that might be more favorable to those voting….see another article I wrote here.

13 Things About Arthur St. Clair

Welcome to my 31st Thirteen list.

If you are regular reader around here you are aware that I love to share with students obscure yet important figures in American History. These people have very interesting stories and are often instrumental behind the scenes. They often are participants in the little stories that motivate students into further learning action

Arthur St. Clair is one of those interesting fellows. He served his country in many different positions, and made some mistakes, however, he didn’t stop participating.

Eric over at Secondhand Thoughts almost immediately guessed who my mystery image was yesterday for Wordless Wednesday. Check out the comments for my thoughts on lesson planning and how students can be taught to analyze images as well.

Here are 13 facts about Arthur St. Clair:

1. He was born and educated in Scotland. There is some discrepancy regarding his birth year (1734 to 1736), however, the information presented at this site states Arthur St. Clair was descended from the St. Clair family of Roslin Chapel fame via a common ancestor with the Earl of Roslin. Roslin Chapel played an inportant role in the plot line of the novel, The Da Vinci Code.

2. He traveled to the American Colonies during the French and Indian War after he purchased a commission in the British army.

3. Following the war he settled in the Ligonier area of Pennsylvania where he became the largest landowner in western Pennsylvania and owned several mills.

4. As a citizen of the colony of Pennsylvania, St. Clair became very active in the colony’s legal system from the court of common pleas to the orphan’s court, and served as a member of the proprietary council.

5. When Virginia claimed a part of Pittsburgh as their own, St. Clair was the individual who issued the arrest order for the leader of the Virginia troops. This little known skirmish between the two colonies became known as Lord Dunmore's War in 1773 and 1774 and it had much to do with Native Americans who lived in the area.

6. During the American Revolution, St. Clair once again donned a military uniform except he wore the uniform of a Continental. He took part in organizing the New Jersey militia, crossed the Delaware with Washington and took part in the battles of Trenton, Princeton and Ticonderoga.

7. It was his failure at Ticonderoga that led to a court martial where he was eventually acquitted. He returned to duty and completed his service at Yorktown.

8. Many Americans don’t realize the United States has not always had the Constitution as its plan of government. Our first plan was the Articles of Confederation and several different men served as our president under the Articles. St. Clair was the ninth president under our first plan of government. In fact, he was in charge during the time of Shay's Rebellion which is one of the key events people like me teach to students in order to show the Articles of Confederation were flawed and made our vulnerable infant country extremely weak.

9. Following a loss of the governorship of Pennsylvania, St. Clair was appointed as governor of the Ohio Territory under provisions provided for in the Northwest Ordinance, a key factor in the settlement of the west that I teach to students. Once the territory was divided he was the governor of Ohio where he was instrumental in establishing Maxwell’s Code, the first written law in the area. Unfortunately his efforts to establish treaties with the Native Americans in the area often were met with extreme resistance on the part of the various tribes.

10. In 1791 he became the highest ranking officer in the United States Army and led his forces against many different Native American leaders. President Washington requested his resignation, however, after the Battle of Wabash (also known as St. Clair’s Defeat or the Columbia Massacre) as over 600 American soldiers along with many women and children were killed. It was a tremendous defeat for the Americans.

11. Thomas Jefferson removed St. Clair from his role as governor of Ohio in 1802. He was seen by many to be partisan, and he didn’t always consult all parties before acting. Critics state his arrogance in governing led to a weak Ohio government early on.

12. St. Clair died in 1818 in Pennsylvania. He was basically penniless as he had given away wealth over the years and just as his career had its ups and downs so did his business ventures as well.

13. You can learn more about St. Clair here as well as see some of his handwriting.

You can see his home here.

Join Thursday Thirteen or find other participants HERE

The Strength of the Triangle

We have a few wooden geometric shapes for students to use as math manipulatives including three dimensional globes, triangles, squares, and rectangles. As one of the Social Studies teachers for my team I don’t usually have any need for these figures, however, recently I’ve been accumulating and hoarding the wooden triangles.

Yes, if it’s March, then it’s time to seek and gather triangles while ye may.

The other day students entered the room to find several wooden triangles strewn about on the desktops as well as pictures of triangles taped to the board and one on the computer that projects up to the wall mounted television.

“Hey, Elementaryhistoryteacher, are we gonna do math?” asked one of my fiesty, loud, outspoken boys.

Another young man responded, “Nah, remember Elementaryhistoryteacher told us at the beginning of the year she don’t do math.”

A tall girl that I can always depend on to “remind” everyone about what they should be doing said, “I bet we’re going to do some art. Elementaryhistoryteacher, are we going to draw triangles?”

Little Girl Who Always Does Things Her Own Way immediately rushed over to the crayon drawer (this is the end of March….the 25 individual crayon boxes were torn up or disappeared by Thanksgiving….actually I’m blessed that I still have any crayons at all). She pulled the drawer out and placed it on the front table while Roll-On-the-Floor-Boy raced Falls-Asleep-All-the-Time-Girl to the closet screaming, “I’ve got the paper!”

I remained sitting behind my desk determined to ignore the proceedings as long as I possibly could simply wondering how far they would go.

Two of my Smarty Pants Go-Getters approached me and stood before my Den of Solitude very reverently. I finally looked up.

“Um, Um, Um, are we…are we gonna do something with pyramids?” asked Smarty-Pants One.

