History WrittenByTheWinners / RealLife

** For instance, while Christianity at various points was involved in anti-semitism, it was never a total and complete policy by the Church. During the First Crusade, Catholic Bishops and other priests risked their lives to protect Jews from the Rhineland pogroms, and they did it without extortion of conversion. Anti-semitism actually increased with the decline of Church power over that of Kings (which many thinkers associated with "modernity"). The likes of UsefulNotes/EdwardTheFirst, King Philip IV (who moved UsefulNotes/ThePope from Rome to Avignon and crushed the Templars), and the Crown of Castile-Leon were the ones who expelled Jews from England, France, and Spain, and all three regimes are considered important in centralizing the Kingdom-Nation-State. The ghetto was invented in the very cosmopolitan and sophisticated Republic of Venice. Likewise, the deist Creator/{{Voltaire}} was a vicious anti-semite.

* In 1862, the prussian king aimed to increase the military budget, something the parliament denied him. The newly appointed chancelor UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck "solved" the crisis by disregarding the constitution and the rights of the parliament. He won the three wars that he provoked in the following decade, and today the prussian constitutional crisis is merely a footnote in his ascension. Sometimes the winner decides, which part of history not to write.

** For patriotic Serbians, the lost Battle of Kosovo (1389) is perhaps ''the'' defining moment of their country's history. For the Turks it [[ButForMeItWasTuesday is one hard-fought Ottoman victory among many]]. The battle ended up in a ''draw'', with both army commanders being killed and both armies being crippled and unable to continue the fight. Family ties (the Serbian prince Lazar's daughter married Murad's son) and shifting of allegiances (some Serbians lords, including Lazar's son, were allies of the Ottoman empire) muddle the issue even more.

** UsefulNotes/LouisXVI and UsefulNotes/MarieAntoinette were not nearly as bad of people as their contemporaries made them out to be. At best, they were victims of a corruption within the system that made a revolution almost inevitable regardless of their actions taken, and at worst they were just naive and incompetent. Of course to some this overlaps with HistoricalVillainDowngrade because people act as if their fault was stupidity and not active malice when they are clearly guilty, as seen in many surviving documents, of fomenting a civil war and trying to unleash a foreign army on their own subjects. However, after the Bourbon Restoration, the people who judged the King guilty were called [[TheKingslayer regicides]], and they were made into saint-like beings with their flaws played down and made into "tragic figures".

** [[{{Pirate}} Privateers]] get this naturally... some of the biggest and most well known? UsefulNotes/SirFrancisDrake and Capt. Morgan (the one who... you know... has a certain drink named after him). Celebrated heroes in England... demons of history to Spain. Likewise, during UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfPiracy, 25% of all pirate crews were runaway slaves joining the pirate crews at a time when slavery was totally ''legal'' and ''profitable'' and most of the sailors in the English navy were denied meritorious advancement, and a lot of them were press-ganged, poor men kidnapped from England and forced to work crappy jobs. Oh, and UsefulNotes/{{Blackbeard}} never killed anybody and accepted a pardon, when he was attacked by GlorySeeker officers who attacked him while and he and his crew were drunk to elevate their reputation and in a modern legal sense, one would argue that Blackbeard was a victim of extra-legal vigilante execution and denied due process.

** The Jacobin party as a whole were vilified as extremists by the Girondins and Royalists who succeeded to power after Thermidor and had prime positions under Bonaparte, so much so thatg Jacobinism has become a byword for a WithUsOrAgainstUs attitude in politics. The Jacobins were not innocent, but the Girondins were engaged in high-level corruption and behind the scenes dealing with Austria and England. They later declared a war against Austria, which Robespierre denounced as a BreadAndCircuses move to divert away from the reforms they had consistently failed to uphold, and when the early phase of the war had started going against France, leading to Austria coming in hair's breadth of occupying Paris, the Jacobins supported by the Paris crowd went in open insurrection to protect the Revolution and the French people. It was the Jacobin party that led France to victory in the early stages of the Revolutionary Wars thanks to their open meritocracy, their culling of aristocratic nobles and royals from army positions, and introduction of {{Conscription}}.

