Trail of Tears: Definition, Date & Cherokee Nation

The Trail of Tears is the name given to the forced removal of tens of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the southeastern United States during the 1830s. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on Indigenous land, the federal government compelled the vast majority of southeastern Native nations to leave the country of their ancestors and travel hundreds of miles to a designated “Indian Territory” west of the Mississippi River—land that would eventually become the state of Oklahoma. The Trail of Tears was never a single road but a network of routes covering more than 5,000 miles across nine states. Exposure, starvation, and disease made the journey deadly, and for the Choctaw who endured it first, it was a “trail of tears and death.”

What Were the Causes of the Trail of Tears?

At the beginning of the 1830s, roughly 100,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Florida—land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. By the end of that decade, only a small percentage of the Indigenous population remained in the Southeast, among them several thousand Choctaw permitted to stay in Mississippi and hundreds of Cherokee who hid in the mountains of North Carolina.

The pressure began with demand. White Americans, particularly those living on the western frontier, often feared and resented the Native peoples they encountered, viewing them as alien occupants of land that settlers wanted and believed they deserved. In the Southeast that land was prized for cotton. Newcomers resorted to violent means to take it: they stole livestock, burned and looted homes and towns, committed mass murder, and squatted on land that did not belong to them. State governments joined the campaign, passing laws that limited Native sovereignty and rights while encroaching on tribal territory.

Assimilation, the “Five Civilized Tribes,” and the Indian Removal Act

Some officials in the early years of the American Republic, including President George Washington, believed the best solution to the so-called “Indian problem” was to “civilize” Native Americans—encouraging them to convert to Christianity, learn to read and speak English, and adopt European-style economic practices such as individual ownership of land and property, including in some Southern instances the enslavement of people. Many Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek (now Muscogee), and Cherokee adopted these customs and were labeled by outsiders the “Five Civilized Tribes.” Their embrace of settler economics offered no protection; it was precisely their valuable, cultivated land that removal policy targeted.

Removal was not confined to the South. In Illinois and Wisconsin, the Black Hawk War of 1832 opened millions of acres belonging to the Sauk, Fox, and other native nations to white settlement—part of the broader nineteenth-century campaign of pushing Native nations westward.

Andrew Jackson had long advocated “Indian removal.” As an Army general he spent years leading brutal campaigns against the Creeks in Georgia and Alabama and the Seminoles in Florida, campaigns that transferred hundreds of thousands of acres from Indian nations to white farmers. As president he continued the crusade: in 1830 he signed the Indian Removal Act, which empowered the federal government to exchange Native-held land east of the Mississippi for land in the “Indian colonization zone” acquired through the Louisiana Purchase.

The law required the government to negotiate removal treaties fairly, voluntarily, and peacefully, and it did not permit the president to coerce Native nations into giving up ancestral lands. Jackson and his government frequently ignored that requirement. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that Native nations were sovereign and that the laws of Georgia “can have no force” within them. Jackson, noting that no one intended to enforce the ruling, predicted the decisions would fall “stillborn.” Southern states were determined to take Indian lands.

Which Tribes Were Removed, and When?

The Choctaw: The First Removal, 1831

In the winter of 1831, under threat of invasion by the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled from its land altogether. After much internal disagreement, they accepted removal and agreed to leave in three main parties in 1831, 1832, and 1833. They made the journey on foot, without food, supplies, or other help from the government. Thousands died along the way. As one Choctaw leader told an Arkansas newspaper, it was a “trail of tears and death.”

The Creek (Muscogee), Chickasaw, and Seminole

The removal process continued. In 1836 the federal government drove the Creeks (now Muscogee) from their land for the last time: of the 15,000 Creeks who set out for Oklahoma, 3,500 did not survive the trip. The Chickasaw and Seminole were subjected to the same policy, and resistance in Florida—the Seminole Wars—became among the longest and costliest conflicts of the era.

The Cherokee: Treaty of New Echota and the Trail Where They Cried

The Cherokee people were divided over how best to handle the government’s determination to take their territory. Some wanted to stay and fight; others believed it more pragmatic to agree to leave in exchange for money and other concessions. In 1835, a few self-appointed representatives of one Cherokee faction negotiated the Treaty of New Echota, trading all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi—roughly 7 million acres—for $5 million, relocation assistance, and compensation for lost property.

