The Cutting-Off Way

Indigenous Warfare in Eastern North America, 1500–1800

Wayne E. Lee

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781469673783, 9781469673776
• eBook ISBN: 9781469673790
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Incorporating archeology, anthropology, cartography, and Indigenous studies into military history, Wayne E. Lee has argued throughout his distinguished career that wars and warfare cannot be understood by a focus that rests solely on logistics, strategy, and operations. Fighting forces bring their own cultural traditions and values onto the battlefield. In this volume, Lee employs his “cutting-off way of war” (COWW) paradigm to recast Indigenous warfare in a framework of the lived realities of Native people rather than with regard to European and settler military strategies and practices.

Indigenous people lacked deep reserves of population or systems of coercive military recruitment and as such were wary of heavy casualties. Instead, Indigenous warriors sought to surprise their targets, and the size of the target varied with the size of the attacking force. A small war party might “cut off” individuals found getting water, wood, or out hunting, while a larger party might attempt to attack a whole town. Once revealed by its attack, the invading war party would flee before the defenders' reinforcements from nearby towns could organize. Sieges or battles were rare and fought mainly to save face or reputation. After discussing the COWW paradigm, including a deep look at Native logistics and their associated strategic flexibility, Lee demonstrates how the system worked and evolved in five subsequent chapters that detail intra-tribal and Indigenous-colonial warfare from pre-contact through the American Revolution.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter One: Introduction: The Eastern Woodlands
• Chapter Two: The Cutting-Off Way of War
• Chapter Three: The Indians Went Hunting: Native American Expeditionary Logistics
• Chapter Four: Peace Chiefs and Blood Revenge: Patterns of Restraint in Native American Warfare, 1500–1800
• Chapter Five: Fortify, Fight, or Flee: Tuscarora and Cherokee Defensive Warfare and Military Culture Adaptation
• Chapter Six: The Military Revolution of Native North America: Firearms, Forts, and Polities
• Chapter Seven: Subjects, Clients, Allies, or Mercenaries?: The British Use of Irish and Native American Military Power, 1500–1800
• Chapter Eight: War’s Ends
• Notes
• Index