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4th grade · Social Studies · Unit 8 of 12

Cotton, Slavery & Removal

King Cotton, enslaved lives and the Trail of Tears

What your child practices

How cotton and slavery grew in Alabama, the lives, work and culture of enslaved people and the harm of the domestic slave trade, Indian Removal and the Trail of Tears, and the trails and technology of westward expansion. Told plainly.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 4.11; 4.12 · US expansion before the Civil War, life for enslaved people in Alabama, and Indian Removal of the Muscogee Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Cotton became Alabama’s main crop, and it was grown by enslaved people.
  2. Enslaved people worked in fields, homes and skilled trades, and kept their families and culture strong.
  3. In the 1830s, Native nations were forced west on the Trail of Tears.

Example: What is the forced removal of the Cherokee and other nations remembered as? Many people died on the long march west. It is called a trail of sadness. Answer: the Trail of Tears

Cotton, Slavery & Removal in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 8 of 12 in 4th grade Social Studies, after Alabama Fever & Statehood and before Free States & Slave States.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    The telegraph, invented by Samuel Morse in the 1840s, let people…

    • send messages over wires in minutes
    • travel by car
    • take photos from space
    • fly across the ocean

  2. Question 2

    Why did the US government push for Indian Removal?

    • the land was empty
    • settlers wanted Native land for cotton farms
    • Native nations asked to leave
    • it was a law from England

  3. Question 3

    Enslaved people in Alabama worked in cotton fields, homes and skilled trades such as…

    • flying planes
    • running banks
    • driving trucks
    • blacksmithing, carpentry and barrel making

  4. Question 4

    The domestic slave trade sold enslaved people from older states to Alabama, which often meant…

    • families were torn apart
    • families were kept together
    • people were paid well
    • people could choose

  5. Question 5

    Which nations of Alabama were forced west in the 1830s?

    • French and Spanish
    • Norse and Dutch
    • Muscogee (Creek), Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw
    • Aztec and Inca

  6. Question 6

    The Choctaw lost their land in Alabama and Mississippi in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in…

    • 1865
    • 1776
    • 1830
    • 1901

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