The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson in 1830. This act authorized the president to negotiate treaties that exchanged Indian tribal lands in the eastern states for lands west of the Mississippi River. The act resulted in the forced removal of tens of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands to the lands west of the Mississippi, which became known as “Indian Territory.”
This traumatic event in American history, which became known as the Trail of Tears, had devastating consequences for Native American tribes. Entire ways of life were destroyed and thousands died from exposure, disease, and starvation on the journeys west.
To help gain a deeper understanding of this complex history, here are 41 riddles about the Indian Removal Act along with their answers. The riddles cover key people, dates, policies, and impacts related to this Act and the era of Indian removal more broadly. Digging into these brainteasers can shed more light on this difficult chapter in US-Native American relations.
Riddles About Key People
Riddle 1
I was a populist president who championed the common man but oversaw the Indian Removal Act that led to the Trail of Tears. Who am I?
Answer: Andrew Jackson
Riddle 2
I was an Indian chief who reluctantly agreed to a treaty to cede Cherokee land in Georgia on the promise that Cherokees could remain on our eastern lands. Who am I?
Answer: Major Ridge
Riddle 3
I was a Seminole leader who led guerrilla attacks against US troops when they tried to forcibly remove my people from Florida to Indian Territory. Who am I?
Answer: Osceola
Riddle 4
I was a Sauk leader who led a group known as the British Band in resisting American expansion into Sauk territory, fighting in the 1832 Black Hawk War. Who am I?
Answer: Black Hawk
Riddles About Key Tribes and Events
Riddle 5
My tribe had already lost much land before the Indian Removal Act, including in treaties like the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua. The act led to more land cessions in Ohio and other states, forcing me to move west in the 1820s and 30s. Who am I?
Answer: The Iroquois/Haudenosaunee Confederacy
Riddle 6
My people were among the first to be forcibly relocated under the Indian Removal Act, taken in chains on a 800+ mile route from our southern homelands to Indian Territory in 1831 in what was called a “Trail of Tears.” Who am I?
Answer: The Choctaw
Riddle 7
In 1832, my tribe fought a month-long war to resist forced relocation at the hands of the US government under the Indian Removal Act, though I was eventually defeated. Who am I?
Answer: The Sauk Tribe (specifically the British Band led by Black Hawk in the Black Hawk War)
Riddle 8
My tribe fiercely resisted forced removal by the US Army for decades, fighting a series of wars from 1835-1842 known as the Second Seminole War. Who am I?
Answer: The Seminole Tribe
Riddle 9
My state was the site of the initial round of deportations under the Indian Removal Act, used as a staging ground where tribes were forced into stockades before being marched west. What state am I?
Answer: Georgia
Riddle 10
I was a Cherokee leader who challenged the Indian Removal Act all the way to the Supreme Court and won, though Jackson ignored me. What case am I?
Answer: Worcester v. Georgia (1832)
Riddles About Key Terms, Policies and Impacts
Riddle 11
I was a system eventually established in Indian Territory to parcel out distinct lands to each of the removed tribes under strict US governance. What am I?
Answer: Indian reservations
Riddle 12
I was an assimilation policy that seized Native American children from their families and sent them to boarding schools, aimed at absorbing them into white culture. What am I?
Answer: Indian boarding school policy
Riddle 13
I refer to the difficult journeys faced by dozens of tribes who were forcibly marched hundreds of miles west under the Indian Removal Act, facing immense hardship and the deaths of thousands along the way due to exposure, disease, and starvation. What am I?
Answer: Trail of Tears
Riddle 14
I was an 1830 Supreme Court decision that said Native American tribes qualified as distinct political entities with certain inherent rights to their ancestral land. What case am I?
Answer: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia
Riddle 15
I was a term used to refer to the lands west of the Mississippi River reserved for tribes forcibly removed from the east under policies like the Indian Removal Act. What am I?
Answer: Indian Territory
Riddle 16
I refer to the larger era from around 1800-1850 when tens of thousands of Native Americans were forcibly removed and relocated from their homelands east of the Mississippi. What historical era am I?
Answer: Era of Indian removal
Riddle 17
I refer to a policy to isolate Native tribes from interacting with whites in order promote peace on the frontier. I laid foundations for later forced Indian removal. What policy am I?
Answer: Civilization program / civilizing policy / Indian civilization policy
Riddle 18
I was an 1802 law that set an early precedent before Indian Removal by extinguishing Indian title to millions of acres of land in Georgia in return for cash payments and small parcels of land. What law am I?
Answer: Indian Intercourse Act (1802)
Riddle 19
I refer to the loss of ancestral lands, physical destruction, and cultural extinction suffered by Native American nations under 19th century policies like the Indian Removal Act. What term am I?
Answer: Ethnocide / cultural genocide
Riddle 20
I was a phenomena beginning in the early 1800s whereby white settlers increasingly called for Native tribes’ removal despite many tribes adopting Anglo-American cultural practices like farming and Christianity under assimilation policies. What paradox am I?
