Answer :
Final answer:
The claim that deaths caused by Plains Indians were in the hundreds rather than thousands is true. While conflicts did occur, like the Dakota War of 1862, the mythologized numbers are exaggerated. Furthermore, Native American populations suffered vastly more due to disease and violence following European colonization.
Explanation:
The statement that deaths at the hands of Plains Indians probably numbered only in the hundreds, not reaching the several thousand reported in legend, is considered true.
Historical accounts and archaeological evidence suggest that the numbers of non-Native American fatalities due to conflicts with Plains Indians were exaggerated in legends and folktales.
While conflicts such as the Dakota War of 1862 did result in the deaths of white settlers (between five and eight hundred, according to some reports), these figures do not approach the several thousand often claimed in myth.
It is also crucial to note that the Native American population suffered dramatically after European colonization. Although epidemics were a significant cause, acts of violence and warfare also contributed to their decline.
For instance, during King Philip's War, the assassination of a praying Indian and Harvard graduate by a Wampanoag did indeed trigger a conflict, as indicated by historical records.
Nonetheless, the scale of Indigenous fatalities far exceeded those on the settlers' side.
Scholars estimate that diseases brought by Europeans resulted in the deaths of an astronomical percent of the Native American population, with losses such as eight million people dying from diseases in Mexico alone.
This depopulation was driven largely by disease; however, violence and forced labor also played roles.
The impact of European colonization led to a devastating reduction in the Indigenous population, from possibly twenty-two million in 1492 to a mere fraction of that 150 years later.
