Thus, we may fancy, thought the Algonquins, Iroquois, Mohicans, Tuscaroras, and the Cherokees, the more sedentary eastern tribes early to experience the white man’s aggression. At length they concluded that their first welcome had been unwise and wrecked themselves in efforts to drive the invaders out, but even in this purpose the tribes could not unite. Alliances reluctantly made between them were carelessly broken in the hour of peril. There is record of few confederations of Indian tribes that acted with any degree of unity. The ordinary tribal relationships were hostile. Indeed, every Indian tribe had at least one implacable enemy. As Chief Little Plume once said, “As long as there remains a Crow and a Piegan, so long will there be war.”[161] Even in their campaigns with the white men they were inconstant and uncertain and quite as much the victims of treachery and double dealing as they were perpetrators of such offenses. In what light was the Indian held by the white settlers of America? It has already been noted that Europe’s Christian sovereigns and their governors disregarded the Indians’ tribal ownership. They were primitive, pagan, and of ill repute. Human beings they were, perhaps, but with a hazy past, precarious present, and reckless future. If they could be converted to Christianity, well and good. That blessing would adequately compensate for the loss of their hunting grounds. Salvation in heaven was far better than savagery on earth. Hence, we learn that the Pilgrim Fathers first “fell upon their knees and then upon the aborigines.” Roger Williams, William Penn, Zebulon Pike, John C. Calhoun, and Brigham Young raised dissenting views, but theirs were as voices crying in the wilderness. Other more self-seeking councils prevailed. Many were the voices raised in condemnation. General Phil Sheridan, in his oft-quoted comment, said, “There is no good Indian but a dead Indian.... If a white man steals, we put him in prison; if an Indian steals, we give him a blanket. If a white man kills, we hang him; if an Indian kills, we give him a horse to put the blanket on.”[162] Another characterization from a Montana frontiersman goes, “An Indian’s heart is never good until he is hungry and cold.” Jim Stuart, than whom no man had more occasion to harshly judge Indians about Yellowstone, made the following observation: “Arro-Ka-Kee” or The Big Rogue [eminently appropriate, that name], stood six and a half feet high in his moccasins and weighed two hundred and seventy-five pounds. He was accompanied by “Saw-a-bee Win-an,” who was a good Indian, although not dead, which I note as an exception to the general rule.[163] The Earl of Dunraven professed to express the Sportsman’s viewpoint when he said that Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack had the same feeling for Indians that they entertained toward game. That is to say, “They love them, and they slay them.”