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Having grown up in Indianapolis, Indiana, I find it challenging to avoid using the word Indian. I'll do my best.
White Americans are continually being gaslighted—a psychological manipulation where a perpetrator makes a victim question their own reality, memories, or perceptions. We normally use the term white guilt. It purpose is to render us passive as our culture is being destroyed and its memory erased.
The truth is, Europeans enhanced the lives of American Indians. Foremost, we ended millennia of inter-tribal warfare.
For example, American education and media have portrayed the relocation of Native tribes in the 1830s as a straightforward tale of government cruelty and victimhood for decades. A fresh examination of historical records reveals a more nuanced story involving negotiated treaties, tribal self-management, and complex realities of pre-contact Native warfare and territorial conflicts. This reassessment challenges long-held assumptions and offers a balanced perspective on one of the most debated chapters in U.S. history.
There is, after all, a reason why some Indian tribes remain east of the Mississippi. These include:
• Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (North Carolina)
• Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (Mississippi)
• Seminole Tribe of Florida and Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida
• Catawba Indian Nation (South Carolina)
• Poarch Band of Creek Indians (Alabama)
• Chitimacha Tribe and Coushatta Tribe (Louisiana)
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Common Narratives: Violence, Removal, and Conflict in Early America
For generations, American classrooms have presented the forced relocation of southeastern tribes in the 1830s as a straightforward tale of government injustice aimed at seizing Native lands for white settlement. The event, commonly known as the Trail of Tears, involved the Cherokee and other groups moving west of the Mississippi River under the Indian Removal Act signed by President Andrew Jackson in 1830. Traditional accounts describe thousands dying from hardship during the journeys. Yet a closer examination reveals layers often downplayed in popular retellings, including the timing of the name itself, the nature of treaties, and the broader context of warfare among Native societies long before European arrival.
The Origins and Timing of the Trail of Tears Label
The phrase "Trail of Tears" itself emerged decades after the relocations of the 1830s and 1840s and only entered widespread use in the mid-20th century.
Details of the Indian Removal Act and Treaties
The Indian Removal Act authorized negotiations for land exchanges, offering tribes compensation and new territories in return for leaving their eastern homelands. While some groups reached agreements, enforcement for the Cherokee relied on the 1835 Treaty of New Echota, signed by a minority faction despite opposition from Principal Chief John Ross and most of the nation. The U.S. government proceeded with removal in 1838, allowing Cherokee leaders to organize much of the process themselves. One key contract for supplies went to a relative of Ross, with funds intended for wagons, food, and medical support.
Death Toll Estimates and Compensation Figures
Death estimates during Cherokee removal have varied. Contemporary claims of around 4,000 fatalities, roughly one in four of those affected, came from a missionary physician accompanying the groups and relied partly on secondhand information. Some later economic analyses suggest the toll may have been lower, though conditions including disease and exposure clearly caused significant suffering.
Certainly, many died while making the journey westward, but some would have died had they not traveled westward. What's more, many pioneers died traveling the Oregon Trail. Their deaths from all causes are estimated at 20,000–30,000 (about 6–10% of travelers) [source]. The Oregon Trail could also be called the Trail of Tears. 362 pioneers are known to have been killed by Indians between 1840 and 1860 [source].
In total, the federal government provided about $5 million—equivalent to roughly $184 million in today's dollars—for millions of acres ceded in the Southeast to Indians. Per-acre compensation exceeded rates paid in the Louisiana Purchase or Alaska sale, though delivery of promised goods often fell short. Jackson reportedly noted that many settlers would have welcomed similar terms for relocation.
Pre-Contact Warfare and Archaeological Evidence
Beyond the removals, longstanding assumptions about Native societies as inherently peaceful have faced scrutiny from archaeological and ethnographic research. Studies of prehistoric sites across North America show evidence of fortifications, mass graves, and skeletal trauma indicating frequent conflict well before 1492. One analysis of global societies found that the vast majority engaged in warfare, with smaller-scale groups often experiencing higher rates of lethal violence relative to population than many modern states. Raids typically targeted villages at night, with little distinction between combatants and civilians. Practices such as scalping, mutilation of bodies, and occasional cannibalism appear in accounts and physical evidence from multiple regions, including the Great Plains and Southwest. Tribes like the Comanche built reputations for mobility and ferocity after acquiring horses, conducting raids that displaced or decimated rival groups and later challenged Spanish, Mexican, and American forces for decades.
