Scalps were removed from the Indians, not the other way around

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In many historical writings about the Wild West, Indians are portrayed as savages scalping defenseless American settlers. The absurdity of this statement lies in the fact that most of the scalps were removed not by the Indians, but from the Indians. And they were filmed by the very same defenseless American settlers, organized into marauding gangs.

Now someone will goggle and exclaim "nonsense." No, this is not nonsense. Before the appearance of white people on the continent, scalping among the Indians was carried out only for religious purposes and only among a small part of the tribes. It was not customary for the Indians to scalp enemies until they were taught to do so by their pale-skinned people.

The Dutch began this process in the 16th century and the British continued in the 17th century. It was they who first began to remove the scalps of enemies during the colonial wars on the continent.

Scalping has been a profitable business. The reason is that every scalp of a French colonist was paid well. The scalp was confirmation of the murder of the enemy. The Dutch and the British were engaged in scalping on their own and incited the allied tribes of the Indians to attack the French colonists, as well as to conduct inter-tribal wars, paying not with money, but with "fire water". They bought the scalps of both white people and Indians and exchanged them for money from their governments.

In the future, the hunt was announced for the Indians themselves, since the conquerors needed Indian lands. At the same time, the number of Indians killed because of the scalp was hundreds and thousands of times more than white people. The bloody hunt made good profits. So in Pennsylvania, in 1703, the scalp of a male Indian cost $ 124, and a scalp for a woman $ 50. It was a huge amount of money at that time and the Indians were killed by whole tribes. White people gathered large punitive brigades and went hunting, sparing no women or children. In historical records, you can find a mention of the Bloody Bill, who was able to remove 60 scalps in one day, and among his victims were both Indians and white people.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, more than 100 million of the indigenous people of America were destroyed, while the population of Europe during the period of the beginning of American colonization was only 120 million. This tragedy is the most massive genocide in the entire history of mankind, stretching over several centuries. The once freedom-loving Indian tribes have completely degraded and are now forced to live on reservations, where the white man drove them. The main goal of this action was the complete destruction of the indigenous peoples of America. From a legal point of view, this process has not yet been completed. In the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, a 1756 law has not yet been repealed, according to which white settlers were entitled to a reward for every Redskin killed.