The "Trail of Tears" is the name given to the forced relocation from Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee to Oklahoma of 17,000 Cherokee men, women, and children by the U.S. Government in the late 1830s. After being forced from their ancestral lands at gunpoint, the Cherokee were herded into camps and prisons, and then marched over 2,000 miles to reservations across the Mississipi River in arid Oklahoma.

1. Tribes relocated: Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Chickasaw, Creek
2. Began: 1838
3. Removal policy began under Andrew Jackson; Trail began under Martin van Buren
4. Casualties: 4,000+ men, women, children
5. Causes of death: Starvation, disease

The United States government had been discussing the possibility of removing Native Americans from their ancestral lands in the southeast since the early 19th century. In the early 1830s, Georgia began enacting laws meant to confiscate lands from Cherokee Indians and prevent the Cherokee from becoming citizens. In 1835, a small group of Cherokee signed the Treaty of New Echota, giving the United States the right to confiscate Cherokee lands in return for new lands, provisions, and other benefits in Oklahoma. Most Cherokee did not approve of the treaty, and all of those Cherokee who supported the signing of the Treaty were later assassinated. In 1838, the U.S. Army began forcibly removing those Cherokee who had refused to give up their ancestral lands and began putting them in detention facilities. Many were subsequently herded onto boats or forced to march over 2,000 miles to their new "home" in arid eastern Oklahoma. Over 4,000 men, women, and children died of starvation or disease either in the camps or on the trek west.