John McMahon
2 min readMay 6, 2021

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Other than the caption, there is no mention of any actual Indian tribes, as though they were all the same which they most definitely were not. They didn't have the same languages either. The Aztec and Inca Empires were captured so easily by a handful of Europeans because they had made so many enemies by oppressing and enslaving their neighbors, and with the Aztecs throw in human sacrifice victims gathering on top of that. The Six Nations of the Iroqouis constantly fought the Algonquin speaking tribes to take captives which they would incorporate into their village to spread out the bloodline and replace people who had died. If they got their hands on you during a raid, and they generally just killed the older people and adult men, not going back to their village was not an option. You went, just like a slave. They even incorporated white children and women taken in raids.

In the book and movies of "Last of the Mohicans", the supposed villain Magua wants to wreak a hideous revenge on Col. Munro and his children because Munro had caused Iroquois Magua's family to be wiped out and him to be captured by the Huron, and he was forced to become one of them. Being a warrior, he had to maintain his honor by serious get-back, which he certainly got on Munro himself.

That "warrior" or "brave" title of Indian men was not an honorary address. You had to be ready to kill people. War was a critically important part of the culture of the Eastern Woodlands and Plains Indians, which is one of the reasons they did not get along with the whites, who just wanted to make money. Even the Five Civilized Tribes could not put down the tomahawk.

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