What was the impact of the Trail of Tears?

The impact of the Trail of Tears was that the Cherokee people were forcibly removed from Georgia, western North Carolina, and eastern Tennessee. This was the culmination of a more than decade-long removal process championed by President Andrew Johnson. By 1838, virtually all of the Native peoples in the Southeast--the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, and to a lesser extent the Seminoles--had been forced off their lands and into Indian Territory in modern-day Oklahoma. Each of these peoples had suffered grievously in the process, with thousands dying of disease. The Cherokee experience was no different. The tribe had split into factions, with one smaller group moving more or less voluntarily. A much larger faction, at least 15,000, refused to leave. Under orders from President Martin van Buren, they were forced from their lands by the US Army and marched to Indian Country. Around 5,000 died of disease and exposure. So the result of the Trail of Tears was the expropriation of Indian lands and widespread disease and death among Indian peoples. On the other hand, Indian removal cleared the way for the expansion of plantation agriculture into the fertile Southeast. Thousands of would-be planters brought their slaves to the region to raise cotton.