3. Whites were not the first people to whup up on the Indians and destroy whole cultures. The Indians had been doing it to each other for a long time and tried to do it to us.
The rifle-armed members of displaced Eastern Tribes had been wandering all over the West decades before our guys showed up, and whupping on the Comanches and other Plains Tribes pretty regular. A process redoubled in the 1840's and 1850's subsequent to the big Removals to Indian Territory.
Compared to the actions of these folk, the body count caused by actual White guys pulling the trigger could be pretty minor. Even as late as 1874 Mackenzie needed Seminoles and Delawares to show him exactly where Palo Duro Canyon was.
Those would be the exact same Seminoles who, thirty years earler were causing the Govt all kinds of grief in Florida. Didn't take 'em long to find their way around. Just twelve years after Florida, they were already intercepting Comanche, Kiowa and Apache raiders on the Rio Grande in return for land in Mexico.
Birdwatcher
