QUORA: Were Native Americans really as peaceful & innocent (not hostile), during 17th-19th c., towards colonists & each other as often claimed?

[(David P.)]

QUORA: Were Native Americans really as peaceful & innocent
(not hostile), during 17th-19th c., towards colonists &
each other as often claimed?
by Ernest W. Adams, Lived in The USA (1966–99), 10 months ago

Some tribes were fairly peaceful farmers: the Pueblo, Hopi,
& Zuni, for example. Others were extremely warlike &
considered killing enemies an important rite of passage
for young men. They raided other tribes for property &
slaves, & ritually tortured prisoners to death.

The peaceful tree-hugging native American is an invention
of the 60s counterculture, which some of the native
Americans lost no time in taking advantage of.

[El Castor]

Little known fact about Sam Houston. As a boy in Tennessee he ran away
from home and went to live with the Cherokees. They welcomed him into
the tribe, and gave him a Cherokee name which translates to Raven. He
was a life long friend of the Cherokees.

I had an ancestor who was elected to the Michigan state legislature in
1842. A few weeks into his first session he wrote home to his wife and
described his new life and meeting the governor. The letter was handed
down in the family and I donated it to an historical society a few
years ago. He seemed annoyed and frustrated by one thing in
particular, thieving raids on the local people. The raiders were not
Indians, they were Canadians. (-8