Removal of the Cherokees, 1838

Congress passed, and President Andrew Jackson signed, this act which was the first major step in forcibly relocating American Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi River.

The National Cherokee Council claimed the treaty was invalid because the Principal Chief did not sign it and the Cherokees who did were not authorized to create a treaty.

The treaty required Cherokees living in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama to leave their land and move to Indian Territory, in what is today eastern Oklahoma.

approximately 2,000 Choctaws, 4,500 Creeks, and 5,000 Cherokees perished, mostly from intersecting factors of disease, starvation, exposure, and demoralization.

The death toll for all three nations—close to 20 percent—is equivalent to 60 million for the current U.S. population.

Many hundreds died during the journey west, though the “trail of tears” metaphor obscures the fact that the majority of deaths occurred in internment camps while awaiting transportation west and in the first few years after relocation.

This event was the forced removal of 16,000 Cherokees pursuant to the Treaty of New Echota of 1835.

More than 4,000 died.

Cherokee people were forced from their homes in Georgia and Tennessee and made to walk to Indian Territory, 800 miles away, in the dead of winter.

This treaty was fraudulent on its face, violated a U. S. Supreme Court decision (Worcester v. Georgia, 1832), and undermined the constitutional government of the Cherokee Nation.