Long before the white man came to the America, the land belonged to the American Indian nations. The nation of the Cherokees lived in What is now the southeastern part of the United States.
　　After the white man came, the Cherokees copied many of their ways. One Cherokee named Sequoyah saw how important reading and writing was to the white man. He decided¹ to invent a way to write down the spoken Cherokee language. He began by making word pictures. For each word he drew a picture. But that proved impossible-there were just too many words. Then he took the 85 sounds that made up the language. Using this own imagination and an English spelling book, Sequoyah invented a sign for each sound. His alphabet proved amazingly easy to learn. Before long, many Cherokees knew how to read and write in their own language. By 1828, they were even printing their own newspaper.
　　In 1830, the U.S. Congress² passed a law. It allowed the government to remove Indians from their lands. The Cherokees refused to go. They had lived on their lands for centuries. It belonged to them. Why should they go to a strange land far beyond the Mississippi River?
　　The army was sent to drive the Cherokees out. Soldiers surrounded their villages and marched them at gunpoint into the western territory. The sick, the old and the small children went in carts, along with their belongings³. The rest of the people marched on foot or rode on horseback. It was November, yet many of them still wore their summer clothes. Cold and hungry, the Cherokees were quickly exhausted⁴ by the hardships of the journey. Many dropped dead and were buried by the roadside. When the last group arrived in their new home in March 1839, more than 4,000 had
died. It was indeed a march of death.
1. The Cherokee Nation used to live
A) on the American continent.
B) In the southeastern part of the US.
C) Beyond the Mississippi River.
D) In the western territory.
2. one of the ways that Sequoyah copied from the white man is the way of
A) writing down the spoken language.
B) Making word pictures.
C) Teaching⁵ his people reading.
D) Printing their own newspaper.
3. A law was passed in 1830 to
A) allow the Cherokees to stay where they were.
B) Send the army to help the Cherokees.
C) Force the Cherokees to move westward⁶.
D) Forbid the Cherokees to read their newspaper.
4. When the Cherokees began to leave their lands.
A) they went in carts.
B) They went on horseback.
C) They marched on foot.
D) All of the above.
5. Many Cherokees died on their way to their new home mainly because
A) they were not willing to go there.
B) The government did not provide transportation
C) They did not have enough food and clothes.
D) The journey was long and boring.
KEY：BACDC

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