Native people are people – they possess the same capacity for good and evil as anyone else. The only difference is they lacked the industrial capacity for cruelty other cultures had.
Especially when they began trading in the fur trade for guns, they created their own little fiefdoms for hunting, which meant keeping other tribes off their land.
The Haudenosaunee/Iroquois also practiced slavery, including ritual torture and mutilation.
Native people are people – they possess the same capacity for good and evil as anyone else. The only difference is they lacked the industrial capacity for cruelty other cultures had.
Especially when they began trading in the fur trade for guns, they created their own little fiefdoms for hunting, which meant keeping other tribes off their land.
I do want to be clear: I am not excusing what was done to the Native Americans or any other native people by colonizers – it’s inexcusable.
But regardless of good intentions: the “Noble Savage” myth is racism and it needs to die as it’s an erasure of agency.