 Over 16,000 Cherokee were forcibly relocated westward to Indian Territory in 1838–1839, a migration known as the Trail of Tears or in Cherokee or ("The Trail Where They Cried"), although it is described by another word ("The Removal").Marched over across Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas, the people suffered from disease, exposure and starvation, and as many as 4,000 died.As some Cherokees were slaveholders, they took enslaved African Americans with them west of the Mississippi.