and the story related by ultra-conservative Harold Gray, the anti-FDR cartoonist who drew Lil Orphan Annie, about the Cherokees being forced off their lands in part because of gold is true as well, although there was a strong general sentiment of greed infecting their white neighbors to provoke taking the tribal lands from native peoples, even where there was no gold.
The Georgia Gold Rush in 1829 led to the Trail of Tears via the Indian Removal Act of 1830, although there was a general desire in the US government and at least its citizens in the South to claim lands occupied by these native sovereign nations. The Indian Removal Act ultimately caused the removal of 5 tribal peoples across the South, the the gold rush was one of the events that helped precipitate it.
Andrew Jackson in particular represented large groups of southern US citizens who wanted native Americans removed for access to their lands for agriculture and economic opportunity. The US Supreme Court ruled that the tribes were sovereign nations in "Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Court ruled that Georgia could not impose laws in Cherokee territory, since only the national government — not state governments — had authority in Indian affairs." The ruling could have been consequential as Georgia was seizing land from the Cherokees and holding lotteries to hand it over to its state citizens. The ruling was ignored by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren as well as the state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Gold_Rush
"The culmination of tensions between the Cherokee and various states, including Georgia, led to the forced migration of Native Americans, later known as the Trail of Tears.[5] President Andrew Jackson authorized the Indian Removal Act in 1830, which would allow a takeover of the gold mining areas among other places. The Cherokee Nation turned to the federal court system to avoid being forced off their ancestral lands. The Supreme Court first ruled in favor of the State of Georgia in the 1831 case Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, but the following year, in Worcester v. Georgia reversed this decision to recognize the Cherokee as a sovereign nation. Jackson proceeded with removal of remaining Cherokee from the North Georgia gold fields.
The Philadelphia Mint received over half a million dollars in gold from Georgia in 1832.[3]: 28 The state of Georgia held the Gold Lottery of 1832 and awarded land, which had been owned by the Cherokee, to the winners in 40-acre (16 ha) tracts. The Philadelphia Mint received $1,098,900 in gold from Georgia between 1830 and 1837."
Interestingly:
"Before they were expelled, the Cherokee gained enough gold-mining experience to participate in later gold rushes in California in 1849 and Colorado in 1859. Cherokee gold miners gave the name to the town of Cherokee, California, as well as to a number of other geographic features in that state's gold-mining region."
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