I've always been more fascinated with the Eastern Indians than the plains Indians. It would seem that they were far more advanced and better fighters than the plains Indians, and the wars they fought with the whites more brutal, bloody, and much longer than those of the plains Indians.
Eckert is not taken seriously by that most unforgiving of modern-day Historians: the serious 18th Century reenactors.
But like Fehrenbach in Texas he is to be credited for making that history, at least in a broadly correct form, available to a wide audience. Its just that a lot of specifics of what Eckert wrote are eiter contrary to other sources, or not mentioned in original documentation.
As for the "better fighting" thing, maybe its explained in part by population demographics. IIRC in the early 18th Century there were still 25,000 Cherokees alone in Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. By contrast, out west, there might not have been that many Plains Indians between Mexico and Canada, even in the height of the horse period and before the Nineteenth Century epidemics hit.
Then too, Americans was increasing back then at a rate approximating that of modern-day Kenyans. Overwhelming as the flood of settlers was to the Ohio Tribes in the 18th Century, that was increased into a tidal wave of settlement through the Nineteenth Century when we was spreading across the Continent.
A couple of things not often pointed out however (tho' touched upon earlier on this thread); Hostile Indians scared the begeezus out of average Americans throughout most of our Frontier Period (with good reason).
The other is specific to the 18th Century East. Turns out that trade and Indian preferences likely had a great deal of influence on the style of the longrifle, beginning in the first half of the Eighteenth Century. And even when using smoothbores devoted an inordinate amount of time and shot to developing proficiency with the same.
One of the more interesting tribes is the Lenape AKA Delawares, present and surviving across tbe Frontier throughout the frontier era. Not bad when a 17th Century New Jersey group ends up lending their name 200 years later to a mountain range in West Texas (the Delaware Mountains, sharing top-billing there with the Apache Mountains).
John Heckewelder lived among the Delawares on the Ohio as a Moravian Missionary for more than 20 years (1760's - 1780's) and published an account of those people that is a valued primary source today...
http://www.archive.org/details/historymannersa00heckgoogAccounts of ordinary folks for the most part, in day to day life.
I'm recalling the account of a grizzled veteran warrior of wide renown, face almost entirely covered with tattoos referencing scalps taken and war victories, who later got Christianity and when asked about his prior war exploits would only recount his capture by Jesus.
Unfortunately this guy ended up among the ninety-six unresisting Christian Delawares later clubbed to death by some Pennsylvania Militia at Gnaddenhutten.
Birdwatcher
