In the eighteen thirties, federal Indian removal policy became a divisive tool that forced Tribes west of the Mississippi River. For Cherokees, homelands were a place of origin with high spiritual and cultural value embedded in the land and waterways. Some supporters of these policies believed that Tribes could not coexist in States, and Jacksonian era policies ultimately removed Tribes to create a pathway for rapid growth, wealth, and power for white settlers in the east. During removal, Cherokee people were found camped in a forest by the roadside in severe rain and heavy wind, using canvas as a shield from the weather and the cold wet ground as a resting place after the fatigue of the day. In southern Kentucky, several detachments were encountered, including two thousand Indians with horses and mules in proportion, and a train whose forward part was just pitching tents for the night while thirty or forty wagons were already stationed and the road was filled with the procession for about three miles. The United States government forcibly removed more than fifteen thousand Cherokee, twenty-one thousand Muscogee (Creek), nine thousand Choctaw, six thousand Chickasaw, and four thousand Seminole. Members of the five removed tribes endured starvation, exposure, and disease during removal, and those who survived established new lives in Indian Territory. Cherokees who survived the Trail of Tears joined those who moved earlier to reunite as the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory, now the Cherokee Nation reservation, while some Cherokees remained in North Carolina and formed the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Today these Tribes continue as sovereign nations, preserving culture and traditions for generations to come.