The Cherokee Nation once stretched across parts of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama and was home to thousands of men, women, and children. The 1830 Indian Removal Act required the Cherokee and other southeastern tribes to surrender their lands and move west. In 1838, more than 15,000 Cherokee began migrating from their eastern homeland to Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma, along the Trail of Tears. Traveling by roads and rivers, they stopped in Paducah for supplies. Most went over land, but some traveled by boat, where hazards included the rapid spread of sickness onboard, fear of disease along river lowlands, fires aboard steamers, and unpredictable water levels and weather that affected navigation. Food was prepared on deck or in steerage, with rations of flour, cornmeal, and bacon. More than 1,000 Cherokee died during the journey westward, and more than 4,000 died as a result of their forced relocation. Federal Indian removal policy provoked fierce debate, with supporters calling it benevolent and opponents condemning its inhumanity, while millions of acres of Indian lands passed to white settlers. Despite the hardships, members of the five removed tribes built new lives in the West as sovereign nations preserving cultural traditions while adapting to later challenges. Cherokee survivors of the Trail of Tears joined those who had removed earlier to form a new government in present-day Oklahoma, while some Cherokee remained in North Carolina and formed the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.