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Brave lone horsemen riding fearlessly into the wide open prairies to seek out and fight the evil Red men who were also hunting them. This is the stuff of legend about the American Old West: it is also just so much horse droppings. The fact is that the Indians who lived in the Old West were no more blood thirsty than the settlers who were just looking for a place to live. Both sides came into the Western areas with expectations and prejudices that did not help them to live peacefully together.

On the Indian side was the fact that their very languages generally made it clear that anyone who was not of the tribe was not a human being and therefore did not count in the cosmic scheme of things. On the Whiteman side there was the feeling that they were the owners of all they surveyed if no one else was clearly present to contest that ownership. A farm or ranch that was built while the indigenous folk were somewhere else was home to the builder and a pesthole to the returning natives.

The conflict between the cowboys and Indians was based on misconceptions on both sides. Unfortunately, these mistakes continued even into the modern era.