“Indians being the prior occupants possess the right of the soil,” Knox insisted, “so to dispossess them would be a gross violation of the fundamental Laws of Nature and the distributive justice which is the glory of our nation.” Unless Washington found a way to effect a change in the shape and direction of foreign policy toward the Native American tribes, Knox warned that “in a short period the Idea of an Indian on this side of the Mississippi will only be found in the pages of the historians.”17 Since Indian removal was, in truth, the unspoken goal of current American policy, albeit achieved
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