This Day in History

March 26, 1839: End of The Trail of Tears

Themes: Democracy & Citizenship, Native American, Racism & Racial Identity
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On March 26, 1839, Cherokee Indians came to the end of the “Trail of Tears,” a forced death march from their ancestral home in the Smoky Mountains to the Oklahoma Territory.

“The Cherokee/Seminole Removal Role Play” is a classroom lesson where students role play the decision to remove the Cherokee and Seminole people from their lands.

Trail of Tears 1839

Trail of Tears 1839. Painting: “Forced Move” by Max Standley courtesy R. Michelson Galleries.

Related Resources
Teaching Activities (Free)

The Cherokee/Seminole Removal Role Play

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 10 pages.
What led up to the Trail of Tears? In this lesson, students learn about the decision to remove the Cherokee and Seminole people from their lands.

Statues of Native Americans walking, representing the Trail of Tears, in Florida
Teaching Activities (Free)

Andrew Jackson and the “Children of the Forest”

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 5 pages.
A lesson in which students develop critical literacy skills by responding to Andrew Jackson’s speech on “Indian Removal.”

Teaching Guides

Indian Removal

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 18 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 7 of Voices of a People’s History of the United States on the American policy of “Manifest Destiny” and Native American resistance to their own displacement.

Articles

On the Road to Cultural Bias: A Critique of The Oregon Trail

Article. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools.
Critique of the popular “Oregon Trail” computer game.

We Shall Remain (Film) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History
Films

We Shall Remain: America Through Native Eyes

Film. PBS. 2009. 450 minutes.
Three hundred years of Native American history.

Elizabeth "Betsy" Brown Stephens, a Cherokee woman who walked the Trail of Tears.
This Day in History

May 23, 1838: The Trail of Tears Began

The forcible removal of Native American tribes, known as the Trail of Tears, began.

News

Andrew Jackson Revisited

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