GOSHEN COUNTY – As kids, we may have played a game called “Cowboys and Indians,” and we were certain, at that tender age, who the good guys were, and who the bad guys were. It is only as we got older that it was revealed to us that the relationship between the white settlers and Native Americans was far more nuanced, and not nearly so black and white.

The reality of the experience was very different. At the outset, the relationship was frequently one of mutual curiosity and an effort to establish mutual benefit between the peoples. This relationship was played out multiple times in a variety of ways even before Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery made its way west. Both societies benefited from their associations with each other and, generally, there was peace if not mutual understanding.

Unfortunately, outside pressures brought more and more citizens of the United States through the Rocky Mountain region and this encroachment brought rising tensions and suspicions. For their part, officials of the federal government were desperate to keep the peace and forged a series of treaties with the Indigenous nations of the area to do so, but it was not to last. As the relentless march to build the new nation progressed, the mutual suspicion on the plains turned into resentment, resentment turned into violence, and violence turned into catastrophe.

Join Mike Kassel as he explores how this mutually beneficial relationship of the Lewis and Clark era devolved in a single lifetime into the wars that killed Custer and drove Native Americans from their homes and onto the reservations, creating the west we live in today.

The Goshen County Historical Society welcomes the public to attend their meeting on Tuesday, May 22 at 7 p.m. at the Platte Valley Community Room. Presented by Mike Kassel, associate director/curator Old West Museum, Cheyenne.