Origin of Tall Tales

So, where did the tall tales and stereotypes of the Native Americans come from?

19th century "captivity narratives" were told and exaggerated into lore and legend that told the story of heroic American settlers.  The "good guy" was the white settler, and the "bad guy" was always the Red Man. The Indian female was always the unfortunate, exploited one who did all the work while the man fished, hunted and played at war games. 


Popular in pioneer times, the "dime novel" had a formula for Indian characters - savage, blood thirsty redskins.  A popular French writer claimed his novels were the details of his own American experience, but his novels were both highly stereotyped and written to his own needs and those of his audience.

The Spanish government in Texas, was accused of deliberately exaggerating Indian cannibalism and ferocity in order to discourage settlers from inhabiting the territory according to one Mary Austin Holley.

Swiss artist, Karl Bodmer, a member of German explorer Maximillian's 1833 expedition, attempted at least to bring ethnic accuracy and clarity to his Native American illustrations, but outside the states, most believed that the frontier's native population was doomed by its own primitive nature to eventual extinction.

In the time of the Western pioneer, what people THOUGHT was more important than what was actual fact - and what they THOUGHT became the TRUTH. 

Next time...The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...