The policy of white Americans toward the Indians was a disgrace, right from the beginning. Sometimes the policy was benign, such as sharing educational advantages, but more often than not it was malevolent. From the beginning Americans drove the Indians from their midst, stole their lands, and, when necessary, murdered them. To many Americans, Indians were inferior and their culture a throwback to a darker age. The steady push of settlers west and south eventually cornered approximately 53,000 Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws into 33 million acres in the southwestern section of the
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