Phantom Indian Tribes?

The origin of this misinformation is further explained by the fact that early Dutch colonists who settled on Manhattan Island needed a familiar system by which to understand their new surroundings. They had established the same social order of their countries of origin, which included villages, land ownership, and farming. When they could find no such pattern in the Indian territories, they created their own familiarly defined boundaries of Indian land and considered groups of Indians living within certain areas to be members of specific individual nations. In fact, Dutch records use the terms "nations" and "tribes" interchangeably.

Wood's writings indicated that particular Indian tribes had "claimed" certain areas of land; in fact, the concept of land ownership and selling of land was foreign to Algonquian-speaking Indians of that time. This is yet another example of imposing Dutch standards on Native American peoples rather than an accurate interpretation of history. Most of today's experts agree that Wood's original 13 Indian tribes, as well as other tribes similarly designated in old Dutch records, were simply place names that the Dutch used to refer to specific groups of Indians.

In another case of misinformation that stubbornly continues to hold its place in history, Texas archaeologists have determined that some of the Red River War history was recorded inaccurately. These records were created by the military in an apparent effort to conceal brutalities against Indians during military campaigns to claim Native lands and drive Native peoples into reservations. Patterns of artifacts have revealed that local Indians were not savage warmongers who brought vicious attacks against white settlements. Rather, recent discoveries show that American military carried out sneak attacks on peaceful Indian camps while warriors and able-bodied men were out on hunting expeditions. Most of those remaining in the targeted camps were the elderly, women, and children. Returning warriors made valiant attempts to stave off the attacks in order to allow their families to escape, a futile effort in many cases. Household wares have been uncovered in patterns exposing the fact that families frantically shed their necessities during their flights in order to lighten their loads and hasten their escapes.

Many thanks to Suite101's ArticFox34 for suggesting this topic.

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