Gold Frenzy

Something in this weeks lectures that I thought was interesting was how gold kept being mentioned as a main cause for alot of the violence that existed between indians and white settlers. It seemed like every time a conflict arose between indians and whites it was because white settlers had found gold on indian lands. This just shows how much of an impact socio-economics had on the indian wars of the late 19th century. It also made me wonder if there was any point when the indians became aware of just how much power gold had in white society. Perhaps when they found this out they could have used it as leverage in alot of thier dealings with whites. But, from what we have seen, the whites probably would have been more akin to just kill or displace the indians when they found out about the gold they had available to them. Im sure that the indians did not see as much value in gold as whites, as thier societies were not nearly as materialistic as white societies at the same time.