First, soldiers forced about 17,000 Cherokee people, and 2,000 of their African-American slaves, into concentration camps, where they had to live during the summer of 1838. 353 Cherokee people died in the camps from dysentery and other diseases. Finally, the Cherokee were forced to travel to the area that is now Oklahoma. (At the time, Oklahoma was not in the United States.) The government also forced other Native American tribes to leave their lands and move west.