This study aims to explore seventh-grade students’ understanding of negative integers as they engaged in mathematics history integrated model-eliciting activities in small groups. For this educational case study, we designed model-eliciting activities based on six design principles of the models-and-modeling perspective that incorporated history of negative integers. Both written data and video records of students were analyzed to elicit the facets of their models of negative integers. We found that students’ thought that either daily life contexts or people’s need drove the invention of negative integers. The findings also indicated students’ reasoning on the evolvement of mathematics ideas by contribution of different culture, revealing the role of math history integration into the modeling process. In this sense, our study presents a unique approach in modeling literature.