The Trail of Tears was part of a series of forced relocations of approximately 100,000[1] Native Americans between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government[2] known as the Indian removal. Members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations (including thousands of their black slaves[3]) were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to areas to the west of the Mississippi River that had been designated 'Indian Territory'.[2] The forced relocations were carried out by government authorities after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830.[4] The Cherokee removal in 1838 (the last forced removal east of the Mississippi) was brought on by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia in 1828, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush.[5]
