Population gains during the initial decades of the nineteenth century were short-lived; they ended not long after 1835 during the forced removal of large numbers of Cherokees from the Southeast into the northeastern part of what was designated Indian Territory, now northeastern Oklahoma. The removal was such an ordeal for the Cherokees and caused them so much suffering that they named it Nunna daul Tsuny, literally "the Trail Where We Cried." It has become known as the Trail of Tears. The removal occurred despite the "success" the Cherokees had in adapting their society and culture to Euro-American pressures.
Cherokee lands had shrunk decidedly during the eighteenth century, so much that by the beginning of the nineteenth century they totaled only a little over 40,000 square miles. (Not all of this was in the Southeast; some was in Arkansas Territory). Royce, the Cherokees in the Southeast ceded 23,988.25 square miles of land from 1804 through 1819. At this point, they remained in possession of only; 12,316 square miles in the Southeast. Their southeastern lands now encompassed only the territory where the present states of North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama more or less converge.
Coinciding with this loss of land, but due to a variety of other factors as well, particularly relocations during the wars of the previous century, the Cherokee settlement pattern had changed by this time. On the one hand, the pattern of the location of Cherokee towns had changed. Only the North Carolina Middle Towns remained relatively intact by this time. The Cherokee Lower Towns on the Savannah River had been dispersed, and the Cherokees had removed both their capital and their council fire from Echota to Ustanali because of a general encroachment of whites into the Upper Towns............
