From Shakespeare to Siouan: An Investigation of European and American Indian Cultures

In this lesson students will explore American Indian lifeways during Shakespeare’s lifetime, AD 1564-1616. They will compare American Indian culture during that general time period in North Carolina to that of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan England and consider what may have caused conflicts between the two groups following European settlement and colonization. We know what happened to Shakespeare, but what about the indigenous people his countrymen first met here in North Carolina in the 1500-1600s? And where are those American Indian communities today? Students will create presentations to teach their classmates about indigenous people in the past as well as contemporary American Indian tribes in North Carolina today using the Ancient North Carolinians website. Sources will be documented in MLA style. This lesson pairs well with the reading of one of Shakespeare’s plays.