If I was a Pawnee I'd Sioux! I mean sue.

As I remember the Texans are broke in 1867 and want to drive their cattle north to sell at a railroad town. Movies give the impression that Texas was all cattle ranches and there weren't any other industries except ranching.

So they drive their cattle north and then they are raided by "Jayhawkers" or "Red Legs", the name for pro Union guerrillas from Kansas during the Civil War. Guerrilas still fighting the war 2 years after it is over.

So they head to the west and try to cross through "The Nations", the lands of the Five Civilized tribes in the eastern part of the Indian Territory, modern Oklahoma. So this means that the "Jayhawkers" or "Red Legs", pro Union guerrillas somehow still operating 2 years after the war, are raiding east of Oklahoma in Arkansas or Louisiana, two former Rebel states where nobody would give them any support.

But the Indians demand too high a price for letting the Texans drive their herd through Indian land.

So the Texans head west of "the Nations" to the western part of the Indian Territory, which is modern Oklahoma, despite it being Pawnee territory. And the Pawnees raid their cattle drive like wild Indians.

In 1867 the Pawnees lived in a reservation in Nebraska, which they sold and moved to a new reservation in Indian Territory in 1874. Of course the Pawnees could have raided into the western part of Indian Territory in 1867, but so could any other tribe of plains Indians like the Comanches, Kiowa, Kiowa Apache, Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho, etc. Nobody in 1867 would be afraid of Pawnee raiders in particular, and nobody would be afraid of Pawnee raiders in Comanche raiding territory!

Similarly the movie Little Big Man (1970) changes the novel and has Jack Crab's wagon train attacked by Pawnees instead of by the same band of Cheyenne that adopted him.

In Dances With Wolves (1990) the Pawnee are portrayed as powerful and sinister Indians who terrorize the weaker Sioux, a reversal of the historic relationship where the more powerful Sioux victimized the Pawnee.

In Pawnee (1957) settlers are passing through Pawnee territory in wagon trains and the Pawnees go in the warpath and fight a spectacular battle with the cavalry.

But in reality the Pawnees do not seem to fought the Americans very often. In 1865 the Pawnee Battalion of scouts and allies was formed that fought hostiles Indian tribes alongside the US army on and off until 1877. Thus in 1867, the fictional date of The Raiders (1963), the probability of being attacked by Pawnee raiders would be very low and nobody would expect to be attacked by Pawnees.

So considering the lies the movies tell about the Pawnees, I have to say that if I was a Pawnee I'd Sioux! I mean sue.