The soldiers often burned the captives' cabins and crops in order to discourage them from escaping and returning home. In the soldiers' sweep of Indian villages, parents and children often became separated. Once they reached the stockades, the Cherokees did not have enough food or water. Van Buren consented, and in the winter of 1838-39, the Cherokee nation moved west. This forced migration came to be known as the Trail of Tears because of the Cherokees' suffering.
Cherokee removal ranks as one of the greatest tragedies in American history.
The Cherokees, more than any other native people, tried to comply with the United States 'civilization' program. They had become literate, Christian farmers governed by republican laws. Yet in the end none of that mattered as much as the whites' desire to clear the southeastern United States of Cherokees in order to make way for the territorial expansion of the United States. The main fort established by the U.S. military in North Carolina was at Fort Butler, present-day Murphy. Many Cherokees perished in these pens and never even had the opportunity to be herded to the west.