I was able to find sources on both Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad as well as the Cherokee Trail of Tears on the History Matters web site (ôHistory Mattersö). This web site is essentially a repository for links to other web sites that relate to historical topics. In researching both topics on the web site, I came to the conclusion that the Harriet Tubman topic is better covered than the Trail of Tears topic and formulated opinions about the History Matters web site and how it could be improved.
In the case of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, I searched on this topic and found a link to the National Geographic web site, where an Underground Railroad historical site was set up (ôThe Underground Railroadö). This was the type of site where the user proceeds from one screen to the next to see what the typical experience of an escaping slave was. The screens were accompanied by sound, and Harriet TubmanÆs role in facilitating slave escapes was explained. I enjoyed the online ôjourneyö and felt that it gave a good approximation of the situation that many slaves found themselves in, particularly in terms of the threats and dangers that could cause a slave to turn back from escape at any time. There were a few other sources listed in the search, but none of them were as informative or interesting as the National Geographic site.
When I searched on the Trail of Tears, however, I found little useful information. There was no one source that provided the kind of overview that the National Geographic site did, and I tried to gather bits of information from each of the sites listed. Not one of the sites explained exactly what the Trail of Tears was; they all referred to it in some way, but seemed to assume that the reader already had information about it.
The search on each topic produced a list of links to other web sites, and each of these sources was given with detailed background inform
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