A majority of Cherokee felt betrayed. The negotiators did not represent the tribal government, and most Cherokee considered the treaty fraudulent; the Cherokee National Council voted to reject it in 1836. Because Cherokee law carried a death penalty for anyone who sold communal tribal land without authorization, three of the main signers were assassinated. Principal Chief John Ross protested to the U.S. Senate: “The instrument in question is not the act of our nation… We are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people.” Nearly 16,000 Cherokees signed Ross’s petition. Congress approved the treaty anyway—a chapter examined in depth in the account of how the Cherokee Nation resisted removal.

By 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokee had left their Georgia homeland for Indian Territory. President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers to expedite the process. Scott and his troops forced the Cherokee into stockades at bayonet point while his men looted their homes and belongings. Then they marched them more than 1,200 miles. Whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, cholera, and starvation were epidemic along the way. Historians estimate that more than 5,000 Cherokee died as a result of the journey, including Chief Ross’s wife, Elizabeth.

Legal Legacy: From Removal to McGirt v. Oklahoma

By 1840, tens of thousands of Native Americans had been driven off their land in the southeastern states. The federal government promised the new territory would remain unmolested forever, but as the line of white settlement pushed westward, “Indian Country” shrank and shrank. In 1907, Oklahoma became a state and Indian Territory was considered lost.

Sovereignty, however, did not disappear with the land. In the landmark McGirt v. Oklahoma decision of 2020, a 5–4 Supreme Court held that the large Muscogee tribal land area in Oklahoma is still considered an American Indian reservation. The ruling left Oklahoma unable to prosecute Native Americans accused of crimes on those lands, since only federal and tribal law enforcement can prosecute such crimes. A later 2022 Supreme Court decision rolled back some provisions of the 2020 finding.

Historical Context & Key Cultural Takeaways

• Removal was policy, not accident: The Indian Removal Act of 1830 converted dispossession into federal law, and the promise of voluntary, peaceful negotiation was routinely ignored.
• Treaties were contested from the start: The Treaty of New Echota was rejected by the Cherokee National Council and protested by Chief John Ross, yet Congress ratified it—a reminder that legal documents and legitimacy are not the same thing.
• Land carried a different meaning: For southeastern nations, territory was communal, ancestral, and sacred—an understanding at odds with the individual ownership models promoted under assimilation policy and examined in Indigenous concepts of land ownership.
• Loss was measured in lives: Thousands of Choctaw, roughly 3,500 Creek, and more than 5,000 Cherokee died, alongside countless others across the removal era.
• Memory became law: The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, administered by the National Park Service, preserves the routes, while McGirt v. Oklahoma revived questions about treaty promises never honored.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did the Trail of Tears happen?

The removals occurred throughout the 1830s. The Choctaw were the first expelled, beginning in the winter of 1831. The Cherokee forced march took place in 1838–1839 under General Winfield Scott, and by 1840 tens of thousands of Native people had been driven from the Southeast.

Which tribes were involved in the Trail of Tears?

The removals most closely associated with the Trail of Tears involved the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek (Muscogee), and Cherokee—the nations outsiders grouped as the “Five Civilized Tribes.” Removal-era conflict also displaced the Sauk, Fox, and other nations in the North, as in the Black Hawk War of 1832.

What was the Treaty of New Echota?

Signed in 1835 by a self-appointed Cherokee faction, it traded roughly 7 million acres of Cherokee land east of the Mississippi for $5 million, relocation assistance, and compensation for lost property. The Cherokee National Council rejected it in 1836, and nearly 16,000 Cherokee signed Chief John Ross’s protest petition, but Congress approved the treaty regardless.

Was the Trail of Tears a single route?

No. It was a network of different routes, over 5,000 miles long, crossing nine states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, run by the National Park Service, preserves portions accessible on foot, by horse, by bicycle, and by car.

Where is this history preserved today?

Key repositories include the National Park Service trail system, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, North Carolina, and state cultural agencies such as the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. The original Treaty of New Echota has also been placed on public view by federal cultural institutions, keeping the documentary record of removal accessible to descendants and researchers alike.

Cultural Legacy and Modern Preservation

The Trail of Tears is more than a chapter of nineteenth-century policy; it is a living inheritance for the Cherokee Nation, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Muscogee (Creek) peoples, whose governments, languages, and ceremonies survived removal and continue today. Commemoration along the historic trail, museum stewardship of treaties and material culture, and ongoing legal battles over reservation boundaries all testify that the story did not end in 1840. Understanding the Trail of Tears means holding two truths together: the federal government broke its own laws and promises, and the nations it tried to erase did not disappear.