When did the Trail of Tears occur?

The forced removals collectively known as the Trail of Tears occurred primarily in the 1830s and continued into the 1840s and 1850s, beginning with the Choctaw removal of 1831 to 1833 and ending with the Seminole removals of the late 1850s. The legal foundation was the Indian Removal Act signed by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830.

Specific phases of removal followed in this order. The Choctaw became the first nation to be relocated, traveling in three winter migrations from 1831 to 1833 under the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek of September 27, 1830. Of about 14,000 Choctaw on the road, perhaps 2,500 died from the cholera epidemic of 1832, exposure, and starvation. The Creek were forcibly removed in 1836 and 1837 after the failed Treaty of Cusseta of March 24, 1832 left them landless and after the Creek War of 1836 in which militia rounded up resistant communities. About 23,000 Creek were sent west and roughly 3,500 died on the journey or shortly after arrival.

The Chickasaw were removed between 1837 and 1838 under the Treaty of Doaksville of 1837. They organized their own departure with the cash from their land sale, and casualties were lower in proportion. The Cherokee removal occurred in the winter of 1838 to 1839 and is the most famous segment of the Trail of Tears. President Martin Van Buren ordered General Winfield Scott to round up about 16,000 Cherokee into stockades in May 1838 and to march them west under military escort. The first contingents traveled by water down the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi, and Arkansas rivers in summer 1838. The largest contingents went overland from October 1838 through March 1839, traveling roughly 1,200 miles in winter. About 4,000 Cherokee died, roughly a quarter of the total.

The Seminole resistance produced the longest violence. The First Seminole War in 1816 to 1819 ended with American annexation of Florida. The Second Seminole War from December 23, 1835 to August 14, 1842 was the longest Indian war in American history, costing the United States about 30 to 40 million dollars and 1,500 American lives. About 3,000 Seminoles were forcibly removed, but several hundred remained hidden. The Third Seminole War of 1855 to 1858 produced final removals of additional Seminoles.

Removal of other smaller eastern tribes continued through the 1840s, including various bands of Shawnee, Delaware, Wyandot, Miami, Potawatomi, Ottawa, and others from Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. By 1850 most Native peoples east of the Mississippi had been forced west or confined to small reservations within their former homelands.