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Author Insight
Settler Armies
I'm currently leading a book group reading "An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States." The author points out that England sent very few trained military personnel to the colonies. The colonial armies were made up of irregular fighters, settlers trained to fight outside any organized military institution. They believed the Indians were trying to take land that they held legitimate title to, land the English King had granted them. The result? They fought with extreme violence using special operations. These armed militants cold enter an Indian town and kill every man, woman and child with no repercusions from a military tribunal, no court trial. They targeted noncombatant civilians and their food supplies, seeking to remove them forever.
Book Excerpt
Suzanne, The Midwife
Joseph Morse had trained for combat in Watertown like all males over sixteen in the Massachusetts colony, where the military alliance in Boston required servicemen to own a regulation combat-ready matchlock musket. In Groton, he continued to drill with the town’s men under the newly commissioned Captain Parker; he was ready if conscription began. Cleaning his guns for these drills, he’d set six-year-old Joseph to work. One by one, he removed two guns from their pegs above the hearth: both with rifled barrels. He’d explained to her that the smooth-bore barrel muskets that Boston regulated speeded up reloading in battle, but he thought the accuracy and greater range of rifled barrels was more important than efficiency, especially when he hunted. He’d promised to show her how to fire the matchlock rifle, but the newly invented flintlock rifle was his alone. It served better in battle because he could load it on the run, though it could misfire when it rained. He wanted her to be able to defend herself in any emergency. Suzanne had put off the lesson in more-populated Watertown, but living in Groton and traveling through wilderness to serve the women made defense a necessity.
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