About 17,000 Cherokees—along with approximately 2,000 Cherokee-owned black slaves—were removed from their homes.[92] The number of people who died as a result of the Trail of Tears has been variously estimated. American doctor and missionary Elizur Butler, who made the journey with one party, estimated 4,000 deaths.[93] Historians David Stannard[94] and Barbara Mann[95] have noted that the army deliberately routed the march of the Cherokee to pass through areas of known cholera epidemic, such as Vicksburg. Stannard estimates that during the forced removal from their homelands, following the Indian Removal Act signed into law by President Andrew Jackson in 1830, 8000 Cherokee died, about half the total population.[94]