Americanization and the Native Americans

In his address to the American Historical Association, Frederick Jackson Turner speaks of the American frontiersman, saying that after being in the wilderness a short while "he has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick, he shouts a war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion" (678). He describes this metamorphosis into a Native American as a movement away from the European ways and toward the American way.

His portrayal of Native Americans is inaccurate and disgraceful. I'm not sure if he is saying that Americans will adopt Native American ways as they are transformed by the frontier or that Americans must civilize the rest of the continent before it turns them to savages. Either way, Turner presents a highly problematic view of Native Americans and the frontier. To further confuse the situation, during his time, Americanization did not mean the adoption of other cultures, but the erasure of them. What does it mean that Americans would adopt negative aspects of the indigenous cultures?

How do the "Debates Over Americanization" portray Americans, particularly Native Americans? Are these portrayals accurate or problematic? Why?