It’s the end of week six already! Times flies when you’re having fun! This week we talked about trade between the native American people and the Europeans who discovered this world. I thought there was a ton of good and important information that we covered this week in regards to relations between natives and their European counterparts. On Monday, we watched videos for homework regarding some native pieces of clothing and other accessories that were common for them to wear and carry with them. We discussed the topic of these being documents or artifacts and how many disregard something that is not written on a piece of paper as an important part of history. These physical artifacts give us an insight into how the native people lived and are super important for contextualizing the period. It was also important for us to know that some of the materials they used to make everyday essentials, like some of the artifacts highlighted in the videos, were made out of cloth, which was a European good they traded for. Without the Europeans, the native population could not survive. I think a major part of the decline of the native population during these times was the French and Indian War. The majority of native nations relied on the French for their trading and had really good relationships built up with them. The end of French influence in the present-day United States made it difficult for natives to thrive and keep up with the Europeans. For Wednesday, we looked at a couple of maps of the Upper Missouri. I told my partner that I talked to in class right away that it is incredible how accurate these people were at the time they were making these maps. The lack of technology they had is a stark contrast to what we have now and the accuracy that the majority of the maps that I have seen from this time period are very accurate and detailed. On this map, the west is represented at the top of the image, as we interpreted that to be the Pacific Ocean. The Rockies are in between the Pacific and the branches of the Missouri that are depicted. I also thought it was cool that the illustrator included some of the trading posts that were important stopping points for traders and natives alike. With this in mind, I am excited to start on the project for next week! I’ve worked in the archives before and it was really fun! Hopefully, we get that same experience again! Onto week 7!