Free Educational Resources on Indigenous Maryland Available from Maryland Humanities

(Baltimore, MD) – Maryland Humanities is thrilled to provide a new collection of tools for K-12 students to learn about Maryland’s Indigenous history and culture, Indigenous Maryland Inquiry Kits.

Inquiry kits are virtual resources for the classroom that can also serve as a springboard for Maryland History Day projects. The kits allow students to select a research topic, evaluate primary sources, and analyze themes in history. Maryland Humanities, in partnership with the Library of Congress’ Teaching with Primary Sources program, has created more than two hundred inquiry kits on a variety of topics.

Each of the new Indigenous Maryland Inquiry Kits offers six sources—drawn from the Maryland State Archives, the Enoch Pratt Free Library, the Library of Congress, universities, and other institutions—to explore a theme. Elementary school inquiry kit topics include craftwork, the fur trade, and living off of nature. For older students, topics range from language to interactions with settlers and enslaved people to tribal recognition. A teacher module is available here.

The Maryland Humanities team worked directly with local tribal consultants from the Pocomoke Indian Nation and Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians on the Indigenous Maryland Inquiry Kits.

“We don’t know a lot of things about what happened because what we know is from the eyes and the pen of the people conquering,” says consultant Cheryl Doughty (Pocomoke Indian Nation, above). “We have to be careful how we interpret those sketches, paintings, maps, treaties, even. We have to be careful that we look at those pieces of information from a critical point of view.”

 “…what we know is from the eyes and the pen of the people conquering… We have to be careful that we look at those pieces of information from a critical point of view.” — Cheryl Doughty ​(Pocomoke Indian Nation)

Chief Donna Abbott—project consultant and the first female chief of the Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians—talks about her hope for the new inquiry kits. “I would like for the students to take away from this project not only learning the past, but learn the present,” she says. 

“There are so many people that still associate Native American tribes and Indigenous people in a historic way, in an historic view,” Abbott continues. “We don’t live in longhouses. We have indoor plumbing. We have all those things. We’ve been to school. So learn both parts of it, the past, present, and what’s going to happen in the future.”

“I would like for the students to take away from this project not only learning the past, but learn the present…and what’s going to happen in the future.“— Chief Donna Abbott (Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians) 

To explore the Indigenous Maryland Inquiry Kits, click here. You can also check out our teacher module by clicking here. All of Maryland Humanities’ inquiry kits are available here. For more information on the Indigenous Maryland Inquiry Kits and how your students and teachers can benefit from them, you can reach out to Lia Atanat Özizmirli, Maryland History Day Outreach & Professional Development Coordinator, at latanat@mdhumanities.org. 

The Indigenous Maryland Inquiry Kits were supported by the Library of Congress, Maryland Public Television, the Maryland State Archives, and the aforementioned consultants from the Pocomoke Indian Nation and Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians.