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Ur artikeln 5 Ridiculous Myths Everyone Believes About the Wild West, angående myten om ständiga konfrontationer mellan nybyggare och ursprungsbefolkning (länkar till källor angående siffrorna finns i artikeln):

Of the hundreds of thousands of pioneers who willingly trudged all the way through Nebraska, only a few hundred died in clashes with Native Americans.
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During this same period, settlers killed over 400 Native Americans. Again, that's not zero, but it does mean that the vast majority of settlers never got into a murderous conflict with hostile tribes. 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. 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. 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).

Native American deaths caused by the U.S. government and the military likely number in the millions.