** The very atheistic Friedrich Engels ironically wrote a popular book that revised the German Reformation and made Thomas Muntzer a real-hero while labeling Martin Luther as a collaborator and SellOut. Muntzer was a true Christian who wanted more rights for peasants while Luther was a cunning man on a power trip whose rebellion against the Church was driven by personal ambition and ended when he founded the right royal backers, by which time Muntzer was executed and Luther wrote a missive about how that guy was a total loser. In East Germany, Muntzer was celebrated as an IconOfRebellion while West Germans championed Luther, though no longer as an uncritical great man.

** As for conversion and missionary activities, in cases of traditionalist societies such as India and UsefulNotes/{{Japan}} (cf, ''Film/{{Silence}}''), "conversion" is always regarded as "forced" and that Christian communities are really "Hindus waiting to be brought back". The idea that lower caste people were genuinely attracted to the egalitarian nature of Christianity (and Islam or Buddhism before it), that they would want to reject the casteist aspects of Hinduism out of religious freedom, naturally doesn't enter into this discourse. Even the likes of UsefulNotes/MahatmaGandhi, while peaceable and tolerant, projected this vision about Indian conversion while modern secular nationalism notes that while it was driven by imperialism, there was genuine authentic feeling among some groups, and these new converts were not necessarily well treated by the missionaries themselves ([[SocialClimber who largely used them to bridge a path to royal patronage]]) but they valued the faith and the message of Christ more than the people who represented it. This may have even predated Christianity-it's theorized that Buddhism was mostly destroyed in India because they advocated abolition of the caste system, causing many lower-caste people to convert and earning the violent anger of the establishment.
** The likes of Edward Gibbon and the French Revolutionaries and other secular advocates (such as Creator/GoreVidal and Creator/SalmanRushdie), and later Communist intellectuals, have sometimes voiced a view that Ancient Rome or pagan cultures were more tolerant and superior than Christian and Islamic societies that followed. And of course, more liberated sexually. Pre-Christian Rome was a varied society, but it was an incredibly nasty one with horrible punishments for "unchaste" Vestal Virgins (they were buried alive in public in a stone chamber). Children who were deformed were exposed and dumped in garbage and female infanticide was ripe in Arabia until [[http://www.mwlusa.org/topics/equality/eminence_women.htm the Prophet Muhammed personally shut it down]]. Likewise, UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} more or less promoted Roman SocialistRealism and passed laws criminalizing adultery and would exile people for their sexual conduct in ways that even Victorians would see as a bit much, old bean. And the Ancient Greeks were far more into homoeroticism than the Latins, who while not opposed tended to frown upon it, and indulged in gay-bashing as invective (cf., UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar) at least when someone supposedly had been the "bottom" in a relationship (which the Romans regarded as "womanish"-they were quite sexist, as were the Greeks in general, something Christians are blamed for but hardly began). Funnily enough, the pagan Romans accused ''Christians'' of engaging in secret orgies (as did the Christians against the pagans, or rival sects). Clearly, the attitude was generally opposing liberal sexual mores (some Roman emperors and other prominent figures were accused-in many cases probably falsely-of these things as well, claimed as a mark of their low character).

** The most common misconceptions about Napoleon, namely his height (TheNapoleon) comes from the success of English propaganda and the rise of the Anglophone. It is a fact that Napoleon was of average height for his time[[note]]The image of him being short-stemmed from him usually being surrounded by his bodyguard unit, which was staffed by very tall men, making him look short by comparison[[/note]] and no historian has found conclusive proof that Napoleon was driven to conquest because of insecurity regarding his height. On the flip-side, it should be noted that Napoleon published his memoirs a mere few years after his defeat, and it became an instant best-seller and cemented his legend, so even though Napoleon lost, he did write his own take on history, a highly self-centered and self-pitying one at that, but equally influential nonetheless.

