Vandervort B. Indian Wars of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, 1812-1900

Routledge, 2006. — 337 p. — (Warfare and History). — ISBN: 9-78-0-415-22471-0.Drawing on anthropology and ethnohistory as well as the ‘new military history’, Indian Wars of Mexico, Canada and the United States, 1812–1900 interprets and compares the way Indians and European Americans waged wars in Canada, Mexico, the USA and Yucatán during the nineteenth century. Fully illustrated with sixteen maps, detailing key Indian tribal domains and crucial battle sites, Bruce Vandervort rescues the New World Indian Wars from their exclusion from mainstream military history, and reveals how they are an integral part of global history.
Providing a thorough examination of the strategies and tactics of resistance employed by the Indian peoples of the USA, Vandervort contrasts their ways of war with those of the Métis (French Canadian-Indian peoples), their Canadian Indian allies, and the Yaqui and Mayan Indians of Mexico and Yucatán. Further, the book compares the Indian experience with that of concurrent resistance movements against European expansion in Africa, making it possible to isolate those aspects of resistance that seem unique to the Americas from those with broader implications. Vandervort also draws upon concepts employed in recent rewritings of the history of imperial warfare in Africa and Asia to identify more clearly those aspects of the way of war of the Indian-fighting army of the USA that are truly ‘exceptional’ and those that are merely generic.
This unique and fascinating study is a vital contribution to the field of military history but is also a valuable addition to the understanding of imperialism and attempts to resist it.
Bruce Vandervort is Professor of Modern European and African History at the Virginia Military Institute, USA. He is editor of The Journal of Military History and author of Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa, 1830–1914 (1998).