Assimilation of the Native Americans “By the end of the Victorian period hardly a people remained on the face of the earth whose social structure, culture, and basic way of life had not been more or less violently disrupted.” When the first explorers reported that they had reached the Pacific coast, they mentioned that there were inhabitants already occupying the territory. Although sometimes reluctant to even bother reporting on the Native peoples, the explorers stated that it wasn’t worth looking into the cultures of these people . This attitude of ignorant explorers laid the groundwork for prejudicial preconception of the future settlers that ulti