* All accounts of the Battle of Hastings, the most famous being the Bayeux Tapestry, were created by the Norman conquerors. No Saxon account of the battle survives. There's a nuance to this because the Bayeux Tapestry was commissioned by Normans but actually made by Saxon needle workers. Some historians think they could have smuggled the implication that Harold swore allegiance to William only under duress onto the Tapestry under the noses of the Normans.

** A rather more specific example is Julius Caesar's ''Literature/CommentariesOnTheGallicWar''. The man literally went to war in Gaul, won it, and wrote a history book about it. Needless to say, it is ''very'' flattering towards the Romans in general and their dashing commander in particular, and there is a long and involved debate in the historian community about how much of the ''Commentaries'' are actual historical fact and how much is stuff Julius made up to make himself look good.

* Nearly all of our information about UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire comes from Roman sources; these are often unreliable, as rewriting history to suit the present generation (or people in power) was a long-established Roman tradition. The only reason we are at all aware of the Romans ever doing anything bad is because of ValuesDissonance (they wrote about something that seemed ''good'' to them, like efficiently exterminating a particularly troublesome tribe) and political grudges (i.e. they saw some imperial conquest as strengthening the power-base of someone they disliked so they slagged it and used it as propaganda). Furthermore, our information about the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity has been through Christianity, which means we need to keep in mind the possibility of HistoricalHeroUpgrade and HistoricalVillainUpgrade, particularly with regards to Christian and Pagan emperors.

* A more direct Roman example is their own writings about their enemies, especially the Celtic and Germanic tribes. The Romans were happy to malign them, and since they had little in the way of a written culture, historians pretty much took the Romans' word for it until the second half of the twentieth century. For example, all the evidence we have of druidic human sacrifice derives from Roman sources. However, there is archaeological evidence (ritually killed corpses) to back up ''some'' human sacrifice at least, though it may well have been exaggerated.

** The popular image of UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar is very much shaped by the English narrative (partly helped by some of Creator/WilliamShakespeare's plays) and what people remember are three great victories of Crécy, Poitiers (Maupertuis), and Agincourt, while even the French hardly remember their resounding victories at Patay (where the dreaded English longbowmen sustained crippling losses), Formigny, and Castillon (the latter smashed any hope for the English to ever control French soil again) that allowed them to ''win'' the war, preferring to focus on tragic heroine UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc, who heard God, had the dauphin Charles crowned as [[UsefulNotes/LEtatCestMoi King Charles VII]] in Reims, relieved Orléans from its siege and was treacherously sold to the English-allied Burdgundians and executed on a pyre.

** The Battle of Tours/Poitiers during the Arab Islamic wars of expansion was inflated by Frankish historians as the pinnacle battle that prevented the conquest of Europe by the Islamic armies. Arab scholars of the post-battle period rarely mention this defeat, but ''do'' often describe a more important one: the monumental failure to capture Constantinople, capital of the surviving Roman Empire. Even moreso because UsefulNotes/TheProphetMuhammad himself had designated the conquest of that city as one of Islam's primary objectives; it took another 700 years and another dozen failed sieges before the Ottoman Turks actually managed to do it in 1453. The Arab army that the Franks faced at Tours was a much smaller expeditionary force that was already 4000 miles from their homeland when they crossed the Pyrenees.

** The popular image of UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar is very much shaped by the English narrative (partly helped by some of Creator/WilliamShakespeare's plays) and what people remember are the three great victories of Crécy, Poitiers (Maupertuis), and Agincourt, while even the French hardly remember their resounding victories at Patay (where the dreaded English longbowmen sustained crippling losses), Formigny, and Castillon (the latter smashed any hope for the English to ever control French soil again), preferring to focus on tragic heroine UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc, who had the dauphin Charles crowned as [[UsefulNotes/LEtatCestMoi King Charles VII]] in Reims, relieved Orléans from its siege and was treacherously sold to the English-allied Burdgundians and executed.

