HIStory essay feedback

Here is some feedback on the rough draft of your essay. This feedback is not a complete critique of the paper, but I am pointing out here some significant ways that the essay can be improved:

*In the first paragraph it seems you are giving background to Indian removal; this is fine if you want include it at the beginning, but there needs to be a stronger thesis statement - you need to address the key ideas you are going to discuss in the paper.

* Second, you need to be sure each paragraph has only one topic. A paragraph that is not as clear and unified as it could be is on page three; you end a paragraph on the Choctaw, then beginning the next one on the Choctaw, but then switch to the Cherokee. It was be clearer if you dealt with the Choctaw all in one paragraph, and the next paragraph was just focused on the Cherokee.

*Third, there are some problems with the last paragraph. You state the the trail of Tears was 5043 miles long. That is not correct. The Cherokee walked about 800 miles. Other tribes walked sometimes a little more, sometimes less. Another thing that is not accurate in that paragraph is referring to white Americans wanting to make Native Americans slaves with Indian Removal. That is simply not true. They were not being enslaved. Slavery = treating a person as property, and Americans used slaves for forced labor. That is not what happened during Indian Removal. Not only is the not what happened, but the Cherokee themselves had black slaves that they took with them to Indian Territory! Another problem in this paragraph is that it says Indian Removal was illegal - but there is no statement about how it was illegal. All assertions need backing up with evidence. This paragraph needs serious revision.

These are some of the ways the essay could be improved. You may want to leave out the Choctaw and focus just on the Cherokee so you can explore them in more depth.