Lies About Native Americans That Are Finally Being Debunked

If you get your history from TV and films — not a good idea, admittedly — you’re liable to have a very skewed idea of Native American life. For example, one thing popular culture has almost entirely failed to portray is the true role of women in Native American societies. Usually, they’re seen in the background, huddled in teepees while the men do the fighting.

But the truth is that there certainly were Native American women who took up arms in defense of their way of life. One prime example is Buffalo Calf Road Woman of the Cheyenne. Her people were being pushed off their ancestral lands by settlers and she was one of the resisters. She saw combat in various conflicts including the Battle of Little Big Horn. Arapaho women also fought there.

Where did Native Americans live? In teepees, of course! That, in fact, is utter nonsense. For sure, some Native Americans lived in those conical tents at least some of the time, the tribes of the Great Plains and the prairies of Canada in particular. But very many Native Americans did not habitually use teepees.

The Iroquois people, for example, lived in longhouses. These structures could be anything from 30 to hundreds of feet long and were built with wooden frameworks covered in bark. Extended families would live together in these dwellings. Then there were the Native Americans who lived in the Mesa Verde who built stone structures on cliffside sites. Not a teepee in sight.

If asked what the basis of the U.S Constitution was, many might think it simply came from the inspired minds of the Founding Fathers. Perhaps there might have been some influence from the revolution in France? After all, that was erupting at the same time as Americans were creating their governing rules. But how many people know that the American constitution was actually heavily influenced by the Iroquois Nation?

The Great Law of Peace was an oral agreement governing the confederation of six Native American peoples. It was written before European colonialists reached America and contains many elements present in the U.S. Constitution. These included a balance between the power of the federation and its constituent individual nations, an agreed procedure for removing incumbents, and a ban on concurrently holding more than one role. 

When Christian missionaries came across First Nation totem poles in the Pacific Northwest, they often wrongly interpreted their significance. They thought that the artifacts were something the Native Americans worshipped, akin to gods. But those who created these elaborate sculptures actually viewed their totem poles in a quite different way. 

For the people who carved the totem poles, mostly using red cedar, they represented a range of meanings. They could be used to confirm the status of a particular family. Often, they included depictions of animals that had a particular importance to their creators. And in some cases, the totem poles commemorated ancestors. You can see totem poles as gorgeous works of art — but they’re also a form of information storage.

When settlers arrived from Britain and other countries, they obviously brought their own mother tongues with them. Very few went to the trouble of learning Native American languages. But that didn’t mean that they weren’t heavily influenced by them. Perhaps the most obvious manifestation of that comes in many of the place names around the U.S. 

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, and Arkansas are all derived from Native American names. And that’s just some of the “A”s. But it wasn’t only place names that seeped into American English. Many common words we use today come directly from the First Nations. Examples? How about avocado, barbecue, chocolate, potato — we could go on!

Lacrosse. Sounds like a French word, doesn’t it? So it surely must have been the French that invented the game, right? Wrong! If you’re a fan of lacrosse, you have Native Americans to thank for your favorite sport. Specifically, it was the Algonquin people and others in the St. Lawrence Valley and America’s northeast that developed the sport. But why?

The First Nation peoples saw it as much more than a mere pastime, although they took pleasure in the sport, which used to be known as stickball. For them, the game was an opportunity to train in the art of combat, and it even had religious significance. Contests could last for days and spread over many miles, with participants sometimes running into the thousands. There was even betting on the outcome of matches, which were often between rival villages.

The name Hiawatha is actually famous because of Henry Longfellow’s epic 1855 poem “The Song of Hiawatha.” But although Longfellow’s character is fictional, there was a real figure going by that name dating from circa 1400. This character’s life and times are disputed by different sources. What we do know is that the Iroquois Confederation, attributed to principles created by Hiawatha, was certainly a real thing.

Many say that the legendary Hiawatha was a member of the Mohawk people. But there are also those, particularly the Iroquois, who claim that he was actually a son of the Onondaga tribe. Some researchers prefer to think of Hiawatha as a combination of several actual figures from history. Whatever the truth, Hiawatha has had a powerful influence on our modern conception of First Nation peoples. 

Red was a highly prestigious color, largely reserved for rulers and the wealthy in antiquity. People around the world spent time and money hunting for source materials that could make stronger hues of the color to use as dye, an obsession that continued into the Middle Ages. But it was Native Americans that came up with the most pure and striking red.

Conquistador Hernán Cortés stumbled across the most powerful red dye that had ever been seen. And he found it in a market in Mexico City, or Tenochtitlan as it was known then. In fact, Mesoamericans in Oaxaca, Puebla, and Tlaxcala had perfected the brilliant red dyes as early as 2000 B.C. They had discovered that the crushed remains of cochineal beetles produced a brilliant red. They used the powder to dye everything from feathers to cloth and also as paint for murals.

There has been a persistent myth — perhaps falsehood is a better word — that Native Americans were pretty much all the same. Some trace that misconception right back to Christopher Columbus. When he landed up in the Caribbean in the 15th century, he thought he had reached the Indies. So he simply called all the native peoples he met “Indians” and the name stuck for the indigenous peoples of all the Americas.

