Wrong. the first ones to get the whole thing started were the savages, who massacred and tortured innocent civilians. The government just adopted their policies and treated them with the same level of depravity that they treated the settlers. Here is a little exercise for you. Take every purported “massacre” committed against the indians and put it on a timeline. You’ll find that the outrageous brutality of the Indians upon innocent civilians preceded those dates. The US Government was originally ineffective in their response until the demands of the western territories and governorships to stop the Indian violence and raids. Treaties signed by Indian chiefs were regularly ignored by warriors seeking plunder and blood. That is when, for the most part, the US government came to the realization that the Indians were ungovernable and not willing or incapable of assimilation to an agrarian, peaceful society. The response, although not pretty, resulted in their forceful separation from their lands and territories, from which the Indians had used to launch countless raiding parties and settler massacres. As for “non-combatant” indians, are you referring to many of the women in the tribes that played an equal role in torturing captured settlers, soldiers and mexicans, or just the children? Sorry, but war is hell and yes, at some point the Indians got a taste of the savagery that they unleashed. That was on them in my book.
Wrong. The federal government broke the terms of the treaty it had with them. That was the first thing that got it started.