A01=William S. Kiser
American west
Author_William S. Kiser
california
Category=JBSL11
Category=NH
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
colonial
conquest
english settlers
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
executive order
french and indian war
french canada
genocide
indigenous
Indigenous history
killing indians
louisiana
mexico borderlands
native americans
new england
north america
nova scotia
pacific coast
scalp warfare
scalping
state-sponsored violence
texas
violence
Product details
- ISBN 9780300275285
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 27 May 2025
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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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.
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.
William S. Kiser is professor of history and chair of the history department at Texas A&M University–San Antonio.