Answer: Acculturation paradox
Riddle 21
I was a widely held belief in the 1800s by people like Andrew Jackson that Native tribes needed to be forcibly removed and territorially segregated from white society in order to survive and thrive as peoples. What myth am I?
Answer: Myth of the “vanishing Indian”
Riddle 22
We refer to the loss of an estimated 4,000 Cherokee people alone out of 15-17,000 starting the emigration west under the Indian Removal Act. Tragically, around 8,000 Cherokee had perished from the ordeal by the end of removal efforts in 1838. What fraction am I?
Answer: One-fourth / 25%
Riddle 23
I was an intangible cultural cost suffered by many removed tribes who struggled to reestablish their complex economic, spiritual, and social systems after being uprooted from homelands they’d occupied for centuries. What type of loss am I?
Answer: Loss of cultural continuity
Riddle 24
I refer to the loss of legitimacy suffered by tribal governments in the eyes of their own people after failing to successfully resist forcible removal from ancestral homelands. What type of loss am I?
Answer: Loss of political legitimacy
Riddles About Dates and Timeline
Riddle 25
In 1790 I codified the process for the U.S. government to treaty and trade with Native Americans tribes under federal authority. I set precedents for later land exchange treaties under the Indian Removal Act. What act am I?
Answer: The First Indian Nonintercourse Act (1790)
Riddle 26
I was a Supreme Court case in 1823 that influenced later Indian removal policy. I asserted a legal doctrine that colonial discovery gave the United States ownership of tribal lands. What case am I?
Answer: Johnson v. McIntosh (1823)
Riddle 27
In 1830 I passed legislation that led to the forcible removal of around 100,000 Native Americans from lands east of the Mississippi River over the next 28 years. What act am I?
Answer: Indian Removal Act
Riddle 28
We refer to the series of forced Indian removal campaigns from 1830-1850s that displaced tribes like the Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Seminole, Cherokee and others from southeastern homelands. What name were we given?
Answer: Indian removals
Riddle 29
The Creek were among the first southeastern tribes forcibly removed after the 1830 Removal Act. Between 1834-1837 roughly 21,000 Creek were removed from Alabama and Georgia on this route named for the loss of 25% of our population. What was it called?
Answer: Trail of Tears
Riddle 30
In 1838 I was the year when around 17,000 Cherokee were forcibly gathered into camps and then removed on the devastating 800+ mile march west that became known as the Trail of Tears. What year am I?
Answer: 1838
Riddle 31
The Choctaw faced the first major removal in 1830 when roughly 17,000 of our people were marched 500 miles from Mississippi to Oklahoma in other initial displacements of tribes under the Removal Act. What was this specific removal called?
Answer: The Choctaw Trail of Tears
Riddle 32
The Seminole originally signed a removal treaty in 1832 but fought through 1842 against U.S. efforts to forcibly deport us from Florida, with hundreds resisting surrender by hiding deep in the Everglades. What were the Second Seminole Wars called?
Answer: Seminole resistance wars
Riddle 33
I established the “Five Civilized Tribes” concept that later led to heightened removal pressures on more assimilated groups like the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Muscogee Creek, Seminole, and Choctaw. What act am I?
Answer: Indian Civilization Act Fund (1819)
True or False Riddles
Riddle 34
The Indian Removal Act immediately led to forceful deportations of southeastern tribes like the Cherokee from their homelands.
Answer: False. While the act laid the legal basis, removal occurred through later treaties and military confrontations.
Riddle 35
Some Native American tribes like the Seminole resisted relocation through organized guerrilla warfare against superior U.S. Army forces.
Answer: True
Riddle 36
All Native tribes removed from southeastern states were marched directly west by their own councils under U.S. supervision.
Answer: False. Deportations were frequently forced upon tribes against their will at gunpoint by federal and state agents.
Riddle 37
The Indian Removal era had overwhelmingly negative impacts for Native Americans but also opened opportunities for more Indians to reunify in new western homelands.
Answer: True
Riddle 38
The Indian Removal Act applied only to tribes in states south of the Mason-Dixon line like Georgia and Alabama.
Answer: False. Removals impacted many tribes across the eastern U.S. from New York to Florida.
Riddle 39
Some tribes like the Seneca negotiated to keep control of small portions of their ancestral homelands in the east after removals.
Answer: True
Riddle 40
By 1850, Indian removal pressures had largely ended across the United States.
Answer: False. Westward expansion and Indian conflicts continued for another fifty years across the Plains, West and even in Eastern states.
Conclusion
The Indian Removal era from approximately 1800-1850 remains one of the most tragic chapters in American history in terms of loss of lands, lives and cultures for indigenous peoples. Revisiting this era through riddles can shed added light on key events, policies, figures, tribes and dates that defined these traumatic removals while also revealing some sparks of resistance. This difficult history leaves lingering wounds but much also remains to commemorate about native survival, continuity and aspirations for the future in the aftermath. There are still many riddles left to solve in the quest for justice, understanding and healing.
