The document summarizes the forced removal of Native American tribes from their eastern lands to territory west of the Mississippi River in the 1830s. It describes the Cherokee and Creek tribes being forced from their homes in Georgia, Alabama, and other states to march west on the Trail of Tears. Thousands died during the long journeys, due to harsh conditions and disease. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, pushed by President Andrew Jackson, allowed the government to remove eastern tribes and seize their lands.

1. Trail of Tears The Trail where the last Indians cried… and died.

2. This is John Ross. What do you notice about this man?

3. The Indian Life Living as nomads Hunters (Sioux, Cherokees)

4. The Cherokee Indians Cherokee comes from Muskogee  Speakers of another language Original name = Aniyunwiya (the principal one)

5. Ideas of Indians and Americans Indians Land is not for sale, it belongs to everyone Live on the land they got from a higher Spirit Americans Land is to buy and to own. Buy land to find gold and other resources

6. An Indian saying about Land Being Indian is an attitude, a state of mind, a way of being in harmony with all things and all beings. It is allowing the heart to be the distributor of energy on this planet; to allow feelings and sensitivities to determine where energy goes; bringing aliveness up from the Earth and from the Sky, putting it in and giving it out from the heart." - Brooke Medicine Eagle

7. They called them this because they gave up many of their ways to live peacefully with the whites Most had given up hunting to become farmers Many had learned to read and write The Cherokee even had their own written language, a newspaper, and a constitution modeled on the U.S. Constitution Name given by whites to the Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole “ The Five Civilized Tribes”

8. Hunting and Collecting Cherokees Men  Hunters Women  Farmers

9. The Living Places of the Cherokees Georgia North and South Carolina Kentucky Virginia Tennessee All States were at or near the East-Coast

10. The Cherokee lived peacefully side by side with whites, but… Tensions between Georgia and the Cherokee Nation were brought to a crisis by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia, in 1829, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush, the first gold rush in U.S. history. Hopeful gold speculators began trespassing on Cherokee lands

11. Leaders of both parties Cherokee Indians Sequoyah (created a Cherokee alphabet) American Settlers Andrew Jackson (president of the U.S.) By the time Jackson became President, only 125,000 Native Americans still lived east of the Mississippi Reading and Writing Is Cool I may have been tough, but many Indians just thought I was a jerk

12. Removing Indians from their Lands… Andrew Jackson had a goal to remove the remaining Indians to a new Indian Territory In the West (present day Oklahoma) The Government should be organized to benefit the great body of the United States – the planter, the mechanic, and the laborer. The Indians called him Sharp Knife

13. The Indian Removal Act The Indian Removal Act, part of a United States government policy known as Indian removal, was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 26, 1830. It allowed president to make treaties in which Native Americans in the East traded their lands for new territory on the Great Plains

14. The Trail of Tears More than 17,000 Cherokee were dragged from their homes in Georgia and herded west by federal troops 4,000 died during the long walk to Indian Territory

15. The Trail of Tears Thousands of Creeks were also taken from Alabama in handcuffs, and marched west. One soldier called it, “The cruelest work I ever knew.” Many whites were ashamed and appalled by the treatment of the Indians and protested in Washington D.C .