The Trail of Tears was a forced westward migration of American Indian tribes from the South and Southeast of the United States between 1830 and 1850. The forced relocation was part of Andrew Jacksons Indian removal policy, which aimed to remove indigenous people from their ancestral lands and move them to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Trail of Tears specifically refers to the removal experiences of the Southeast Indians generally and the Cherokee nation specifically. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears" because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march, and over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died. The Trail of Tears records the Cherokees’ journey from its beginning, routes along the way, campsites, and the gravesites and disbandment sites that mark the end of the journey. The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, a unit of the National Park System, stretches across Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.