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Quite so. After the Civil War the Union Army assumed responsibility for warfare on the southern plains and the Rangers were mostly relagated to a law enforcement role. As noted, the Army never had the success that the Rangers did. Even during their heyday, as good as the Rangers were, they wisely used Indian scouts, with Lipan Apaches and Tonkawas often eagar to join in the fight against their hated enemy, the Comanches.
Yep^^^.
For what ever reason many people like to make blanket statements that paint all several hundred or even thousand Native Americans tribes of having the exact same cultures. You can just as well say that Muslim, Christians and Buhddist are the same?
The American Indian tribes had always warred with one another. Would they have lost out? Yes because of the Europeans sheer numbers and the policies at the time. I wonder at times what would have happened if Squanto would have not helped the Pilgrims and let them die off.
They were too busy warring and killing each other to beat the western expanding USA. Even if they didn't war with each other, they still didn't have the proper weapons to put up a resistance for very long.
Your argument assumes that the op's premiss is based upon the 19th century and not the 16th.
Once the Americans defeated the more formidable, numerous and better organized Indians of the Old Northwest in the Northwest Indian War and War of 1812 the remaining unwhipped Indians were no more than a nuisance in the great scheme of things; Little Turtle, Blue Jacket and Tecumseh, with their British backing, were the last Indians with any real possibility of a military and political solution to American aggression. Hell, maybe Powhatan or King Philip was the last Indian who really had a chance against the Euros.
But once The United States decided to put paid to the western tribes after the Civil War it took less than 30 years to do so and even that was a half assed effort done with few troops and resources. It took the Euros and Americans from 1565 to around 1840 to conquer the present United States from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and only another 50 years to conquer between the Mississippi and Pacific.
Note that the last fight the United States regular Army had with Indians wasn't with western Indians but with Chippewas in Minnesota in 1898.
All indigenous tribes fall to State societies. It's inevitable; the power of the State and its standing armies are too much to resist, unless you are buried in a place too environmentally hostile and difficult to settle (like a rainforest).
All indigenous tribes fall to State societies. It's inevitable; the power of the State and its standing armies are too much to resist, unless you are buried in a place too environmentally hostile and difficult to settle (like a rainforest).
Huh? That sound sort of sophisticated until you beg the question, what is a state society and how does it differ from a so-called indigenous tribe nor does it take into consideration how "state societies" were decimated by tribal ones.
Huh? That sound sort of sophisticated until you beg the question, what is a state society and how does it differ from a so-called indigenous tribe nor does it take into consideration how "state societies" were decimated by tribal ones.
Raise the question, not beg it.
A state society is one with large towns or cities, a large population and centralized government that goes beyond family, clan or tribal organization. It raises money by taxation and has the divisions of class and labor that make armies, rather than mere war bands, possible. It's evident from a study of history that though tribal societies sometimes inflict initial defeats on state societies very few have withstood them.
The minute the Gatling gun came into general use, it would have been over.
A weapon designed for use against massed troops did not have much utility when the enemy was nomadic, mobile and refused to group up into convenient formations to receive automatic weapons fire.
The Gatling Gun was portable, but only to the degree that an artillery piece was portable. It had to be mounted on a wheeled carriage, limiting the places where it could go and severely limiting the places it could go quickly.
It is known that Custer was offered the use of two Gatling guns and he declined. Those who do not know any better often claim that this was a fatal decision on Custer's part, but that is not the case. The Gatling gun had no application in a cavalry charge, which was the planned tactic against the immense village on the Little Bighorn River. The guns would have become useful only in the final stage when Reno and Benteen were besieged on their hill, but since they survived without a Gatling gun, it cannot be said that the presence of such guns would have altered any outcomes.
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