The Trail of Tears is named after the routes taken by the people of the Five Tribes, the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole, as they were forcibly removed from their land and marched on foot, through the winter, to Oklahoma. This act of ethnic cleansing would move over 100,000 people from the East and South, to the Midwest. About 15,000 people died from this.
Some people protest at using words like "ethnic cleansing" to describe what took place with the signing of the 1830 Indian Removal Act by Andrew Jackson, but that's exactly what it was. We create euphemisms to describe what happened in American history to distance ourselves from what happened, but we all benefited from it, and ultimately still do today. We have to stop shying away from our past and spelling out exactly what we did to get to where we are now.
The Trail of Tears came about, because we wanted the land that was already occupied, so we took it. By force. Andrew Jackson signed an act that allowed us to do whatever it took to get that land. With the federal government's permission, we threw the people off the land, marched them, by foot, uncaring if they lived or died, until they reached an enclosed space set aside for them. Then we took their land and developed it for white people to live on and profit from.
We act like it was some other group of people, in the past, and not our own ancestors. We act as though we've learned from this, but have we ever paid reparations to the Indigenous peoples of this land? Have we ever given as much land back to them as we can? Put them in positions to govern the land in the best way possible? One person here, one position there is a start, but it's not reparations. Not even close.
Make sure to look through youtube for more articles. There are also documentaries and books about this well-known historical event. Here are more sources to learn about the Trail of Tears:
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