Romance, Fact or Fiction?

When I think of the Native Americans, I think of a people who are proud of their heritage and proud of who they are. They were generous, open-hearted, kind and loving people. Even though they aren’t able to live a quarter of the lives they once did, they continue to walk forward in who their people once were, and still are. Stories like the one below not only gloss over the Native Americans’ contributions to this country, but over the deceit, manipulative, calculating and opportunistic ways of the white men which devastated their way of life. Greed, selfishness and individualism are the great motivators that have brought men to cheat, steal and create war for resources. The events that took place as long ago as the 15th century are really not as different from those that are happening now. We need to stop looking at history in fragments, but as continuous.

Additional interesting info:
African Native American Exhibit

The Fur Trade as an excuse for disenfranchising the Native Americans?? I wonder...

The Fur Trade
As for the Mountain Men and other counterparts, many of them stayed

active long after the fur decline, as scouts and guides for the army or

as settlers; some became the nemeses of the very people from whom they

had learned so much-they were among the only whites skilled enough

to track the warring Indians.

Because of the rugged Indian-like life-style
of the fur traders-from the French voyageurs and coureurs de bois to the
Hudson’s Bay Company explorers to the American Mountain Men-they, like the
American cowboy, have come to be romanticized. They certainly were

stalwart, courageous, and individualistic, and, of all the whites entering

the domain of the Indians, perhaps the most appreciative and respectful
of Indian ways.

But there were also those traders who held the Indians in disdain, using

whatever means they could, especially alcohol, to cheat them. Although

there is little comparison between the depredations these opportunistic

individuals imposed on the Indians and those imposed by the the majority

of Spanish conquistadors, for example, who sought to conquer, plunder, and

enslave the Indian population, certain traders might nevertheless be called

the harbingers of an insensitive and exploitative white culture.