Page "Cherokee" Paragraph 47

During the first decades of the 19th century, Georgia focused on removing the Cherokee's neighbors, the Lower Creek.

The Georgia Governor George Troup and his cousin William McIntosh, chief of the Lower Creek, signed the Treaty of Indian Springs ( 1825 ), ceding the last Muscogee ( Creek ) lands claimed by Georgia.

The state's northwestern border reached the Chattahoochee, the border of the Cherokee Nation.

In 1829, gold was discovered at Dahlonega, on Cherokee land claimed by Georgia.

The Georgia Gold Rush was the first in U. S. history, and state officials demanded that the federal government expel the Cherokee.

When Andrew Jackson was inaugurated as President in 1829, Georgia gained a strong ally in Washington.

In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the forcible relocation of American Indians east of the Mississippi to a new Indian Territory.