Smarty Pants Two said, “Oh, if we are going to start something on Egypt I have some models of the Great Pyramids. Can I bring them in?”

That got some others started……

“Did you know that they buried people in those pyramids?”

“It’s hot in Egypt.”

“Duh….it the desert.”

"Fieldtrip...Can we go?"

“Isn’t that where Joseph was?”

“That’s a good movie, I saw it.”

“Hey! Hey! Hey, this glass pyramid here…..is this a greenhouse? My grandmother has one of those. She won’t let us play baseball anywhere near it. I don’t know why. There just a bunch of plants in there.”

“Ewww, the greenhouse effect. Miss Science taught us all about that.”

I sighed….got up and walked to the front of the room and perched on my stool as this banter went on and on and on and on and on and on…….

Actually is was only about eight minutes, but when you are dealing with chattering loverlies eight minutes can seem like eons of time.

I sat and then I sat some more. Finally they noticed me sitting and calmly the drawing paper was put away, the crayon box restored to its nest and all hind-ends met up with plastic seats.

I made an inquiry with one word, “Paper?” Instantly (well, almost) everyone had a piece of notebook paper. I asked students to work with their study partner and look at the pictures of the triangles I placed on the board and on the television. I asked them to pick up a three-dimensional triangle from the table top and really examine it and think about the structure of a triangle. After a few minutes I asked, “What makes a triangle a triangle? Talk it over with your partner and make a list.”

After a few minutes I said, “When some of you were talking earlier many of you mentioned Egypt. Look at your list and discuss with your partner why you think the Egyptians used pyramids the way they did.”

Another few minutes went by and I went back to my stool. The kids have learned this is my silent signal that we are ready to begin, or I require their attention. I announced that I wanted the whole group to share about what they had been discussing with their partner. They all had discussed the general attributes of a triangle…..three sides, pointy ends, flat sides, etc. A few said some triangles are three-dimensional and others are flat images. Some volunteered the Egyptians used the triangle because it was an interesting shape and got the attention of people out in the desert. Some students mentioned it might have been the easiest structure for the Egyptians to make based on the environment and the natural resources available. One duo thought that the use of the triangle indicated the people were reaching up to Heaven, and the triangle is the best shape to reach upward.

“Let’s talk about the simple construction of a triangle,” I said as I walked over to stand next to a triangle I had drawn on the board. I indicated one side of the triangle with my hand and asked, “Do you see how I could say that this side of the triangle is pressing on the other two?” Some heads nodded yes, but others weren’t with me yet. I picked up a paper strip triangle I had made by fastening the side strips together with brads so that the sides moved this way and that. I held up the paper strips and students saw a perfect triangle. I said, “Now watch what happens when I apply a little pressure on one side against the other two.” Instantly the paper triangle collapsed. “Now, this shape is made from flimsy paper. Think for a moment about our stone pyramid you see in the picture on the television. “Do you understand now how all sides and edges push against the other two? Pick up the three-dimensional triangle you have in front of you and discuss it.”

In a few minutes I sat on my stool and things quietened down. I asked, “So, what did you decide?” Students figured out that perhaps the Egyptians used the triangle because it can be a very strong figure. When students brought up the fact that pyramids are larger at the bottom than the top I asked, “Where do you think all the weight is?” The top, of course, was the reply I received. I advised that since less weight is on the top and since the top presses down it has less weight and all three sides can support each other.

“Ok,” I said. “Let’s look at the edges of a triangle. Discuss with your partner about the weight along the edges of a triangle. Pick up the models and feel them, look at them.” Students decided that there would have to to be equal weight or equal power along the edges of a triangle or it could collapse.

“Sometimes we use a triangle diagram or graphic organizer to explain things we want to create an image for. What are some reasons why we do this? Think about what we have already discussed. What kinds of things would we want to illustrate by using a triangle graphic organizer?”

Students advised triangle diagrams would work when there were three parts to whatever was being illustrated. Other students advised that the connection between the three things being illustrated would have to be strongly linked, and they decided that the items would need to be things that could be equal or as one student remarked, “Each thing can’t have more power than the other or the triangle won’t be a triangle anymore.”

“Yeah,” someone else remarked. “You’ll just have a mess.”

I gave a big “Hmmmmmm, close your eyes everyone and imagine a collapsed triangle…a collapsed pyramid. Look over the big mess. Now, open your eyes and discuss how the big mess is like the results of the Articles of Confederation. How are the two alike?

Students remembered that the Articles allowed for unequal power between the Federal government and the states. The states had more power.

One young lady said, “Well, I know why it didn’t work and why the triangle collapsed.”

“Why?” I asked.

She got up and walked to the front of the room and put her hands around one of the flat triangles I had drawn on the board. The Articles of Confederation just had the Federal government and the states. That’s two not three. It was an incomplete triangle. No wonder it failed.”
Heads nodded around the room in agreement. Another student said, “Yeah, we need three things to make the government work.”
From this point I asked students to draw a triangle on their paper and began sharing the three branches of the United States government with them and launched into a discussion of how the process of checks and balances work. I drew a circle at each of the three points and labeled one point executive, another legislative, and the third judicial. The checks and balances between each branch was written along the sides of the triangle.

Later the crayons were pulled back out as students color coded their diagrams.