Throughout the history of America, indigenous people have been portrayed as wild savages who live in tipis, hunt bison and kill everyone who comes on their land. Children and teenagers are fed these stereotypes through cartoons, movies, literature, Disney movies and history books used in schools. Many of these portrayals are false or leave out information on about who “red” men, and women, really are. The first stereotype I will address is that no one has red skin. My grandfather was a fullblood Comanche and his skin was a light chocolate brown, or maybe beige.

When asked what an Indian is, an image that might come to the minds of many people are half naked, painted men running around a campfire preparing to fight cowboys or military men protecting America’s freedom and justice from these savages. Not all tribes used paint, wore feathers, hunted bison or lived in tipis. If they were getting worked up to fight, it was because their lands were being taken, their families were being killed and their cultures being destroyed.

In reality, Native Americans helped many pioneers from certain death when they first landed on Plymouth Rock. Natives taught pioneers necessary skills to survive. They taught them how to grow gardens, what animals to hunt, how to build a proper shelter that could withstand the onslaught of the cold during winter. After the “First Thanksgiving,” tribes of New England were systematically wiped out by Puritans, Pilgrims and other colonists.

Part of the U.S. government is based on The Great Tree of Peace, also known as the League of Haudenosaunee, the Iroquois Confederacy’s system of governance. This balanced system of the six major tribes of the northeast region of today’s United States allowed tribal leaders to discuss problems of the dozens of villages that were comprised of thousands of people. The Chiefs and elders (including women) made compromises and decisions together on issues in a civil manner. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin took note of this and even attended meetings of the council.

“It would be a strange thing if Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such an union, and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble,” Franklin said in a letter sent to James Parker.

The people of the U.S. started to multiply and flourish. They expanded on to more tribal territory and started taking land for themselves and killed anyone who opposed them under the rationale of Manifest Destiny. These actions are well documented.

After the U.S. established independence from Britain and a government, “Americans” set their sights for the west. They were determined to move further into this unknown territory and were willing to remove or destroy anything in their way, including Native Americans. They started removing Natives by using lethal force by driving them like cattle to new homes called reservations. These reservations were set up on the worse area of the country, making life tougher for Natives by giving them poor farming soil along with little supplies and resources to gather for survival. Meanwhile, thousands of children were forced to attend boarding schools where their cultures were literally beaten out of them.

The various removals of tribes from the Southeast to Indian Territory, often called the “Trail of Tears,” was the worst forced relocation movements. Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations were forced to walk in harsh weathers conditions from their homelands to present-day Oklahoma. Tens of thousands died, including ancestors on my mother’s side, on the struggle to Oklahoma.

But the sad truth is even to this day, natives still live in the worst living conditions you can possibly imagine. Natives are the poorest minority before Hispanics and blacks. Natives also have the highest number of alcoholics and people with diabetes than any minority in the U.S. The government has done nothing to help these problems on the reservations, Natives are still suck with the same problems they have had since they were put there, and the government still does nothing for them.

Many think that Indians do not exist today. That is not true. They are doctors, lawyers, educators, actors and writers. The Sac and Fox athlete Jim Thorpe is considered by many to be the greatest of all time. Consider the number of towns and rivers throughout Kansas that have tribal names. The brick streets in Baldwin City were laid by an Oneida Native American.

So the next time you think about the red man, remember there are always two sides to a story.