A majority of the Cherokee people were forced to give up lands east of the Mississippi River and move to Oklahoma in the 1800’s along the Trail of Tears. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. “Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died” (PBS.org). The Cherokee people who have ancestors that survived the death march still live in Oklahoma today. The Cherokees that were able to escape the Trail of Tears hid in the Appalachian Hills or took shelter with sympathetic white neighbors. The descendants of those people now live sporadically throughout the original Cherokee Indian
A majority of the Cherokee people were forced to give up lands east of the Mississippi River and move to Oklahoma in the 1800’s along the Trail of Tears. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. “Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died” (PBS.org). The Cherokee people who have ancestors that survived the death march still live in Oklahoma today. The Cherokees that were able to escape the Trail of Tears hid in the Appalachian Hills or took shelter with sympathetic white neighbors. The descendants of those people now live sporadically throughout the original Cherokee Indian