** UsefulNotes/TheCrusades was a huge deal for the Crusaders but for the Saracens and Arabs, well until recently it wasn't any big deal. Arab historians of the Middle Ages called it "the Frankish Wars" and saw it as a minor regional offshoot to the ongoing great game between Shia powers, Turks, and other groups. For them, it was not the big serious thing it was for the Christian knights. The biggest threat for them was the Mongols in the East and Baibars, the man who defeated the Mongols and set them back was their IconOfRebellion, not Saladin, who most of them didn't even know about. It was only in the 19th and 20th Century, in response to European colonialism that the Arabs looked at the Crusades and they drew their view ''from Western historians'' like David Hume and others who in UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment came to see it as the OldShame of Europe. This was mostly driven by Arab nationalists who wanted to counter the demonization of racist imperialist propaganda, who naturally were keen to bring up the time when the Europeans were closer to the uncouth psychotic barbarians that they now painted them as.

** The popular image of the UsefulNotes/HundredYearsWar is very much shaped by the English narrative (partly helped by William Shakespeare) and what people remember are the three great victories of Crecy, Poitiers (Maupertuis), and Agincourt, while even the French hardly remember their resounding victories at Patay, Formigny, and Castillon, preferring to focus on tragic heroine Joan of Arc -- and even in her case more on the comparatively minor achievement in the relief of Orléans instead of her involvement at Patay, and her death.

** While the {{Flanderization}} of UsefulNotes/{{Caligula}} is surreal enough, it's nothing compared to what his daughter and sister got (measured in surrealness rather than evilness). The [[UnreliableNarrator official history]] on the emperor Caligula teaches us that the conspiracy that had him murdered was very brave, wise, and benevolent. Not only was Caligula so evil and mad that he totally deserved to die, his two-year-old daughter who was murdered at the same time (because she was his only heir and thus a threat to the usurper) was '''also''' so evil that she totally deserved to die. The same history writing tell us not only that all political decisions he ever made were evil, crazy, and stupid, but also that many of them were very popular... but that's only because the population is stupid. The later theory was also used to HandWave why empress Drusilla was considered a popular politician... while using unsubstantiated slander to {{Retcon}} her into a mere SexSlave of her brother.

* The case of various Native American nations in North America. Whereas the predominant view was of "civilized" European people bringing civilization to the frontier by defeating the "savages," now the popular view is the tragedy of the Native Peoples fighting a HopelessWar against the rapacious European conquerors. In fact, evidence exists that North America actually had a very large native population before foreign illnesses brought over from Europe wiped out the vast majority of the people living there. By the time the settlers showed up for good, there were very few people left to resist them compared to before. It actually works the other way as well. A popular view of pre-Columbian Native Culture [[NobleSavage is one of great nobility and peace]]. While individual tribes may have been somewhat peaceful, tribes fought each other just as much as European states did and for the same reasons. One way to tell is by common tribal name. If the common name was given by the tribe itself, it likely means "the people" or something similar. If given a name by Europeans, it often refers to a nearby natural characteristic (lake, waterfall, etc...). If named by another tribe, there's a very good chance it means something close to "enemy". For instance, "Apache" possibly is from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". They call themselves the Ndee. Some civilized groups, such as the Aztec,[[note]]It is additionally compounded that the Aztecs themselves had rewritten their own history less than a century before[[/note]] had a vast empire with cities, client states, brutal wars of conquest, and massive {{human sacrifice}}. Although they were likely outliers in terms of their violence, other indigenous civilizations also existed. However, diseases brought by the Europeans struck them most, as they had dense populations, while more dispersed and isolated groups were spared (initially at least). The plains tribes are often given the most focus in the US because they were the last to be conquered and forcibly put into reservations. Overall though, indigenous peoples in the Americas greatly varied, like everywhere else. Fictional depictions often gloss over the diversity (and conflicts). In fairness though, little is known of many groups, particularly the ones wiped out in the aforementioned pandemics.

