Statues, plaques, and road signs mark many sites along the Trail of Tears. The most significant legacy of the Indian Removal Act, though, can be found in modern day Oklahoma, where the "Five Civilized Tribes" ended their journey west. For the Native Americans who survived the journey, Indian Territory meant starting over. Many established themselves on farms and in businesses, not unlike the lives they had built on their original homelands in the Southeast.

Some of the Five Civilized Tribes constructed churches and schools. The Cherokees created seminaries, or colleges, to educate their young people. After their Female Seminary burned in 1887, they erected a second building that eventually became a "normal school" for training teachers and, later, Northeastern State University, which is still located in the capitol of the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

Students at the First Cherokee Female Seminary, which was built in 1851, and burned down in 1887.	Cherokee students at new Female Seminary.

The Choctaw Nation built their new capital at Tuskahoma, and they flourished economically and culturally. When a potato famine ravaged Ireland in the 1840s, the Choctaws sent a cash contribution to help alleviate the suffering overseas. The Creek, or Muscogee Nation, prospered in Indian Territory and built a capitol in the Oklahoma town of Okmulgee. Later, though, the tribe was split into thirds, and three more capitols were added to accommodate each of the tribal factions.

The Chickasaw tribe moved to Indian Territory with much of its wealth intact. They built their own capitol and established their own police force to patrol the prairies and woods of Chickasaw territory. The Seminoles, who managed to fight off removal for many years, were eventually forced to move to Indian Territory. The Seminoles in Oklahoma and Florida remained separate factions of the same tribe with little contact for most of the 19th century.

An 1880 photograph of delegates from 34 tribes in front of Creek Council House in Indian Territory.

Most of the tribes that were affected by the Indian Removal Act flourished until the start of the Civil War. Regardless of the side they chose to support—Union or Confederacy, Native Americans in Indian Territory suffered in the years after the Civil War, facing a brand new crisis. The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 initiated a process of breaking up the huge swathes of tribal lands that were held by Indian tribes. Tribal land was divided into allotments of 80 to 160 acres and distributed to individual tribe members. The Five Civilized Tribes might still exist on paper, but the tribe itself no longer owned or controlled the land it settled after the removals.