During this removal, more than 300 Cherokee hid in the mountains and escaped arrest. Over a period of years, these Cherokee managed to remain in the area, and eventually were recognized by the U.S. government as the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians in 1868.

Only a fraction of the Cherokees left voluntarily. The U.S. government, with assistance from state militias, forced most of the remaining Cherokees west in 1838. The Cherokees were temporarily remanded in camps in eastern Tennessee.

The Indian removal act forced the Cherokee and other Indian tribes to abandon their lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate elsewhere. Although they were not the only ones to muttle through this harsh time, the Cherokee nation coined the journey as the “Trail of Tears”.

Trail of Tears, in U.S. history, the forced relocation during the 1830s of Eastern Woodlands Indians of the Southeast region of the United States (including Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, among other nations) to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.

They were not allowed time to gather their belongings, and as they left, whites looted their homes. Then began the march known as the Trail of Tears, in which 4,000 Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease on their way to the western lands.

The Cherokee generally attempted to resist removal by the United States through negotiations and legal proceedings. In 1825, the Cherokee established a capital in Georgia, created a written constitution, and declared themselves a sovereign nation.

Jackson warned the tribes that if they failed to move, they would lose their independence and fall under state laws. Jackson backed an Indian removal bill in Congress. Members of Congress like Davy Crockett argued that Jackson violated the Constitution by refusing to enforce treaties that guaranteed Indian land rights.

After the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, approximately 60,000 members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations (including thousands of their black slaves) were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands, with thousands dying during the Trail of Tears.