@louisa_@mastodon.social "he evaded them, thinking they were a Native tribe wanting to harm him. Eventually he stumbled up an actual Native tribe who took him home."

I've got a story my great grandfather wrote about his trip alone into the "Indian Territory" in 1893 in what is now Oklahoma, when he was 16. He was terrified of the "Indians" and even took a rusty pistol with him (that didn't work) to try to protect himself from being scalped. When he did eventually run into some natives they... completely ignored him.