Contact with Europeans was disastrous for Native Americans. What some Europeans ethnocentrically called “taming the wilderness” actually amounted to the destruction of many ancient civilizations. Exposure to European diseases took a terrible toll among Native Americans, and tens of thousands more fell victim to violence at the hands of the Europeans seeking wealth and land. By the
15 beginning of the twentieth century, the “vanishing Americans” numbered a mere 250,000 (Tyler, 1973).