How do you explain the Trail of Tears to a child?

How do you explain the Trail of Tears to a child?

The Trail of Tears was when the United States government forced Native Americans to move from their homelands in the Southern United States to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. Peoples from the Cherokee, Muscogee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole tribes were marched at gunpoint across hundreds of miles to reservations.

What did the Cherokee call the Trail of Tears?

In the Cherokee language, the event is called Nunna daul Tsuny — “the trail where they cried.” The Indian Removal Act was spawned by the rapidly expanding population of new settlers which created tensions with the American Indian tribes.

What happened during the Cherokee Trail of Tears?

The Cherokee people called this journey the “Trail of Tears,” because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died. It commemorates the suffering of the Cherokee people under forced removal.

What is the Trail of Tears simplified?

The Trail of Tears was a forced movement of Native Americans in the United States between 1836 and 1839. The United States government forced Native Americans to leave their lands and move outside the United States. Because thousands of Native Americans died during this forced move, it is called the “Trail of Tears.”

What caused the Trail of Tears to happen?

Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk hundreds of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River.

How did the Trail of Tears end?

By 1836, a removal treaty, contested within the Cherokee nation, had been signed by The Ridge and westward exodus had begun. General Winfield Scott sped the removal along as well as put many Indians into stockades along the way. The Trail of Tears found its end in Oklahoma.

How many Trail of Tears were there?

A Trail of 4,000 Tears.

Why was the Trail of Tears bad?

Severe exposure, starvation and disease ravaged tribes during their forced migration to present-day Oklahoma. Severe exposure, starvation and disease ravaged tribes during their forced migration to present-day Oklahoma.

What were the conditions like on the Trail of Tears?

The journey the tribes were forced to embark on was nothing short of a disaster. Poor weather, disease, disorganization and famine plagued the tribes traveling to their new land. During the winter on the trail it is said that the weather was unbearable cold, which caused many difficulties for the tribes.

How did Trail of Tears start?

The Indian Removal Act of 1830, the impetus for the Trail of Tears, targeted particularly the Five Civilized Tribes in the Southeast. As authorized by the Indian Removal Act, the Federal Government negotiated treaties aimed at clearing Indian-occupied land for white settlers.

Why is the journey of the Cherokees called the trail of Tears?

In 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the “Trail of Tears,” because of its devastating effects.

Why were the Cherokee forced to walk the trail of Tears?

The Trail of Tears was a time beginning in 1838 when Andrew Jackson forced the Cherokee nation to relinquish its lands that were east of the Mississippi River. The Cherokee called this forced removal the Trail Of Tears because of the hardships they faced which included hunger and disease. Thousand died because of this forced removal.

What helped the Cherokee survive on the trail of Tears?

What helped the Cherokee survive on the trail of tears was the hunt for food. If they did not hunt for food, a whole lot more Indians would have died.

How many Cherokees were forced on the trail of Tears?

Though there are few records of exactly who started and finished the Trail of Tears it is estimated that some 16,000 Cherokees started the journey and about 4,000 were lost along the way.