To which event in U.S. history does the the term "Trail of Tears" refer?

In the early 1830s, more than 100,000 Native Americans lived in the Deep South, occupying land that their ancestors had cultivated for generations. By the end of the decade, only a handful remained. Driven by pure greed and an astonishing sense of entitlement, white settlers — eventually with the full support of the federal government — drove the Indigenous population out. Some were lured by the bogus promise of unperturbed autonomy and equivalent land in the newly formed Indian Territory (in present-day Oklahoma). Others, including most Cherokee, held their ground until 1838 when 7,000 federal troops arrived and began systematically rounding them up like cattle and marching them over 1,200 miles to Indian Territory. Over the next year, 15,000 Cherokee were forcibly removed from their homes; as many as 5,000 of them died from disease, starvation, and exposure along the 'Trail of Tears. Undoubtedly one of the darkest chapters in American history.

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