Pre-contact, tribes like the Comanche and Iroquois built empires through brutal warfare, raiding, and displacement, often with ritualized torture or scalping as cultural norms. The Apache, for instance, terrorized rivals long before Europeans showed up. Europeans, though, brought industrialized violence—guns, steel, and disease—plus a mindset of total conquest, like Cortés toppling the Aztecs or the English massacring the Pequot in 1637. Native violence was often localized and tribal; European violence was systematic and scalable. Data’s sparse, but archaeological evidence of mass graves (e.g., Crow Creek, 1325) shows Native bloodshed rivaled Europe’s feudal wars. Both were violent—Europeans just had better tech and bigger ambitions.