1a. Who drew the first bow or fired the first gun?
2a. Where was Ten Bears born and raised? What have the Texans taken?
3a. What does Ten Bears say he does not want upon his land?
1b. Why did Ten Bears make this point?
2b. Why was he uninterested in the things that the white people had to offer?
3b. Why does he want his land "clean and pure"?
4a. Identify the things Ten Bears wants and the things he does not want.
4b. What do the things Ten Bears wants and does not want indicate about his values and way of life?
5a. Why would Ten Bears offer any concessions to the Texans? Why did he say, "Any good thing you say to me shall not be forgotten"? Why was peace so important to him after all that had happened?
5b. How might Ten Bears have spoken differently if the Texas Rangers and the Texan settlers had acted more respectfully prior to 1867?
Aim. What aims led Ten Bears to make this speech? In what ways was he successful or unsuccessful in achieving his aim?
Simile. What similes does Ten Bears use to describe his feelings about the meeting? What similes does he use to describe the Comanche people? What added meaning do these similes give to his speech?
1. Write a brief summary of the position that Ten Bears has taken regarding the United States government's wish to place the Comanche on a reservation.
2. Write a description of a place that is very special to you, using sensory details to make the place come alive for the reader.
3. Imagine that you are a reporter assigned to cover the meeting of the Comanche with the United States representatives at the Medicine Lodge Council. Open your news story with a lead paragraph, answering the basic who, what, where, when, and why questions. After you finish the story, write a headline for it.
Writing Sentences. Write two sentences for each of the words listed below.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Correcting Run-ons. Review the Language Arts Survey 3.37, "Correcting Sentence Run-ons." Then, rewrite the paragraph below, correcting any run-ons.
The Comanche had many conflicts with the Texas Rangers in 1837, Comanche warriors attacked a group of Texas Rangers, killing half of them. A year later, the Rangers took several Comanche chiefs hostage in San Antonio, where the chiefs had come to meet with white leaders. Battles between the two groups continued but the rangers gained an advantage when they received six-shooters in place of their single-shot guns. Forts were established to contain the Comanche and protect the Santa Fe trail for white travelers. Continued fighting, disease introduced by white settlers, and the widespread slaughter of the buffalo killed many of the Comanches.
