The act targeted the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole nations of the Southeast. Georgia and other states wanted their land, especially after gold was found in Cherokee territory. The law said removal would be voluntary through treaties, but federal agents pressured leaders and signed treaties with small factions. Roughly 60,000 people from these five nations were forced west to Indian Territory, in present-day Oklahoma.
The Supreme Court ruled in Worcester v. Georgia in 1832 that Georgia had no authority over Cherokee land, but Jackson did not enforce it. The 1835 Treaty of New Echota, signed by a small group of Cherokee without the nation's approval, was used to justify the Trail of Tears.
The land taken became plantation land worked by enslaved Black people. In McGirt v. Oklahoma in 2020, the Supreme Court held that the Muscogee reservation promised after removal was never legally ended.