Name _____________________
Date __________
“Blankets for the Dead” Reading Questions
1. What new policy did the U.S. government have towards Native Americans in the
1830s?
2. What happened during the “Trial of Tears”?
3. Why had Cherokee fears and distrust of the U.S. government deepened since the
Revolutionary War?
4. What were three examples of how Cherokee culture had been changed by white
culture leading up to the 1830s?
5. How did the U.S. Government and majority of white people view Cherokees in
the 1830s?
6. What 1828 discovery on Cherokee land suddenly made it even more desirable to
white settlers?
7. What was Andrew Jackson’s pledge to white settlers if he was elected President?
8. What did the Indian Removal Act do?
9. What did the Cherokees initially do to challenge the Indian Removal Act?
10. How did the state or Georgia and President Jackson get around the Cherokee’s
challenging of the act?
Reading Questions Part 2
11. Describe the scene as the Cherokee people were removed from their land by the
U.S. Army…
12. Describe some of the conditions, challenges and dangers the Cherokee
encountered on their march West…
13. What happened to some U.S. Army soldiers who took pity on the Native
Americans and tried to help them? Why do you think this happened?
14. How many Native Americans total were forced to march to the West?
15. How many of them were Cherokee?
16. How many Cherokee died on the Trail of Tears?
17. What item remains today as a symbol of the Cherokee’s struggle and tribal
identity in Oklahoma?
18. Over time, what ended up happening to most Native American land in the U.S.?
19. Put yourself in the place of either a Native American being forced off of their land
or a U.S. Army soldier in the 1830s. How would you have felt about what was
going on? What would you have done?
20. Is there anything that could be done in modern times to help memorialize this
terrible tragedy or even try to “right the wrongs” of the past? Explain your
answer…