![]() The text is simplified but accurate and the photos vividly portray what is being described. The teacher will read portions of Laura Fischer’s book, ‘Life on the Trail of Tears’ specifically pages 10-23, to the class as their initial introduction to the historical event. Introducing the Trail of Tears to the Class ![]() , that as a result of the Indian removal policy, the Choctaws lost 15% of their population, and the Creeks and Seminoles suffered a 50% mortality rate (p. In addition to the Cherokee many were members of the ‘Five Civilized Tribes’: the Chickasaws, the Choctaws, the Creeks and the Seminoles. It is important to note that during the first half of the 19Ĭentury over 100,000 Native Americans were removed to land west of the Mississippi from their homelands in the East. Such devastating mortality exceeded even the tragic experiences of most other tribes forcibly removed during that era (ibid., p. As Smith contends, “Most scholars estimate that a grand total of at least four thousand died as a direct result of removal-one fourth of the entire Cherokee Nation at the time. During the march itself for those long months, it is estimated that another 1600 died and once they arrived in Indian Territory, thousands more died as a result of exposure and disease. Disease and an unusually harsh winter that year killed many during the march, particularly the very young and the very old. Winter came quickly and by the time the Cherokee crossed the Mississippi River many had died due to lack of food and warmth. Thirteen detachments of about 1,000 each plus 645 wagons carrying the sick and aged departed southeastern Tennessee. And so the removal resumed in October and from then on most Cherokee traveled primarily by land. ![]() The summer heat and disease took a huge toll on the Cherokee and their leaders persuaded General Winfield Scott to delay the rest of the removal until autumn. In June of that same year the first Cherokees left these ‘detention camps’ for the Indian Territory and were loaded onto flatboats to cross rivers. Between 2,000 and 2,500 Cherokee died in these camps before heading West (ibid., p. ![]() Amidst the sweltering heat of the summer, diseases like dysentery, measles and whooping cough spread to epidemic proportions within these holding camps. As Smith tells us in his aforementioned book, “If the roundup was an exercise in humiliation, the camps were a clinic in the dangers of death” (p. After being forcibly removed from their home, the Cherokee were herded in May of 1838, into cramped, dirty, makeshift stockades-small enclosed forts used as prisons-to wait amidst much tedium and suffering, until their trek on foot, in wagons or on flatboats began. ![]()
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