By the early 1800's, white settlers in present-day Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee wanted Cherokee farms, especially after gold was discovered on Cherokee land. In 1830 the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act; in 1835, three hundred Cherokee led by Major Ridge and Elias Boudinot met with two U.S. government agents and, without tribal approval, signed a removal treaty that was officially rejected by Chief John Ross and 16,000 Cherokees. President Andrew Jackson nevertheless signed the treaty, which passed the U.S. Senate by one vote. Only about 500 Cherokees under Boudinot and Ridge left peacefully; all others refused to resettle in Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. In 1838, General Winfield Scott and his soldiers rounded up over 15,000 Cherokees and herded them into stockades, where hundreds died of malnutrition and disease. Some were forced onto boats and barges for removal as early as June 1838, but many drowned when their transports capsized. Because summer drought had made the rivers unsafe for travel, the remaining 13,000 Cherokees and a few members of other tribes were divided into 13 groups of about 1,000 each under the guidance of a tribal leader. The groups journeyed on foot from October 1, 1838 until March 24, 1839, through rain and mud, sleet and snow, and across frozen creeks and icy rivers, covering 1,200 miles. Traveling 10 to 16 miles per day during the exceptionally harsh and cold winter of 1838-9 with inadequate clothing and little or no shelter, many died of malnutrition, dysentery, and pneumonia and were buried along the trail as their relatives wept. A few escaped and returned to their North Carolina mountains to join others who had eluded capture; they and their descendants became known as the Eastern Cherokees. More than 4,000 of the 16,000 Cherokee died during the confinement and march, and the survivors and their descendants became known as the Western Cherokee.