Using the Natives against the Natives: Indigenes as ‘Counterinsurgents’ in the British Atlantic, 1500–1800
Taylor and Francis FDEF_A_439465.sgm 10.1080/1 702430903392877 Defence Studies 470-2436 (pr nt)/1743-9698 (online) Original Article 2 1 & F ancis -2 0 0 00March-June 2010 Way eLee wle @unc.e u A key component of most modern counterinsurgency efforts (hereafter, COIN) is not merely to pacify or appease a local population, but to actively use the locals as part of the solution. 1 Large portions of the US military’s new COIN manual discuss the issues involved with developing what it calls ‘Host Nation’ forces. 2 In any circumstance this is a complex problem, but it is even more complex when the ‘host nation’ is an indigenous people (as opposed to, e.g., colonists) whose social structure and military system is markedly different from the occupier. This paper examines how English or British administrators dealt with this problem in the early modern era in the two contexts of 16th-century Gaelic Ireland and Native North America – not asking just about the use of indigenous peoples as allies, but more specifically as allies in a counterinsurgent role – as like against like. English colonists and later British administrators pushing outwards into the Atlantic basin between 1500 and 1800 never had sufficient people or money relative to the scope of their ambitions, and the ‘Military Revolution’ notwithstanding, European military systems provided only limited solutions. 3 Improvements in European military technology and technique brought tactical superiority in most open-field confrontations, with famous exceptions like Hugh O’Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone’s early victories in Ireland in the 1590s, the Jacobite Highlanders’ successes in 1745–46, and Major-General Edward Braddock’s defeat on the Monongahela River (Pennsylvania) in 1755. Battlefield superiority, however, did not convey rapid strategic conquest capability over land in either Ireland or North America. In navigable waters western European superiority was more marked at both tactical and strategic levels. In the long run improved gunpowder weapons and drilled infantry proved adaptable to most
Vital allies: The colonial militia's use of Indians in King Philip's War, 1675--1676
VITAL ALLIES: THE COLONIAL MILITIA'S USE OF INDIANS IN KING PHILIP'S WAR, 1675-1676 by Shawn Eric Pirelli University of New Hampshire, May, 2011 This study examines the role that Indians played in King Philip's War. It argues that Indians and Indian fighting tactics saved the colonies from destruction. This contention relies heavily on the assertion that February 1676 was the turning point in the war. Chapter I reexamines the role that Indian spies and informants played in King Philip's War, and argues that they saved the colonies from surprise attacks on major settlements. Chapter II argues that "friendly" Indians played a significant role as counterinsurgents against a common enemy. Additionally, they provided extra numbers at a time when the colonial militias suffered from impressment derelictions. Finally, Chapter III shows that only after the colonial militia adopted Indian skulking tactics did they successfully repel Philip's forces. In summation, this thesis argues that colonial authorities organized English-Indian companies after a complete economic collapse in February 1675/6. It was this Indian alliance that led them to victory.
Italian Influence on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism
THIS ARTICLE TRIES to show that the rise of Calvinist scholasticism, which was the most important development in Calvinist theology during the second half of the sixteenth century, stemmed largely from several converging Italian influences, particularly from the writings of Peter Martyr Vermigli and Jerome Zanchi. Here Calvinist theology refers not only to the personal thought of John Calvin but also to the teachings of the founders of the Reformed or Calvinist tradition as it spread out from Geneva and Switzerland to France, Germany, England, Scotland, Poland, and the Low Countries. In this context Calvin emerges as the brightest star in a galaxy of Reformed theologians which includes Heinrich Bullinger, Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza and Wolfgang Musculus as well as Martyr, Zanchi and others. These theologians were often more influential than Calvin himself at a given place or time or on a given point of doctrine. Bullinger, Martyr, and Martin Bucer were all more important for spreading Calvinist ideas to Edwardian England than was John Calvin. Early Elizabethan Protestantism looked more to Zurich than to Geneva, as did early Polish Calvinism. German Calvinism owed more to Heidelberg than to Geneva.' These leaders developed their theologies sometimes in mutual dependence, sometimes with surprising independence. By no means was their relation to Calvin simply that of disciple to master, for each gave a personal nuance to his style of Calvinism. Thus the sixteenth century Jesuit Cornelius Schulting states on the opening page of his five volume polemic against Calvin and Peter Martyr that Martyr was clearer and far more learned than Calvin.2 Recently John Bray has pointed out that research in seventeenth century Calvinism leads "to the conclusion that the impact of Calvin upon the Calvinistic movement has been greatly over-rated. It may well be that some of