id author title date pages extension mime words sentences flesch summary cache txt en-wikipedia-org-5301 Trail of Tears - Wikipedia .html text/html 12499 1619 69 The Trail of Tears was a series of forced relocations of approximately 46,000 Native Americans between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government.[1] Members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations (including thousands of their black slaves[2]) were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to areas to the west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as 'Indian Territory'.[1] The forced relocations were carried out by government authorities (state and local militias) after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830.[3] The Cherokee removal in 1838 (the last forced removal east of the Mississippi) was brought on by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia in 1828, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush.[4] In 1830, a group of Indian tribes, collectively referred to as the "Five Civilized Tribes" (the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, and Seminole tribes) were living as autonomous nations in what would be later termed the American Deep South. ./cache/en-wikipedia-org-5301.html ./txt/en-wikipedia-org-5301.txt