4th Graders Asked To Justify 'Trail of Tears' Native Removal For Settlers; Outcry, Assign. Dropped
After media outcry, charter school drops assignment asking fourth graders to justify Trail of Tears. Daily Kos, 1.27.22.
After about a week of widespread media outcry, a public charter elementary school in Georgia has finally removed a deeply offensive assignment from its curriculum. Fourth graders were prompted to “write a letter” to Andrew Jackson from the perspective of an “American settler” arguing in defense of “removing the Cherokee” to help the country “grow and prosper.” If you’re thinking: What the … ? You’re not alone! The assignment is asking young people to justify the systemic removal of Indigenous folks from their homes—genocide, in a word.
This became news after a parent in Virginia noticed the assignment had been shared in a private Facebook group by a parent whose child is enrolled in school in Georgia. Jennifer Martin, the Virginia parent who saw the assignment, told Business Insider she immediately recognized the homework prompt as what it is: “prioritizing the feelings of settlers and colonizers” instead of actual honest history. Martin told the outlet that this sort of lesson plan could easily end up in a public school if it’s happening at a charter school that has state funding. No matter what school it’s taught in, frankly, it’s completely unacceptable.
The truth of American history,” Martin continued to the news outlet. “And what happened to indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans and other people of color, shouldn't be whitewashed."
Here is her original tweet, which quickly went viral...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/1/27/2077172/-Georgia-school-drops-assignment-asking-elementary-schoolers-to-justify-genocide-against-Natives
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- The ethnic cleansing of the Cherokee nation by the U.S. Army, 1838. This painting, The Trail of Tears, was painted by Robert Lindneux in 1942.
- The Trail of Tears was part of the Indian removal, an ethnic cleansing and series of forced displacements of approximately 60,000 Native Americans of the Five Civilized Tribes between 1830-1850 by the United States government.
Members of the so-called 5 Civilized Tribes—the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations (including thousands of their black slaves)—were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern U.S. to areas to the west of the Mississippi River that had been designated Indian Territory.
The forced relocations were carried out by government authorities after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. The Cherokee removal in 1838 (the last forced removal east of the Mississippi) was brought on by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia, in 1828, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush.
The relocated peoples suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their newly designated Indian reserve. Thousands died from disease before reaching their destinations or shortly after. Suzan Shown Harjo of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian describes it as a genocide...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears
- A map of the process of Indian Removal, 1830–1838. Oklahoma is depicted in light yellow-green.
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https://historyofyesterday.com/trail-of-tears-the-genocide-of-native-americans-4dd926b742cc
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/trail-of-tears-walk-commemorates-native-americans-forced-removal/
= new reply since forum marked as read
briefly in the early 90s. I still remember a remark by a regarded staffer in a reading room re how many were there researching for revisionist history publications.
