As the 16th state to join the union, Tennessee has had a vast, formative history in the United States.
Homestead Elementary teacher Lori Myers has been engaging her fourth-grade class in history through the Tennessee State Museum’s Traveling Treasures Trunk program.
The Traveling Treasures Trunk program is a way to bring state history to life in the classroom, providing teachers with creative lesson plans, museum quality mounted images, primary source artifacts, reproductions and more.
“Being able to see and touch these items — I think it makes history more real, more engaging to the students,” said Myers.
Myers’ class spent the entire week of Feb. 27-March 3 constructing social studies lessons around the trunk.
Their trunk topic was “Cherokee in Tennessee: Their Life, Culture, and Removal.”
Throughout the week, the students were taught about Cherokee culture: from the culture’s seven clans and the tribe’s organizational makeup, the concept of assimilation and removal, the Trail of Tears and the Cherokee nation today.
The items in the trunk included a replica gold-mining pan with small jar filled with pyrite, also known as “fool’s gold;” a Cherokee turtle rattle used for ritual dances; a photo of a Cherokee home in 1858; a March 13, 1828, copy of the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper; a map of the Trail of Tears; a copy of the Indian Removal Act notice; brief biographies of famous Cherokee such as Major Ridge, John Ross and Sequoyah; and a translation of the Cherokee alphabet.
Earlier in the week, each student was assigned to one of the seven clans: the Long Hair, Blue, Wolf, Wild Potato, Deer, Bird and Paint. In the Cherokee language, the clans were the A-ni-gi-lo-hi, A-ni-sa-ho-ni, A-ni-wa-ya, A-ni-go-te-ge-wi, A-ni-a-wi, A-ni-tsi-s-qua and A-ni-wo-di, respectively.
The class made paper masks based off the symbolism used in each clan and what their roles were in the tribe.
In their March 2, lesson, Myers showed the students what the Cherokee people had experienced due to the Indian Removal Act, having the students march out of the classroom and outside with only 1 second to gather their belongings.
“The Indian Removal Act is being enforced. Your removal notice has been posted on your land. You had to pick up everything you have, and you are gone. You no longer can return to your homes,” Myers said.
“You’re now going to the Indian territory that has been set up in what we now call Oklahoma, and you’re going to start a new life there, whether you like it or not.”
After returning to the classroom, Myers asked the students how they felt after reflecting on what it would be like to be in the Cherokee tribe’s shoes for only a few minutes.
Answers from students ranged from confused, sad, terrified, overwhelmed and angry.
“It may be kind of tough — I know this is pulling at my heart, thinking about those people having to leave their homes and pack up what they could fit, take off — to go to a place where they had no idea what it would be like,” Myers told the class.
Following this discussion, the students wrote persuasive letters to then-President Andrew Jackson, asking him to not remove the Cherokee people from their land.
Each student then shared their writing with the class.
Including the Cherokee tribe’s traveling trunk, teachers can access several different trunk topics, such as:
• The Life and Times of the First Tennesseans
• Daily Life on the Tennessee Frontier
• The Age of Jackson and Tennessee’s Legendary Leaders
• The Life of a Civil War Soldier
• The Lives of Three Tennessee Slaves and Their Journey to Freedom
• Understanding Women’s Suffrage: Tennessee’s Perfect 36
• Transforming America: Tennessee on the World War II Homefront
• The Modern Movement for Civil Rights in Tennessee
• Tennessee: Its Land & People
• From Barter to Budget, Financial Literacy in Tennessee
• The Three Rs of Reconstruction: Rights, Restrictions and Resistance.
In May, Myers’ class will receive another traveling trunk for a week, when the class reaches the unit focusing on the Civil War.
More information on the Traveling Treasures Trunk program can be found at tnmuseum.org/traveling-trunks–reservations.