2026/07/23 by Wayne E Lee · 1 voice
paper · doi:10.1093/9780197852705.003.0064
Abstract The limits of our sources on Native American warfare mandate a structural analysis that begins with the basics of Native American subsistence systems, social organization, and settlement patterns. From there, we can build outward to show how Native nations organized offensive campaigns against other Native nations. Those campaigns generally followed a pattern (the “cutting-off” way) of attacking isolated portions of an enemy population, killing or capturing them, and then retreating in time to avoid enemy reinforcements. Such expeditions could be repeated frequently and at different scales. They depended on a logistical system that allowed for tremendously long-distance movement sustained by an assortment of techniques centered on hunting and food caches along the route. The centrality of captive-taking, concerns about suffering too many casualties in the attack, and other ritual and structural factors placed limits on the level of violence in Native American warfare, but there was no fundamental reluctance to kill their enemies. The lethality of European firearms increased Native sensitivity to open battle or sieges but did not eliminate their use of either. Ultimately, in their wars with each other, beyond issues of pure self-defense, we find individual motivations for status or prestige, and communal motivations to establish a dominant regional role as takers of tribute and/or to displace defeated enemies to claim their hunting grounds.