Poppycock is one of the politer words you could use to describe the Columbus blunder. But others later added to the myth. In his 1830 message to Congress, President Andrew Jackson claimed that the Native American territories were peopled by “a few thousand savages.” A disgraceful slur indeed. The truth is that even today there are 567 recognized Native American nations. And each has its own distinctive culture and history.

As The Washington Post pointed out in 2017, the story that naïve Native Americans sold Manhattan to the Dutch for “$24-worth of trinkets” is likely a gross simplification of the truth. What’s important is to understand what the Lenape people thought they were doing. And the starting point for that is recognition that the idea of selling land so that someone “owned” it would have been unknown to the Lenape.

Far more plausible is the idea that they were giving rights of usage to the fur trappers who were keen to have access to the Hudson River. It’s true that there are some historians, albeit a minority, who argue that the Lenape would have been knowledgeable enough about trade to have understood the transaction. The consensus among experts rejects this interpretation, according to The Washington Post.

He is undoubtedly one of the most feted of Native Americans. But Sitting Bull did not lead his Lakota Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne warriors into battle against General Custer’s 7th Cavalry in 1876. In fact, it was another renowned First Nation leader that stood at the vanguard in an action that resulted in the deaths of Custer and 209 of his men at the legendary Last Stand.

Sitting Bull was present in the large encampment — with as many as 10,000 — that Custer had intended to attack. But it was Crazy Horse who led the attack at the head of some 3,000 warriors. Sitting Bull remained in the camp attending to the welfare of the women and children there. He did send two of his nephews into battle, White Bull and One Bull, but Sitting Bull was considered to be past the age of active combat. 

If ever a woman has been buried under the weight of legend, it’s Pocahontas. Getting back to basics, the first thing to learn is her real name: it was Amonute. Still, it’s also true that — as was common among her people — she also had what was known as a secret name: Matoaka. As best we know, Pocahontas was born around 1596 and her father was a chief of the Algonquian-speaking tribes. 

It was while she was only 11 or 12 years old that she secured her place in history. That was because she saved an Englishman called John Smith from death at the hands of her own father, Powhatan. Yet there is some question as to whether that even really happened, as the evidence comes from Smith’s account alone. Some even say that Smith took his tale from a Scottish ballad.

The dismal and cruel tale of African slavery in America is well-known. But the fact that large numbers of First Nation people were enslaved is much less widely recognized. Brown University’s website quoted the words of Professor Linford D. Fisher in 2017. Native American slavery, Professor Fisher pointed out, “is a piece of the history of slavery that has been glossed over.” And the truth is truly shocking.

Professor Fisher continued, “Between 1492 and 1880 between 2 and 5.5 million Native Americans were enslaved in the Americas.” For example, many First Nation people were transported into slavery by the New England colonies during King Philip’s War. That was when Native Americans rose against the settlers in 1675 and 1676. They were transported as far afield as Spain, Jamaica, and North Africa. 

Native Americans were nomadic people who roamed the land without building permanent settlements. That statement, while not completely untrue, is seriously misleading. Some of those who lived on the Great Plains did indeed live in temporary settlements and moved location according to the seasons and the availability of game animals, mainly buffalo.

To be sure, the population of North America was small compared to today. Even so, there were some 18 million Native Americans living on the land in pre-Columbian times. And they most certainly did have permanent settlements, some of which could certainly be described as cities. A prime example is Cahokia in modern Illinois. In its 12th-century heyday, its population was as high as 20,000.

Rubber: an everyday product we mostly take for granted. But who first discovered it? In fact, the story of rubber goes back more than 3,000 years to the time of the Mesoamericans. Europeans knew nothing of the substance until Christopher Columbus brought back a rubber ball from his travels in the Americas.  

It was ancient Native American people who discovered that you could tap latex from the right kind of tree. They combined it with liquid extracted from morning glory plants and, presto! They had rubber. The Mayans and the Aztecs used the versatile material to make everything from sandals to rubber bands and balls for ritual games.

A Native American would find it ludicrous to be accused of being too ready to wage war. After all, they were the ones pushed off their lands by settlers, often with ruthless violence. Yet countless movies and TV shows have portrayed American Indians as perpetually engaged in fighting, as if it were a way of life for them.

To be sure, there was violence in Native American societies in pre-Columbian times. Unfortunately, that’s true of just about every human society we know about. But it was not the case that the First Nations were exceptionally brutal. And it’s worth remembering that the bitter battles between Native Americans and Europeans from the time of the Pilgrims onwards ultimately had one result: crushing victory for the incomers.

Tecumseh was a warrior chief of the Shawnee people active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He oversaw the creation of a Native American Confederacy with the aim of halting the incursion of European settlers into what was known as the Northwest Territory. That was the region around the Great Lakes. 

There’s a persistent legend that Tecumseh was actually born and brought up in what is now Canada. In fact, as best we know, Tecumseh was born near modern Springfield, Ohio, in 1768. Although he traveled widely, he spent most of his life in the territories today covered by the states of Indiana and Ohio. He was active in Canada later in life when he joined the British in their fight with the U.S. in the War of 1812. But he spent most of his life in America.

