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
Warfare in sixteenth-century Ireland
Warfare in Ireland in the sixteenth century must be considered in close relation to the political conditions prevailing in the country during the century. In the beginning of the century the Pale, or that part of Ireland in which the writ of the king of England ran, comprised only half of the four counties lying near Dublin. Outside the Pale were ninety states or lordships ruled by lords, often called by the English captains, who, having despotic jurisdiction within the state, made peace or war as they chose. These lordships have, very appropriately, been called the autonomous states by a modern Irish historian. About one-third of these autonomous states were ruled by lords of English origin who had in language, manners, and customs become almost as Irish as the Irish themselves. Every state, even the smallest, had its armed forces.
Les Sauvages Americains: Representations of Native Americans in French and English Colonial Literature
Algonquian and Iroquois natives of the American Northeast were described in great detail by colonial explorers who ventured into the region in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Beginning with the writings of John Smith and Samuel de Champlain, Gordon Sayre analyzes French and English accounts of Native Americans to reveal the rhetorical codes by which their cultures were represented and the influence that these images of Indians had on colonial and modern American society. By emphasizing the work of Pierre Franaois-Xavier Charlevoix, Joseph-Franaois Lafitau, and Baron de Lahontan, among others, Sayre highlights the important contribution that French explorers and ethnographers made to colonial literature. Sayre's interdisciplinary approach draws on anthropology, cultural studies, and literary methodologies. He cautions against dismissing these colonial texts as purveyors of ethnocentric stereotypes, asserting that they offer insights into Native American cultures. Furthermore, early accounts of American Indians reveal Europeans' serious examination of their own customs and values: Sayre demonstrates how encounters with natives' wampum belts, tattoos, and pelt garments, for example, forced colonists to question the nature of money, writing, and clothing; and how the Indians' techniques of warfare and practice of adopting prisoners led to new concepts of cultural identity and inspired key themes in the European enlightenment and American individualism. |"Gilmore sets out ...to reinterpret turn-of-the-century southern politics from the perspective of middle-class black women activists. She succeeds brilliantly. The book not only reclaims the long-buried stories of a group of richly compelling characters; it also redefines what should count as 'politics' in southern history." American Historical Review