Starting with the earliest contact between Europeans and American Indians, Europeans viewed native people through cultural blinders that often confused them about the realities of Native American life. Images of other peoples and places can play a dominant role in affecting how two (or more) societies interact, and decisions made on the basis of ethnocentric imagery usually lead to confusion, misunderstanding, and war between peoples. European views of Indians in early America rarely reflected the nuanced reality of life for native populations. Indigenous peoples came to symbolize many things for Europeans, depending on the background and motivations of the person discussing them, although popular conceptions of Indians followed a particular historical progression as Euro-American people experienced more contact with Indians. Indians were often portrayed in a negative light, although by the time of the American Revolution, if not...