The business of killing Indians : scalp warfare and the violent conquest of North America / William S. Kiser.
| Author/creator | Kiser, William S., 1986- author. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication | New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, [2025] |
| Copyright Date | ©2025 |
| Description | 335 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm. |
| Subjects |
| Series | The Lamar Series in Western History Lamar series in western history. ^A765707 |
| Contents | "Lifting Hair" in French Canada and Louisiana -- Hunting Scalps in the Atlantic Coast Colonies and Early American Republic -- Bounty Massacres in the US-Mexico Borderlands -- Scalping Atrocities on the Texas Frontier -- Volunteer Campaigning on the Pacific Coast. |
| Abstract | How colonial conquest was driven by state-sponsored, profit-driven campaigns to murder and mutilate Indian peoples in North America From the mid-1600s through the late 1800s, states sponsored scalp bounties and volunteer campaigns to murder and mutilate thousands of Indians throughout North America. Since central governments in Amsterdam, Paris, London, Mexico City, and Washington, DC, failed to provide adequate military support and financial resources for colonial frontier defense, administrators in regional capitals such as New York, Québec City, New Orleans, Boston, Ciudad Chihuahua, Austin, and Sacramento took matters into their own hands. At different times and in almost every part of the continent, they paid citizens for killing Indians, taking Indians captive, scalping or beheading Indians, and undertaking other forms of performative violence. As militant operatives and civilians alike struggled to prevail over Indigenous forces they considered barbaric and savage, they engaged in not just plundering, slaving, and killing but also dismembering corpses for symbolic purposes and for profit. Although these tactics mostly failed in their intent to exterminate populations, state sponsorship of indiscriminate violence took a significant demographic toll by flooding frontier zones with murderous units whose campaigns diminished Indigenous power, reduced tribal populations, and forced weakened survivors away from traditional homelands. High wages for volunteer campaigning, along with cash bounties for Indian body parts and the ability to take captives and keep valuable plunder, promoted a state-sponsored profit opportunity for civilians. -- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-318) and index. |
| ISBN | 0300275285 hardcover ; alkaline paper |
| ISBN | 9780300275285 hardcover ; alkaline paper |