A law meant to relocate people killed roughly a quarter of those forced to walk it

The 1830 Indian Removal Act authorized the US government to force Native American nations from their ancestral lands in the Southeast to territory west of the Mississippi. During the Cherokee removal of 1838–39, thousands were marched at gunpoint in brutal winter conditions with inadequate supplies; an estimated 4,000 of the roughly 16,000 forced to march died along the way, a journey remembered as the Trail of Tears.

— Historical accounts, Indian Removal Act — 1830; Cherokee removal 1838–39