Robert Seeberger wrote,
... How would the westward movement of settlers have been
implimented without weaponry superior (in most but not all ways)
to the weaponry available to the aboriginal residents (Injuns
pardner)?
I have heard -- but I cannot remember where -- that in the latter 19th
century, say from 1860 to 1890, American aboriginals had weapons as
good or better than those of the white soldiers who fought them. The
big difference is that the US Army kept on coming, decade after
decade, even though many of its soldiers and officers were
incompetent, and the locals did not unite.
In other words, the difference was not so much the technology of
weaponry as the technology of organization.
This contrasts with the famous verse (from Kipling? I am not sure.)
regarding British conquests in Africa in the latter 19th century. The
only line I remember, perhaps not quite rightly, is the one saying
We have got the Gatling gun and they have not.
(Although I suspect that British troops of that time would be more
likely to use Maxim's machine gun.)
... conjecture leads me to think that individuals in possession of
superior firepower would be a deterrent to raids and/or aboriginal
insurgency in cases where (aboriginal) numbers were low enough to
give advantage to the better armed group.
I think so, too.
--
Robert J. Chassell
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http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
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