Modern medicine has improved the lives of millions, and it’s all thanks to scientific developments in the Western world. Well, up to a point that’s true. Yet one of the most important innovations in medical history was the introduction of effective anesthesia, which began in Europe in the second half of the 19th century. But there’s more to the story than that. 

As it turns out, the Native Americans already had a method of anesthesia long before the Europeans introduced nitrous oxide and ether into medicine. First Nation people in Virginia used a plant called jimson weed as a pain reliever. Another anesthetic was derived from the bark of American black willow. It contains salicin, a chemical widely used today under the familiar name of aspirin. 

Probably the most that many of us know about Squanto, or Tisquantum, is that he helped the pilgrims who’d arrived aboard the Mayflower. This Native American had a skill that was unusual at the time — he could speak English. So he was able to guide the pilgrims in their early battle for survival in their new land. But how did he learn English? That’s where the story gets a lot darker.

Around 1605, an Englishman, George Weymouth, had seized Squanto and took him to England. He somehow returned to his homeland in about 1615 only to be abducted again. This time, one Thomas Hunt captured Squanto and sold him into slavery in Spain. Again, Squanto managed to make it back to his own land in 1619. But this time he found that his entire village had been wiped out by disease. Only after those trials did he meet the Mayflower pilgrims.

When Europeans began to settle in North America, they found a land in pristine condition, scarcely inhabited by humans and virtually untouched by them. That’s the myth, and it’s utterly wrong. By one estimate, there were as many as 18 million individuals living in the territories north of the Rio Grande in pre-Columbian times. 

What’s more, the First Nation peoples had adapted the land to their own purposes. They cultivated a range of crops, growing everything from corn to pumpkins and beans. On top of that, the people of the Great Plains used fire to create the vast grasslands where massive buffalo herds thrived. So the idea that Native Americans were passive inhabitants of their ancestral lands is plain wrong — as are most of the "facts" history books will tell you about colonial America.

Everyone who learned the poem of Paul Revere had it in their heads he shouted "The British are coming!" However, he actually said, "The regulars are coming" because citizens of Massachusetts at the time still considered themselves British.

Although many portraits imply all the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence at the same time, it was actually signed over the course of several months by all the men. Also Nic Cage never actually stole it, but you already knew that.

Loads of kids are taught the Puritans were suffering religious persecution, and when they finally escaped to America, they preached religious freedom. However, they were actually incredibly close-minded and banished people who didn't believe what they did.

One bizarre myth people believe — even though it's not necessarily written in textbooks — is that George Washington had wooden teeth. He did wear dentures, but they consisted of ivory, bits of metal, and teeth from deceased humans.

During the Revolutionary War, it's a common belief the British grossly underestimated the colonists before they attacked. However, Britain didn't actually have such a confident outlook. In the end, they suffered a horrible defeat.

The Salem Witch Trials took place in 1692 after several women in Salem, Massachusetts were accused of witchcraft. However, none were burned at the stake like movies and books lead us to believe; most were actually executed by hanging.

Every year, millions of people celebrate Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November. However, there's no proof that was when it occurred in history. When the celebration started, it was a three-day harvest festival that occurred sometime in September or November.

While many people believe when the settlers came they set up colonies completely separate from Native Americans, it was actually quite common for settlements to include both groups. Some settlers even left their own colonies to join them.

Americans are proud to celebrate July fourth as the day the country declared independence from England, but it was actually two days earlier on July second. The first printing of the Declaration of Independence was on the fourth.

During battle, soldiers would often run out of ammunition, and it's a common belief they melted down cups and plates to make bullets. However, those items contained pewter, which was a much less effective material compared to lead.

Many historians believed there was once a special tax on mirrors because they were shipped in small pieces as a way to avoid taxes on large panes. The truth is it was simply easier to transport smaller pieces.

Shop signs that had pictures instead of words were once thought to cater to a largely illiterate settler population. However, research proved most people actually were literate, and pictures were just the trend.

There's an odd belief floating around that pregnant women would seclude themselves from society until they gave birth. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Pregnant women led their lives as usual until the big day arrived.

The American Revolution is commonly thought of as a war between American colonies and Britain. While those groups were indeed at war, there were colonists on both sides, as well as other countries offering assistance.

Many women in the colonial era wore long skirts, which led some to believe it was forbidden for them to show their ankles. Although there were periods where that occurred, colonial times weren't one of them.

Many colonial staircases have a top step that's shorter than the rest. This was not to alert homeowners of stumbling intruders — it was because staircases were built from the bottom up, leaving less wood for the top step.

A huge part of colonial life was apprenticeships, but they didn't all last 11 years like many believe. They varied from apprentice to apprentice, and some even ended at age 21 regardless of when it began.

Even though there were a few instances where guerrilla warfare tactics were used in battle, almost all of the fighting happened the same way — soldiers faced each other from across the battlefield and took turns shooting.

Depending on what region continental soldiers were stationed in, not all of them were starving and worn out on a daily basis like many people think. In fact, some battalions had substantial provisions and comfortable housing.