Afterschool inservices on the Homestead Act; Overmountain Men

 

We have 2 more after-school inservices coming up:

Robert Briwa will be joining us from Homestead National Historic Park in Nebraska

Wednesday, November 20: The Homestead Act and the Exodus of African Americans from Tennessee after the Civil War. 

First Hour: “FREE LAND was the Cry!” and how it reverberated! The Homestead Act inspired people to leave other states and move to the Great Plains. It also caused a lot of people to leave other countries and move to the U.S. The act caused a revolution in agriculture. It created several states out of territories. It offered new opportunities for women and African Americans.

But it played a major role in the decline of Native American nations that had lived on the Great Plains until that time, because it forced thousands of American Indians off land they had lived on and that they still claimed.

Robert Briwa, Education Program Specialist for Homestead National Historical Park in Nebraska, will do this unforgettable program.

A photo of thousands of Exodusters leaving Nashville, with Singleton and Johnson in the foreground (Library of Congress photo)

Second Hour: Although the Exoduster migration of former enslaved people from the South to states such as Kansas and Missouri was a national story, Tennesseans need to know 3 things in particular:

1) The most famous leader of the movement was Pap Singleton, who had previously been a slave in Middle Tennessee.

2) The most famous organization associated with the movement was a Nashville company called the Edgefield Real Estate and Homestead Association of Nashville.

3) So many former enslaved people ended up in Topeka, Kansas, that part of that town became known as Tennessee Town.

“History Bill” will also take us on a tour of Nicodemus, a former Exoduster community in Kansas that is now a national historic park. And he will explain that, because of Tennessee Town, there’s a connection between Tennessee and Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954!

Click HERE to register for the Nov. 20 afterschool inservice on the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Mass Exodus of African Americans from Tennessee After the Civil War.

 

Ranger William Caldwell

Wednesday, Dec. 4: The Kings Mountain Campaign and Strange Stories from Early Tennessee History

First Hour: William Caldwell, Park Ranger for the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, will tell us about the long, memorable journey of the Overmountain Men to the Battle of Kings Mountain, and why and how we still honor what they did. He will also give a short rundown of what happened at the battle itself, and why some historians call it the turning point of the Revolutionary War.

Caldwell will also talk about what his national park does and what resources he has that can help teachers bring this story alive for their classrooms.

This item in the Jan. 17, 1796, Knoxville Gazette reminds us that not every marriage on the frontier was a happy one.

Second Hour: If you want to read strange stories about early Tennessee history, you don’t have to look further than newspapers and letters. “History Bill” will tell you incredible stories of survival; funny anecdotes about cowardice; tales that history books say are true but aren’t (how dogs supposedly turned the Battle of the Bluffs, for instance); and stories that the history books somehow missed.

Carey also has a first-person account of what a Methodist minister saw and heard when he was trying to sleep on the floor of a house in Kingston in the 1790s; and a first-person account of what a future King of France saw and heard when HE was trying to sleep on the floor of a house in Tennessee at about the same time.

Click HERE to register for the Dec. 4 afterschool inservice about The Kings Mountain Campaign AND Strange Stories from Early Tennessee History