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I hear you, except that I'd disagree about the Cherokee. They were an uprooted and transplanted tribe from the southeast to Oklahoma. I've seen no credible evidence of the Cherokee being involved as tribal policy in the depravity that you describe.

However, what some of the Plains and Rocky Mountain tribes did to their captives is so horrific that not even our modern counterparts have plumbed to that level of depravity, yet. However, the object was torture, not sexual gratification.

In many ways, this depravity sowed the seeds of their own demise. The Tonkawa, for instance, were key to ending more than two centuries of little challenged rule of the Comanche. They had little love for the white man, but saw alliance with them as the only way to survive their own destruction by the Comanche.

In the same way, Pawnee scouts played a similar role in the conquest of the Sioux and their allies. I always felt sorry for the Pawnee and Mandan, two of the rare agricultural tribe of the Plains.

The Mandans, close cousins to the Sioux (both originated in the Ohio River Valley), were extraordinarily kind and hospitable to explorers ranging from LaVerandre to our own Lewis and Clark. So many died from a smallpox epidemic in the late 1830s and more at the hands of the Sioux afterward.

The Pawnee had the misfortune of being the buffer between the Sioux to the north, their aggressive allies to the west and the Comanche to the south. The numbered about 12,000 when the 19th century opened and less than 800 when they finally petitioned the government to relocate them from their Nebraska homeland to Oklahoma in the late 1880s. Most of the dramatic reduction in their numbers was due to warfare with the Sioux and their allies than white man's diseases, the mirror opposite of the Mandan.

Very sad about your family journals. That is why I'm a strong advocate that anyone in possession of such scan them on to CDs and distribute the contents far and wide to as many family members as possible. Then, they should donate the originals to a trustworthy and stable historical society, something not always easy to find.

Anyway, I agree with you about the Hollywood and PC notions of the noble savage. I had an argument on another thread with a guy who claimed scalping was taught to the red man by the white man. He had some good arguments, but given the depravity which the red man exhibited against his fellow humans long before the white man arrived, I don't think it is possible to make such a definite statement.

Unarguably, just as the French practice of paying for scalps, increased scalping, so the Texan and American practice of paying ransom to liberate captives increased the incidence of taking and trading captives.

I remember when my Mom told me that Grandma gave Clair the journals. I was shocked, because the one who wrote the most and kept in touch with everyone was my Mother. I wish someone would have had the foresight to make copies before their demise.

I used the journals to help trace my genealogy back in 1990's when I first got hooked to the internet. I traced my line all the way back to Ireland, England, France, & Norway. I also learned that my ancestors on my Grandfathers side, Carpenters came over in the late 1600's, while my Grandmothers family, Holts, came over just after the Revolutionary War.

It was the Holts who owned slaves. Many Black Americans by the name of Holt who live in the five state area of Virginia, West Virginia, Ky, Tenn, & North Carolina are most likely descendants of the slaves held by my ancestors. Their land was in the Western part of what is now Virginia. Obviously they owned the land when Virginia and West Virginia was still one state.

Although they did not know it when they met and got married in MT, my Grandmothers family fought against my Grandfathers family during the Civil War. Both families were homesteaders in Mt, and both were descendants from families that owned property in the same geographical area of Western Virginia. So it would have been their grandparents and great grandparents who fought in the Civil War.

Unfortunately I was new to the internet and a real bad virus ate up all my text files. I was so bummed I did not turn my pc back on for 6 Months afterwards. When I did, I stumbled upon FR which gave me a new reason to surf again.

Unarguably, just as the French practice of paying for scalps, increased scalping, so the Texan and American practice of paying ransom to liberate captives increased the incidence of taking and trading captives.

I agree. Rewarding evil will always promote more of the same behavior, but liberals will never learn that evil shrinks when confronted with force.