The Cutting-Off Way: Indigenous Warfare in Eastern North America, 1500–1800 by Wayne E. Lee
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: In this military history of early America, Wayne E. Lee takes aim at a popular and enduring depiction of Native American warfare. As described by Patrick M. Malone in his influential 1991 work, the “skulking way of war” has become shorthand for the impact that European technology had on Native warfare, transforming it from a kind of ritualized combat with comparatively low lethality into the raiding and ambushes that colonists attributed to an innate savagery and bloodlust. Malone and others focused on the role of firearms as Native peoples adjusted their warfare methods to make use of these new weapons. Where previous scholars have seen change, Lee sees continuity. His description of the “cutting-off way of war” emphasizes tactics and objectives that remained geographically and chronologically consistent among the peoples of the Eastern Woodlands, even as they adopted firearms and learned to fight Europeans. Lee argues for resilience and constancy in Native warfare, despite the disruptions caused by the European colonization of North America.The defining feature of the cutting-off way of war was its scalability. It might involve large forces of up to 1,000 warriors who attacked fortified towns or call for small war parties looking to engage individuals caught unawares. This range of operations remained evident from the pre-contact era into the nineteenth century, as did the objective of minimizing casualties while maximizing the number of prisoners. Regardless of scale, the goal was “to ‘cut off’ a selected segment of the enemy's population, whether large or small, and do so with impunity” (19). That cutting-off might occur to Native or colonial non-combatants traveling away from home or living far from population centers, or it might happen to towns protected by palisades or other fortifications. Lee takes pains to dismiss the idea that Native warfare exhibited less lethality before contact with Europeans, noting that the cutting-off way could result in the destruction of entire communities. Basic logistics of presented limitations. Native warriors carried little food or supplies, so that they could range over great distances to engage the enemy, but they could not remain in the field for much longer than a season.An important component of Lee's argument is his attention to the “demographic space” of Native America, exploring how Native peoples distributed their towns to create community space, hunting grounds, and a defensive perimeter against outsiders (4). To challenge the idea that Native warfare was mostly motivated by communal desire for blood revenge or individual ambition, he examines the objectives behind attacks on towns, which often involved large-scale recruitment and coordination of warriors. While it is true that Native peoples did not seek to conquer and occupy territory in the same manner as Europeans, there is plenty of evidence that one objective for the cutting-off way of war was to displace enemy populations or force them into tributary status. This would extend hunting grounds and the perimeter of the aggressors’ home territory. Lee devotes considerable focus to Native American fortifications, noting that palisades remained in use against Native enemies into the eighteenth century. Native warriors learned abandoning such works was better than defending them from European troops.Lee concedes that encounters with Europeans forced Native Americans to adapt to new circumstances, but, he argues, “specific military technologies were not driving the change” (157). In other words, firearms and artillery did not lead to the creation of the skulking way of war. Rather, the tactics, strategies, and logistics of the cutting-off way of war remained notably consistent throughout the colonial era. When change did occur, it had more to do with economics than technology. Firearms, for example, did not significantly alter the tactics of the cutting-off way, but Native dependence on European gunpowder “undermined an already shaky Indian ability to sustain long, repeated campaigns” (145). Similarly, the willingness of colonial officials to pay ransoms created a new incentive for captive-taking; the cutting-off way remained the method by which Natives acquired prisoners.This book begins with an introduction but ends without a conclusion. This absence may reflect the origins of the project in a series of topics related to Native American warfare, but Lee has missed an opportunity at the end to tie these various strands together for the reader. For example, a chapter that compares how the British incorporated Irish soldiers and Native American warriors into their warfare is engaging but needs greater integration. The reader is left to consider the fate of the cutting-off way of war. Did it end with the War of 1812, or did Native peoples take it with them when federal removal policies forced them west of the Mississippi after 1830? How might Lee's analysis apply to the resulting Indian wars of the late nineteenth century? Lee leaves these questions unasked, but he has provided a compelling framework for readers interested in contemplating them further.
Source: The New England Quarterly
DOI: 10.1162/tneq_r_01043
Author: Timothy J. Shannon
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4402305059