>>11245667Using "natives" like this is like asking were Europeans noble and proud. That isn't a singular entity - plains indians differed a great deal from coastal ones, and extremely so from Mesoamerican indians. I'll just assume you are referring to the North American indians that the Americans dealt with in the course of Manifest Destiny.
The basic story is that NA Indians had similar kinds of politics and racial hatreds for one another as would occur in any other part of the world. Before Whites came by they were busy killing one another, setting up territories and trade routes, developing their religious practices, and otherwise going about their business in their largely migratory nomadic civilizations.
When Whites came with advanced weapons and resources, they were met in the same way as the Japanese met the Dutch traders - as attractive means of getting an upper-hand over their familiar enemies. Indians quickly adapted and incorporated many European technologies like guns, steel, and horses and used them to exterminate their long-time rivals and secure their territories against one another and better exploit their natural resources - often to ruination. After weakening their racial rivals, they fell in turn to Europeans who had practiced strategic conquest for thousands of years.
Today, NA Indians are remnant nations who are absolutely crippled by their subservient position to an alien race. They basically have to make up their own cultures and religions based on scraps that were preserved from multiple attempts at misguided assimilation. NA Indians often masquerade as the "Mystic Indian" whenever dealing with Whites because they know that is how they get what they want, but most are hardly better than drunks and vagabonds in European-styled society with no higher spiritual calling than your average hobo.
There's a lesson in there somewhere.
