The removal of the Cherokees was a product of the demand for arable land during the rampant growth of cotton agriculture in the Southeast, the discovery of gold on Cherokee land, and the racial prejudice that many white southerners harbored toward American Indians.
In 1830, the U.S. Federal government passed the Indian Removal Act. This Act gave the president authority to make treaties with the Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, Seminole, and Chickasaw Nations. Its purpose was to move these entire societies from their land in the southeast to land west of the Mississippi River.