Winfield Scott's Address To The Cherokee Nation

Why do you think some Cherokee already moved west of the Mississippi while others did not?

At the end of the first phase of the transfer in August of 1838, 3,000 Cherokees had left Georgia and Tennessee traveling by the river towards Oklahoma; but another 13,000 remained in camps. Due to the intercession of John Ross in Washington, those Cherokees would travel, according to Eisenhower, "by their own means, unarmed, and without supervision by the militia or the regulars.