As for the "circling the wagons" thing, that ring formation was done each night not to keep hostile Indians out, but to keep their absurdly expensive cattle from wandering off. But deaths due to wagon train clashes were few and far between. government and the military likely number in the millions. Native American deaths caused by the U.S. Especially when you're talking about someone providing a potentially life-saving service (a guide kept you from getting lost, when getting lost meant getting dead). It wasn't necessarily because they were open-minded and peace loving that they abstained from violence, but rather that it's never good business to kill your customers, or vice versa. It was far more likely that the average settler would trade with Native Americans or hire members of various tribes as guides, rather than fight them. Again, that's not zero, but it does mean that the vast majority of settlers never got into a murderous conflict with hostile tribes. During this same period, settlers killed over 400 Native Americans.
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