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6th grade · Social Studies · Unit 4 of 8

Fur Trade & Treaties

Voyageurs, Fort Snelling and treaty-making

What your child practices

The fur trade and how Indigenous people, traders and the US Army interacted, Fort Snelling and the enslaved people held there, and the treaties of 1837 and 1851, including the unequal power behind them and the payments that were often late.

Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards benchmark: 6.4.18.2; 6.4.19.1; 6.4.19.2 · interactions of Indigenous people, traders and settlers, different ways of understanding the land, and the unequal power in treaty-making

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Fur traders wanted beaver pelts; so many were trapped that beaver numbers fell.
  2. Settlers wanted land for farms and logging.
  3. Treaties with the Dakota were unequal: the US pressured them with soldiers and settlers, and payments were late or kept by traders.

Example: Why did beaver numbers fall during the fur trade? Traders wanted more and more pelts. Too many were trapped. Answer: So many were trapped.

Fur Trade & Treaties in Minnesota

In the Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards, this is unit 4 of 8 in 6th grade Social Studies, after Dakota & Anishinaabe Nations and before Statehood & 1862.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Minnesota Department of Education (MDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Which was a main way to travel in the fur trade?

    • Birchbark canoe
    • Airplane
    • Train
    • Car

  2. Question 2

    Many settlers wanted Minnesota land for…

    • rice paddies
    • farms and logging
    • gold mines
    • oil wells

  3. Question 3

    Why did traders and Dakota and Anishinaabe people need each other at first?

    • Each had goods the other wanted
    • They were at war
    • They spoke the same language
    • They were one nation

  4. Question 4

    Fur traders traded metal pots, cloth and tools for…

    • furs
    • oil
    • land titles
    • corn only

  5. Question 5

    The US government promised to pay the Dakota for their land with…

    • nothing at all
    • yearly payments of money and goods
    • new cars
    • a single dollar

  6. Question 6

    A ceded territory is land that a nation…

    • gave up in a treaty
    • never knew about
    • keeps for farming only
    • bought at a store

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