Georgia’s population grew by more than half during the 1820s. That, plus the Southern cotton boom and the discovery of gold in the Cherokee Nation, put the Cherokees in a precarious position. In 1828 the state of Georgia declared the Cherokee constitution invalid and demanded the Cherokees’ land. President Andrew Jackson approved. An Indian nation

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America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, “It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.” It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk tra

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Yet Boone’s path was strewn with obstacles. The British had set the ridge of the Appalachians as the boundary to white settlement, making Boone’s journey west a crime. The end of British rule did little to improve Boone’s standing. The founders viewed frontiersmen like him with open suspicion. They were the nation’s “refuse” (wrote Ben Franklin), “

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