** This extends all the way forward to UsefulNotes/TheTroubles. To the PIRA and their supporters, the conflict was of nation-defining importance and a chance to see a united Ireland. To Irish Protestants, it was an existential threat to their way of life. To the British, whose entire post-WWII history is a long list of post-colonial uprisings and brush wars (partition of the Middle East, withdrawal from India, Korean War, Suez Crisis, Malayan Emergency, Aden Emergency, Cyprus Emergency, Mau-Mau Uprising, Falklands War...) the Troubles are just one more on the list, and the Provos just another in a series of uppity colonials in dire need of a clip round the earhole.

* [[UsefulNotes/TheVikingAge The Vikings]] are another exception. While the Norse (i.e. the Scandinavians) eventually wrote their history, it was 200-300 years later and their accounts are considered mostly semi-legendary. The contemporary accounts were written by monks and Arab travelers. [[WebVideo/CrashCourse History is mostly written by the winners, but when it's written by the losers they are very bitter about the winners]].

** The Jacobin party as a whole were vilified as extremists by the Girondins and Royalists who succeeded to power after Thermidor and had prime positions under Bonaparte. The Jacobins were not innocent, but the Girondins were engaged in high-level corruption and behind the scenes dealing with Austria and England. They later declared a war against Austria, which Robespierre denounced as a BreadAndCircuses move to divert away from the reforms they had consistently failed to uphold, and when the early phase of the war had started going against France, leading to Austria coming in hair's breadth of occupying Paris, the Jacobins supported by the Paris crowd went in open insurrection to protect the Revolution and the French people. It was the Jacobin party that led France to victory in the early stages of the Revolutionary Wars thanks to their open meritocracy, their culling of aristocratic nobles and royals from army positions, and introduction of {{Conscription}}.

* Knights, although they both won and lost various wars, so this is more on them as a social/political class. Sure, the KnightInShiningArmor existed, even in the Middle Ages, but one of the guys who came closest to living up to that, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Terrail,_seigneur_de_Bayard Chevalier de Bayard]], lived during UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance. Even within the surprisingly broad guidelines of chivalry, there were many knights who were essentially unscrupulous mercenaries dignified by horse, armor, and a noble title. Some of them were particularly infamous for being brutal to the common folk. One of these was Edward the Black Prince, who was scrupulously honourable in the treatment of his noble prisoners, including French King John the Good, even giving John permission to go home at one point, as well as delaying the Battle of Poitiers for a day to allow both sides to discuss the battle and Cardinal Périgord to plead for peace, but nevertheless favoured the chevauchée strategy, which is essentially short-hand for RapePillageAndBurn for reasons of strategic expediency.

* Knights, although they both won and lost various wars, so this is more on them as a social/political class. Sure, the KnightInShiningArmor existed, but one of the guys who came closest to living up to that, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Terrail,_seigneur_de_Bayard Chevalier de Bayard]], lived during UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance. Even within the surprisingly broad guidelines of chivalry, there were many knights who were essentially unscrupulous mercenaries dignified by horse, armor, and a noble title. If a noble didn't trust them as far as they could throw them, then all the knights who served him--good, bad, or indifferent--could be punished. King Philip IV of France had [[UsefulNotes/TheKnightsTemplar the original Knights Templar]] almost completely wiped out (primarily because he didn't want to pay off France's monetary debt to them), with his son having the pope finish the job. There were also knights who were particularly infamous for being brutal and (ironically) honorless. Some of this did exist in writing from the time, like when Creator/GeoffreyChaucer sneaked in a comment about the sacking of Alexandria in the Knight's Prologue, which was historically known for a battle where soldiers looted the city, pillaging everything they saw. Most of this part of knight history went away when knights jazzed up their stories for the nobility. When not officially at war, knights could start waging private wars against each other.

