Through nine treaties signed between 1786 and 1830, the Choctaw Tribe ceded its Mississippi and Alabama homeland to the United States in exchange for lands in what is now southeastern Oklahoma. Most Choctaw people opposed these agreements and secured, through treaty, the right to become US citizens and remain in their homeland, but fraud, home burning, and threats of unprovoked military attack eventually forced most Choctaws to journey west, a direction associated with death in traditional Choctaw thought. Between 1830 and 1833, more than 12,000 Choctaw people made this exodus to Oklahoma, known as the Trail of Tears. Newspaper articles from the time recount groups of Choctaw people beginning their journeys by touching the trees near their homes and telling them goodbye. Along the way, young and old alike often had to wade through miles of frigid, waist high water and endure winter storms in open camps with no shelter, little clothing, and shortened rations of spoiled food. It is estimated that between 1,800 and 4,000 Choctaw people died from such treatment, while the US government made a net profit of $3,000,000 by keeping travel expenses lethally low. In Oklahoma, survivors strove to rebuild their lives and families, and their descendants make up the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma today.