The removal followed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the 1835 Treaty of New Echota, which most Cherokee opposed. Principal Chief John Ross took a petition with more than 15,000 Cherokee signatures to Congress, which ignored it. In 1838, US troops under General Winfield Scott rounded up Cherokee families, held them in stockades and forced them west, much of the way during winter.
People died from disease, exposure and starvation in the camps and on the march. The Muscogee (Creek), Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole nations suffered their own forced removals in the same decade. Some Black people enslaved by Cherokee and other nations were also forced west.
Congress designated the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail in 1987. It covers routes across nine states. The Cherokee Nation rebuilt its government in Oklahoma, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians descends from people who stayed in North Carolina.