* Knights, albeit they both won and lost various wars, so this is more on them as a social/political class. Much like how we found out more recently with the samurai, the knights in most cases weren't the nicest of people.
** Sure, the KnightInShiningArmor existed, but they were in no way the majority, and the guy who came closest to living up to that, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Terrail,_seigneur_de_Bayard Chevalier de Bayard]] came in UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance. Most knights were essentially mercenaries who just happened to be much more heavily armed than the average one. Most nobles didn't trust them as far as they could throw them, King Philip IV of France had [[UsefulNotes/TheKnightsTemplar the original Knights Templar]] almost completely wiped out (primarily because he didn't want to pay off France's monetary debt to them), with his son having the pope finish the job.
** From the 10th to 16th centuries, most knights were pretty infamous for being particularly brutal and (ironically) honorless. Some of this did exist in writing from the time, like when Creator/GeoffreyChaucer sneaked in a comment about the sacking of Alexandria in the Knight's Prologue, which was historically known for a battle where the knights raped and pillaged everything they saw. Most of this part of knight history went away when the knights jazzed up their stories for the nobility. When not officially at war, knights commonly started waging private wars against each other. They were more like rival gangs at times than anything to do with "chivalry".

* The wars of independence in Latin America in the early 19th century will usually get this treatment. It was a [[WarIsGlorious glorious war]] between TheEmpire (Spain and the royalists) and LaResistance (the South Americans fighting for their freedom). But initially, it was a CivilWar between the supporters of the factions that sought to rule Spain when the king was captured by Napoleon. One example may be Manuel Belgrano, sent from Buenos Aires (modern Argentina) to fight against the royalists in Asunción (modern Paraguay). For Argentine history, Belgrano was a model of virtue and moral values, akin to George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. For Paraguayan history, Belgrano was a ruthless expansionist conqueror, akin to Attila the Hun.

** [[{{Pirate}} Privateers]] get this naturally... some of the biggest and most well known? UsefulNotes/SirFrancisDrake and Capt. Morgan (the one who... you know... has a certain drink named after him). Celebrated heroes in England... demons of history to Spain. Likewise, during UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfPiracy, 25% of all pirate crews were runaway slaves joining the pirate crews at a time when slavery was totally ''legal'' and ''profitable'' and most of the soldiers in the English navy were denied meritorious advancement, and a lot of them were press-ganged, poor men kidnapped from England and forced to work crappy jobs. Oh, and UsefulNotes/{{Blackbeard}} never killed anybody and accepted a pardon, when he was attacked by GlorySeeker officers who attacked him while and he and his crew were drunk to elevate their reputation and in a modern legal sense, one would argue that Blackbeard was a victim of extra-legal vigilante execution and denied due process.

** The Battle of Tours/Poitiers during the Arab Islamic wars of expansion was inflated by Frankish historians as the pinnacle battle that prevented the conquest of Europe by the Islamic armies. Arab scholars of the post-battle period rarely mention this defeat, but ''do'' describe a much more important one: their failure to capture Constantinople, capital of the surviving Roman Empire. The Arab army that the Franks faced was a much smaller expeditionary force that was already 4000 miles from their homeland when they crossed the Pyrenees.

!To minimize the danger of [[FlameWar history politicizing discussion]], [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment please do not add any examples that are less than 200 years in the past]].

* An interesting case of this happened in the early days of archaeology. [[ValuesDissonance Because the idea of racial superiority was a widely held belief at the time]], a lot of historical achievements of non-white peoples were either ignored, downplayed, or were theorized to actually be done by white people. The ancient city of Great Zimbabwe is probably the most infamous example of this, to the point where the Rhodesian government in the 1960s and 70s censored archaeologists who said it was built by blacks. In time a lot of these racist ideas were discarded.

* An interesting case of this happened in the early days of archaeology. [[ValuesDissonance Because the scientific idea of racial superiority was a widely held belief at the time]], a lot of historical achievements of nonwhite were either ignored, downplayed, or were theorized to actually be done by white people. The ancient city of Great Zimbabwe is probably the most infamous example of this, to the point where the Rhodesian government in the 1960s and 70s censored archaeologists who said it was built by blacks. In time a lot of these racist ideas were discarded.

* An interesting case of this happened in the early days of archaeology. [[ValuesDissonance Because the scientific idea of racial superiority was a widely held belief at the time]], a lot of historical achievements of nonwhite were either ignored, downplayed, or were theorized to actually be done by white people. The Great ancient city of Zimbabwe is probably the most infamous example of this. In time a lot of these racist ideas were discarded.

