The Real West

The Trail of Tears

This episode of The Real West chronicles one of the bleakest events in American history: the forced removal of the Five Civilized Tribes from their ancestral lands in the southeastern United States to the western Indian territories. By the 1830s, land-hungry white settlers enlisted government assistance to remove the Native American members of the Five Civilized Tribes and to confiscate their land. Outnumbered and outarmed, Native Americans had little recourse but to move to the western regions of the United States. The United States government organized forced marches, which the Native Americans dubbed “The Trail of Tears.” One in four Native Americans lost their lives on these marches, dying of disease, hunger and exposure.

The Trail of Tears would be useful for classes on American history, Native American History, Ethics, Geography and Western History. It is appropriate for middle school and high school.

• acculturated
• annihilated
• assimilate
• attribute
• barbarous
• brethren
• capitulated
• cede
• coincidence
• culminate
• delegation
• duplicity
• elation
• enacted
• etiquette
• nomadic
• null and void
• phenomenal
• precarious
• procuring
• rebuffed
• recourse
• rhetoric
• sovereign

Discussion Questions

1. What tribes comprised the Five Civilized Tribes? Why were they known as the “civilized” tribes?

2. Native Americans called the route of their forced march “The Trail of Tears.” Why did they call the march this?

3. The United States government forced Native Americans to leave their homelands and relocate. What was the impetus behind the government’s actions?

4. The tribes of the Five Civilized Tribes were different from other Native American tribes. In which ways were the Five Civilized tribes different? In which ways were they similar to other Native American tribes?

5. Native Americans and white settlers had very different perceptions of land ownership and the environment. In which ways were their perceptions different from one another?

6. The Choctaw referred to President Andrew Jackson as the “Devil.” Why did the Choctaw call him this?

7. How did racism influence the United States government and the white settlers in their relations with the Native Americans?

8. Members of some of the Five Civilized Tribes divided amongst themselves, most notably in the Cherokee Nation. How did factional divisions weaken the resistance of the tribal members?

9. How did the discovery of gold in the Appalachians affect the Cherokee Nation?

Extended Activities

1. Imagine that you a member of one of the Five Civilized Tribes. Create a journal that describes the experiences of yourself, your family, and your people on The Trail of Tears.

2. On a map of the United States, trace the routes of the Trail of Tears, using a different colored pencil or marker for eac of the different tribes.