The movie Dances with Wolves was particularly obscene in its false depiction of Indians and whites.
Comanche Power and Intertribal Conflict
Intertribal wars followed patterns of total conflict, involving destruction of resources, capture of women and children, and revenge cycles. Archaeological finds, such as a mass grave in South Dakota from around 1325 containing hundreds of victims who had been scalped and mutilated, demonstrate that such violence predated European contact. In California and other areas, disputes over gathering sites or hunting grounds sparked deadly clashes. While some popular media of the late 20th century portrayed certain tribes as harmonious stewards living lightly on the land, records from explorers, captives, and later historians depict a more complex reality of competition and survival.
Disease as the Primary Demographic Factor
Disease played the largest role in Native population declines after 1492. Waves of smallpox, cholera, measles, and other illnesses swept through communities with no prior immunity, sometimes killing a third to half or more in successive outbreaks.
The Smallpox Blankets Claim Examined */
Claims that British or American forces deliberately spread smallpox via infected blankets, notably around the 1763 siege of Fort Pitt during Pontiac's Rebellion, have been examined closely. Officers discussed the idea and distributed items from a smallpox hospital, but evidence that this triggered major epidemics is lacking—the virus spreads poorly through fomites, outbreaks were already underway, and the attempt appears to have failed.
It should be noted that Edward Jenner (1749–1823), an English country doctor from Gloucestershire, England is credited with developing the world’s first successful smallpox vaccine in 1796. A widely cited estimate suggests that the global eradication of smallpox has saved approximately 200 million lives. And that's just since the late 1960s [source].
Atrocities Including Sand Creek
Conflicts with settlers and the U.S. Army involved atrocities on multiple sides. In 1864, Colorado militia under Colonel John Chivington attacked a Cheyenne and Arapaho encampment at Sand Creek, killing dozens to over 200 people—mostly women, children, and elders—despite flags of truce. The event drew condemnation from some military officers and eastern newspapers, leading to investigations. Earlier and later raids by groups such as the Comanche on frontier settlements included killings, torture, and captive-taking, as described in survivor accounts and Texas Ranger reports.
Here's a video of Indians dancing to Billie Ray Cyrus' Achy Breaky Heart ▼
How the U.S. Ultimately Prevailed
U.S. forces eventually prevailed not primarily through superior weapons but through superior numbers, logistics, railroads, and the near-extinction of the bison herds that sustained Plains tribes. Campaigns by officers like Ranald Mackenzie employed aggressive pursuit, destruction of villages and livestock, and the use of Native scouts—tactics that mirrored elements of indigenous warfare.
Outcomes for Tribes and Reservations
The United States did not pursue a policy of extermination akin to industrialized genocide. After military victories, surviving tribes received reservations, sometimes vast tracts of land. Leaders like Comanche chief Quanah Parker, who had fought settlers in his youth, later adapted, owned property, and engaged with American society without facing execution for wartime actions. Reservations allowed some continuity of governance and culture, though conditions varied and assimilation pressures followed. Many modern narratives emphasize "stolen land" and victimhood, yet Native groups maintained defined territories, engaged in warfare over resources, and recognized concepts of ownership through oral traditions, family plots for farming, and intertribal agreements.
In my opinion, whites were just another tribe. Though stronger than Indian tribes, the white tribe was empathetic and sought peace when contentions arose.
Conclusion on Historical Complexity
These historical patterns challenge simplified views taught in schools or amplified in media. Pre-contact societies were not uniformly peaceful utopias, nor were all U.S. actions unprovoked aggression. Disease, demographic collapse, and shifting power dynamics shaped outcomes far more than any single policy. Understanding the full record requires acknowledging violence across all parties, the realities of frontier life, and the pragmatic resolutions that followed conquest—outcomes that differed markedly from the total annihilation often seen when one Native group dominated another.
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War Before Civilization by Lawrence H. Keeley
Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne
Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site
Indian Removal Act: Primary Documents
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