* The case of various Native American nations in North America. Whereas the predominant view was of "civilized" European people bringing civilization to the frontier by defeating the "savages," now the popular view is the tragedy of the Native Peoples fighting a HopelessWar against the rapacious European conquerors. In fact, evidence exists that North America actually had a very large native population before foreign illnesses brought over from Europe wiped out the vast majority of the people living there. By the time the settlers showed up for good, there were very few people left to resist them compared to before. It actually works the other way as well. A popular view of pre-Columbian Native Culture [[NobleSavage is one of great nobility and peace]]. While individual tribes may have been somewhat peaceful, tribes fought each other just as much as European states did and for the same reasons. One way to tell is by common tribal name. If the common name was given by the tribe itself, it likely means "the people" or something similar. If given a name by Europeans, it often refers to a nearby natural characteristic (lake, waterfall, etc...). If named by another tribe, there's a very good chance it means something close to "enemy". For instance, "Apache" possibly is from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". They call themselves the Ndee. Some civilized groups, such as the Aztec [[note: it is additionally compounded that the Aztecs themselves had rewritten their own history less than a century before]], had a vast empire with cities, client states, brutal wars of conquest, and massive {{human sacrifice}}. Although they were likely outliers in terms of their violence, other indigenous civilizations also existed. However, diseases brought by the Europeans struck them most, as they had dense populations, while more dispersed and isolated groups were spared (initially at least). The plains tribes are often given the most focus in the US because they were the last to be conquered and forcibly put into reservations. Overall though, indigenous peoples in the Americas greatly varied, like everywhere else. Fictional depictions often gloss over the diversity (and conflicts). In fairness though, little is known of many groups, particularly the ones wiped out in the aforementioned pandemics.

* The case of various Native American nations in North America. Whereas the predominant view was of "civilized" European people bringing civilization to the frontier by defeating the "savages," now the popular view is the tragedy of the Native Peoples fighting a HopelessWar against the rapacious European conquerors. In fact, evidence exists that North America actually had a very large native population before foreign illnesses brought over from Europe wiped out the vast majority of the people living there. By the time the settlers showed up for good, there were very few people left to resist them compared to before. It actually works the other way as well. A popular view of pre-Columbian Native Culture [[NobleSavage is one of great nobility and peace]]. While individual tribes may have been somewhat peaceful, tribes fought each other just as much as European states did and for the same reasons. One way to tell is by common tribal name. If the common name was given by the tribe itself, it likely means "the people" or something similar. If given a name by Europeans, it often refers to a nearby natural characteristic (lake, waterfall, etc...). If named by another tribe, there's a very good chance it means something close to "enemy". For instance, "Apache" possibly is from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". They call themselves the Ndee. Some civilized groups, such as the Aztec, had a vast empire with cities, client states, brutal wars of conquest, and massive {{human sacrifice}}. Although they were likely outliers in terms of their violence, other indigenous civilizations also existed. However, diseases brought by the Europeans struck them most, as they had dense populations, while more dispersed and isolated groups were spared (initially at least). The plains tribes are often given the most focus in the US because they were the last to be conquered and forcibly put into reservations. Overall though, indigenous peoples in the Americas greatly varied, like everywhere else. Fictional depictions often gloss over the diversity (and conflicts). In fairness though, little is known of many groups, particularly the ones wiped out in the aforementioned pandemics.

** Likewise there is evidence that the Romans did see other forms of execution as ritual murder. For instance, deformed infants were left "exposed" (and sometimes dumped in trash heaps), and Vestal Virgins who were "unchaste" were buried alive in stone pillars. It's also argued that GladiatorGames evolved from earlier sacrificial rituals as did some lurid forms of execution such as tossing people to lions (Christians most famously but others also). TO say nothing of the Triumph, in which prisoners had their throats slit [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything at the steps of Jupiter's temple]]. But almost none of this shows up in CrystalSpiresAndTogas inspired works on Roman history.