Two years later President Martin Van Buren ordered 7,000 Federal troops and state militia under General Winfield Scott into Cherokee lands to evict the tribe . Over 16,000 Cherokee were forcibly relocated westward to Indian Territory in 1838 – 1839 , a migration known as the Trail of Tears or in Cherokee or ( '' The Trail Where They Cried '' ) , although it is described by another word ( '' The Removal '' ) . Marched over across Tennessee , Kentucky , Illinois , Missouri and Arkansas , the people suffered from disease , exposure and starvation , and as many as 4,000 died . As some Cherokees were slaveholders , they took enslaved African Americans with them west of the Mississippi . Intermarried European Americans and missionaries also walked the Trail of Tears . Ross preserved a vestige of independence by negotiating permission for the Cherokee to conduct their own removal under U.S. supervision
Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
Cherokee