The Trail of Tears was a series of ethnic cleansings and forced relocations of Native American nations in the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Nearly 60,000 people were displaced between 1830-1850 by the U.S. government.

Members of the Five Tribes (Cherokee, Seminole, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Choctaw) were all removed from their homelands to a newly designated Indian territory west of the Mississippi River. The Cherokee removal was influenced by the discovery of gold near their ancestral land.

The relocated people suffered from disease and starvation while en route, and more than ten thousand died before reaching their various destinations. Many historians constitute it as a genocide, which is an intentional harm or killing to a particular racial or ethnic group.

The phrase “Trail of Tears” originated from a description of the removal of the Choctaw Nation in 1831.