The Choctaw Trail of Tears was the attempted ethnic cleansing and relocation by the United States government of the Choctaw Nation from their country, referred to now as the Deep South (Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana), to lands west of the Mississippi River in Indian Territory in the 1830s by the United States government. A Choctaw Miko (chief) was quoted by the Arkansas Gazette as saying that the removal was a "trail of tears and death." Since removal, the Choctaw have developed since the 20th century as three federally recognized tribes: the largest, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma; the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians in Louisiana. Overview After ceding nearly , the Choctaw migrated in three stages: the first in the fall of 1831, the second in 1832, and the last in 1833. The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was ratified by the U.S. Senate on February 25, 1830, and the U.S. President Andrew Jackson was anxious to make the Choctaw project a model of removal. George W. Harkins (Choctaw) The people in the first wave of removal suffered the most. The second and third wave "sowed their fields promptly and experienced fewer hardships than the Indians of most of the other expatriated tribes." Removal continued throughout the 19th century. In 1846 1,000 Choctaw removed, and by 1930 only 1,665 remained in Mississippi. Treaties The Choctaw and the United States agreed to nine treaties between 1786 and 1830. The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was the last to be signed by which the Choctaw Nation agreed to cede the last of their lands in the Southeast. Choctaw land was systematically obtained by European governments and the US through treaties, legislation, and threats of warfare. The Choctaw had made treaties with Great Britain, France, and Spain, before nine with the United States. Some treaties, like the Treaty of San Lorenzo, indirectly affected the Choctaw. The Choctaw considered European laws and diplomacy foreign and puzzling. They found the writing of agreements to be the most confusing aspect of treaty making, as they had no system of written language. As with many Native Americans, the Choctaw transmitted their history orally from generation to generation. During treaty negotiations, the three main Choctaw tribal areas (Upper Towns, Six towns, and Lower Towns) had a "Miko" (chief) to represent them. During the Treaty of Natchez, 1793, the Upper Town