Watching clips from western films with actors like john wayne may be classic american film, but the real stories behind aren't always as sweet. Most of these western movies show the US expansion west and Manifest Destiny, which involved forcefully removing native americans and moving them further west. This actually violated treaties the US had signed with natives about not conquering them, and remaining peaceful with respect to one another
Then, the Indian Removal act happened that put pressure on Native American communities to relocate west. Along with these issues, they had to face other problems like diseases brought from europe which they had no immunity to. The manifest destiny thing was becoming so big it was appearing in newspapers, just basically promoting it. The trail of tears is probably the worst thing that was caused by Manifest Destiny, killing some ridiculous number of cherokee when they were forced west due to disease, weather conditions, etc. I just think it's wrong that the common perception of Native Americans has been so skewed through television and film and even things like sports teams, when considering the hardships they had to face.
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