USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk hundreds of miles to a specially designated “Indian Territory ” across the Mississippi River.

Detailed explanation-2: -Traditionally, cotton has been used by Native Americans in the desert Southwest for food and fiber for thousands of years. Archaeological digs at Snaketown along the Gila River in Central Arizona have revealed roasted cottonseed fragments dating back 1, 400 years.

Detailed explanation-3: -Jackson declared that removal would “incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier.” Clearing Alabama and Mississippi of their Indian populations, he said, would “enable those states to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power."

Detailed explanation-4: -Wampum as a Currency Wampum, or beads that were strung together, was often used as a medium of exchange for both Native American tribes and settlers during this Pre-Revolutionary era. Other commodities were also used for trade: furs, tobacco, wheat, and maize were all currencies of exchange.

Detailed explanation-5: -The Cherokee Nation, led by Principal Chief John Ross, resisted the Indian Removal Act, even in the face of assaults on its sovereign rights by the state of Georgia and violence against Cherokee people.