During the administration of U.S. President Martin Van Buren , nearly 17,000 Cherokees — along with approximately 2,000 black slaves owned by Cherokees — were uprooted from their homes between 1838 and 1839 and were forced by the U.S. military to march from " emigration depots " in Eastern Tennessee ( such as Fort Cass ) toward the more distant Indian Territory west of Arkansas ( now the state of Oklahoma ) . During this relocation an estimated 4,000 Cherokees died along the way west . In the Cherokee language , the event is called '' Nunna daul Isunyi '' — " the Trail Where We Cried " . The Cherokees were not the only American Indians forced to emigrate as a result of the Indian removal efforts of the United States , and so the phrase " Trail of Tears " is sometimes used to refer to similar events endured by other American Indian peoples , especially among the " Five Civilized Tribes " . The phrase originated as a description of the earlier emigration of the Choctaw nation
Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
Tennessee