Taboo tales told around campfires have passed down to us valuable insights into what happened between cowboys and Native Americans in the days of the westward expansion. What we think we know from having watched Hollywood movies and television shows is mainly faulty information.

What really happened: During the 1800s after the United States completed the Louisiana Purchase from France, a vast expanse of 827,000 square miles suddenly was added to American sovereign lands. Conflicts immediately surfaced when it was discovered Native People were living on the vast land as they had for centuries. A sometimes violent campaign began to remove Native Americans from the lands upon which they had lived for so long.

Understandably angry Native men from many tribes of indigenous inhabitants exacted a notorious natural revenge against the interlopers.

Compared to cowboys, Native men in America were sexually uninhibited. They were free to be themselves as males will be. This was true in large part because Natives were not raised within Christian dogma; they therefore felt no religious or moral restraints or guilty denial to deprive them of what Europeans warned were potentially dangerous “pleasures of the flesh.”

In turn, a natural male lust drove Natives to capture young cowboys whom they perceived as freshly available sex objects just asking to be conquered by tribal warriors seeking revenge.

Hold onto your hat, cowboy! Memories of the first time you’re captured and fucked by a tribal warrior will last your entire lifetime.

Some of the more violent tribes in America favored more extreme retribution against cowboys.