Ever since the first Europeans inhabited America there has been a fascination with its land. Its beautiful scenery and its rich soil made, for the settlers, an attractive place to settle . Shortly after the colonies formed, the people started to accept farming as a way of life. Gradually the colonists became self-sufficient and eventually broke all political ties with their mother country, England. In the distance the native Americans (dubbed Indians by the settlers) watched as more and more Europeans came into their homeland. American government took advantage of the Indians by tricking them into selling there lands, not aware of what they were doing, and forcing them off if they resisted. The Indians became upset as they were constantly being shouldered off of their land. In order to respect each others space, treaties were made between the government and the various tribes of Indians. The discovery of gold, however, changed all of this. Instantaneously the treaties were out of the question and white settlers streamed into tribal lands. As society kept surging west and more treaties were broken, Indian tribes either resisted or were taken advantage of in the formation of other treaties. The beginning of capitalism only enhanced the whites progress west. After the civil war ended people flowed into the west in search of new land. Soon, railroads were plowing through Indian lands, then telegraph wires, then stagecoach lines. The end result was the Indians lost their homeland and their way of life. Because the Indians did not understand-until it was too late-the true essence of white culture, their existence as a people was essentially doomed. Part of the cause of the Indian's downfall was related to certain assumptions that they made regarding the white culture. One assumption was that the whites would fight with honor on the battlefield, and that they would use tactics similar to those used by Indian war parties. The honorable w...