Last updated: March 29, 2022
Lesson Plan
Trail of Tears
- Grade Level:
- Upper Elementary: Third Grade through Fifth Grade
- Subject:
- Social Studies
- Lesson Duration:
- 60 Minutes
- State Standards:
- NATIONAL/STATE STANDARDS:
Kansas History/Social studies standards:1,2,3,4,5
Missouri Social Studies Standards:
SS3 1.6, 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, SS5 1.4, 1.5, 1.6 - Thinking Skills:
- Remembering: Recalling or recognizing information ideas, and principles. Understanding: Understand the main idea of material heard, viewed, or read. Interpret or summarize the ideas in own words. Applying: Apply an abstract idea in a concrete situation to solve a problem or relate it to a prior experience. Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts.
Essential Question
When is it right to force someone to move from one home to another home?
Objective
Students will be able to explain why several Native American tribes were moved to "Indian Territory"
Students will be able to identify and explain the consequences of forced removal for many Native Americans tribes
Background
From the time that Europeans first landed on the Atlantic shores of North America, their eyes looked west toward the land and its resources. This brought them into direct conflict with the native inhabitants here. Many white settlers tried to make peace and coexist with the Native Americans, but in the end the quest for land, power, and wealth was too great and the Native Americans were forced to leave their homes.
Indian Removal
One of the proposed solutions to the “Indian problem” was to create a separate homeland or territory for the Native Americans. By the 1820s, Presidents Jefferson and Monroe had both proposed that the Eastern tribes should trade their ancestral lands for land west of the Mississippi. They felt that to survive, the Native Americans must become “civilized” and learn the ways of the white man. The southern tribes had been moving toward “civilization” for years. They had developed prosperous farming societies. The Cherokees even had a written language and had declared themselves an independent nation with an adopted Constitution
In 1829, Andrew Jackson became president. He felt the Native Americans did not have absolute title to the land and they could not establish an independent political sovereignty within the United States. On May 28, 1830, Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. It authorized him to give land west of the Mississippi to native tribes in exchange for their holdings in the East. The United States would “forever secure and guarantee” this land to them and their “heirs or successors,” provide compensation for the improvements upon their Eastern lands and aid in their emigration to the West. President Jackson signed into law nearly 70 removal treaties. As a result, 46,000 Native Americans moved west and as many more were under treaty to do so.
Where to Relocate
The Removal Act of 1830 only addressed the removal, not exact locations, or methods to be used. The Intercourse Act of 1834 attempted to control the removal and gave a location for the Indian lands, “that part of the United States west of the Mississippi, and not within the states of Missouri, Louisiana, or the Territory of Arkansas.”Due to the cultural acclimation of the Cherokee and other Southern tribes, the government tried to provide them with land acceptable to them.
One incentive given was that the Indian Territory would have representation in Congress, which never came about. Nonetheless, many of the tribes resisted and tribes such as the Cherokee and the Seminole had to be removed by force. The Cherokee suffered a forced march-the “Trail of Tears”- from Georgia to the Indian Territory. U.S. army estimates place the number of Cherokee who died along the route at 1,000, but of the 15,000 involved in the entire removal process, 4,000 died in either the stockades awaiting removal, along the trail itself or during the resettlement process. The Seminole tribe only complied after the U.S. Army fought two costly wars to get them out of Florida.
The tragedies that befell the Native American tribes were atrocious; some were preventable while others happened whenever large groups of people came together in those days. For example, cholera was a common illness when large groups congregated together because of lack of knowledge about sanitation. However there were other atrocities, such as not enough food or blankets to keep the tribes from freezing to death. Some tribes were not allowed to bring any of their belonging with them which left them at a distinct disadvantage in their ability to care for themselves. This lesson is designed for students to study the emigration of the tribes during Indian Removal as well as to get some understanding of the hardships that the tribes faced.
Preparation
Materials you will need for this lesson are the associated map activity which shows the location of the Indian tribes before and after removal and the hazard cards which are used to determine who survives and who dies in the reenactment of the journey.
Materials
Cards to pass out to students that have various tragedies that take place along the Trail of Teasrs
Procedure
Before you begin: Make copies of the hazard cards that will be handed out. There are ten cards attached to this lesson plan. However, the idea is to have 1/3 of the students representing the Native Americans to "die" along the route, so make up enough cards from those provided to distribute to one third of the class members.
Hand out maps of before relocation and after that show where tribes were marched to.
Step 1: Introduce the topic of Indian Removal. Discuss why some tribes would voluntarily leave their homeland while others refused. Discuss the Five Civilized tribes and why they may have been called that. Also make sure that students know that there were many more tribes than just those 5. Have students look at the map and talk about why some tribes were given more land area than others.
Step 2: Ask the students to make a educated guess of how many in the class would not have made it to the final destination. (The amount of hazard cards is slightly off from the actual percentages that would have died en route.) Give each student a random hazard card, but ask them not to look at them yet. Discuss the techniques used by the US Army to get the tribes to march west, make sure to discuss how some tribes were not allowed to take any belongings with them.
Step 3: There are 2 ways to do this activity:
1. As the teacher continues discussing or reading about the Indian Removal the teacher can randomly call out a hazard card description and those students must either sit on the floor or put their heads on the desk.
2. If you have access to a gym or open area outside you could do this as a kinetic activity. Take students on a walk and talk to them about the tribes, as you walk randomly call out a hazard card. (For example you might say something like "Cholera has struck the camp- if you have a cholera card, please sit down on the floor.") If the student has the hazard card then they have to sit down. Teachers will need to make sure that they call out all the hazard cards by the end except for the survivor cards, those should be the only students still standing at the end of the activity. After all the cards have been called ask the students to look around- many of their classmates will either be sitting on the floor or with their heads down, they represent the number of Indians that would not have survived the trip west. Ask students to think about that number on the grand scale of how many people were displaced form their homes.
At the conclusion of the activity, have students answer the following questions:
1. Why were Native American tribes being moved west? What was happening to the land they left behind?
2. What types of things happened to the tribes as they marched west?
3. How were the tribes treated during this time frame?
Vocabulary
Cholera, Trail of Tears, Civilized, Treaty, Nomadic,
Assessment Materials
Students should be able to write at least 3-4 sentences on each of the 3 questions. Teachers are checking for understanding based on the discussions that took place as well as the culminating writing activity.
Additional Resources
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Trail%20of%20Tears
There are many excellent books, both fiction and informational text, that would go right along with this lesson.
Related Lessons or Education Materials
Fort Scott was created as a part of the Permanent Indian Frontier, the soldiers that were stationed at the fort kept peace between the tribes that had been relocated to this region. Tribes from east of the Mississippi River who had been forcibly moved to this area were promised that this would be "permanent" Indian territory. Soldiers at Fort Scott formed a "border patrol" keeping white settlers and Indian tribes separated.
Prior to the establishment of Fort Scott, a military garrison had been present at Fort Wayne in the heart of Cherokee land. The Cherokee objected to a military presence at this location and Fort Scott was established in part to placate the Cherokee tribe.