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The history of the evolution of Indian weaponry?
Obsidian to repeating guns, the history of Indian weaponry evolution
War is the catalyst of civilization, and any old-fashioned customs are smashed to pieces by the needs of the battlefield. The evolution and elimination of the battlefield is the most relentless, and in the history of mankind, the fastest advancing nation in terms of weaponry is the Indians. When the Spanish conquistadors came to the Americas, most Indians were still armed with obsidian weapons. Three centuries later, the quality of muskets in the hands of these Native Americans surpassed those of the Qing Empire and Japan on the other side of the Pacific.
Blinding gold knives were one of the Indians' main metal tools before the Spanish reached the Americas. Golden knives attracted greedy eyes. In the name of God, the Spaniards began their own plundering.
The most threatening opponent of the Spanish conquest of the Americas was the Incas, who by then had learned to build bronze weapons, and it was in the Incas' resistance that the Spaniards learned that the Indians were also an intelligent race.
The Spaniards' helmets and steel swords made them invincible against the Inca hordes. But the Incas were quick to return the favor. The Incas tried to scour the battlefield for Spanish steel weapons and also tried to get Spanish prisoners to make gunpowder for them. The Spanish cavalry was once regarded as the devil by the Incas, but the Incas soon came to love the cavalry charge as well, trying to search for horses in any way they could. When it came to foreign learning, the Incas were clearly smarter than the Aztecs, who would only push Spanish artillery into the water. Manco, the emperor of the Incas, even began to learn Spanish in order to understand Spanish tactics.
Naturally, the Spaniards knew where their advantage lay, and strict orders were given not to let a single gram of steel get into the hands of the Indians. The Spaniards all followed the ban to the letter, but the Dutch under their rule were models of treachery. The Dutch sold large quantities of steel in their hands to the Indians, creating a lot of trouble for the Spanish. The resistance of the Incas and Mayans lasted a long time, and the weapons in their hands evolved all the time, with the Mayans even waging resistance on their own land as late as 1912.
The reasons for the failure of Indian civilization in South America, besides backwardness of weapons, were backwardness of organizational systems and the influence of alien viruses.
The reason for the failure of Indian civilization in South America is not only the backwardness of weapons, but also the backwardness of organization and the influence of foreign viruses. However, in North America, where the population density is low and the trade of foreign weapons is frequent, it is a different scene, and it is difficult for the colonizers there to reproduce the glorious achievements of the past. 1528, the Spanish sent the Nevada Expedition to Florida, which was encircled and annihilated by the Indians and suffered a great loss, with the head of the expedition being killed. In 1539, the Spanish army of De Soto was almost completely annihilated by the Indians in the Gulf of Mexico, with only 300 survivors out of 1000, and De Soto was also killed. By 1576, almost all of the Spanish colonial strongholds in the Gulf of Mexico had been razed by the Indians. French colonists were also defeated in the north by the Indian Iroquois tribes, and in the Powhatan War of 1622, the Indians destroyed 80 of the 88 settlers' settlements in Virginia, and the capital city of Jamestown was razed.
These North American Indian tribes were inferior to their own compatriots to the north and south in numbers and organization, and were half as bad in bloody belligerence. The reason they won was that the "scum" of the colonists had already sold a lot of iron to the Indian tribes, helping the Indians upgrade from the Stone Age to the Iron Age and the Firearms Age.
In addition to the upgrading of weapons, the North American Indians also had their own cavalry. The Appaloosa horse was the Spanish horse tamed by the Indians. The Sioux relied on the Appaloosa horse to carry out a great cleansing of rival tribes such as the Arica and Pawnee. In conjunction with the need to fight with horses, the Indians also improved the weapons they held in their hands, of which the Indian war club was a prime example.
The Indian war club had a solid piece in the front section, mostly in the form of a ball or butt, which could be bone, stone, or hardwood. This weapon looks simple, but can cause fatal injuries, is the Indians for fighting and immediate surprise attack.
Another typical example of the upgrading of Indian weapons is the Indian tomahawk. These tomahawks were originally made of stone, and the flying axe-throwing we often see in movies did not exist in the early years. Until the fur trade, which had a profit margin of up to 15 times, allowed Western colonizers to import a large number of iron weapons into the Indian tribes, the Indian tomahawk began to be upgraded.
North American Indians had good guns in addition to good horses. Colonial wars in Britain and France have hired Indian tribes as cannon fodder, one of the commission is the musket. 1812 during the Anglo-American War, Britain even opened a special Northwest Trade rifle exclusively for the Indians. Familiar with the performance of the musket Indians also invented a specialized tactic to deal with the American militia, that is, to attract each other to fire first, in the change of bullets in the gap to finish the enemy. The Indians not only had a record of wiping out American troops in the field, but also captured Fort Dearborn and Fort George in the Anglo-American War.
The Indian's eye for selecting a musket was also very sharp, and the Henry rifle was not only a cowboy's favorite but also a godsend in the eyes of the Indians.
The Seventh Cavalry Regiment, equipped with Springfield 1873 single-shot carbines, found that the Indians they faced were not only equipped with bows and arrows but also with Henry-type repeating guns in the battle of Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876.
The Indian was also equipped with a bow and arrows, but also with Henry-type repeating guns in the battle of Little Big Horn. This type of rifle was so expensive that only a small number of elite units were equipped with it during the American Civil War, and many soldiers had to spend months of their own paychecks to buy one at their own expense. The Indians paid even more for this weapon, and it was with this weapon that they achieved their victory over the American army.
In order to extinguish the North American Indian resistance, the United States at one time spent up to 80% of the federal budget and total army strength on the war against the Indians. Battles in which the U.S. Army suffered losses in the field were commonplace, and in the end it was the graduates of West Point who, with their civil engineering skills, one of the best in the nation, surrounded and subdued the Indians one step at a time.
While the Indians' rate of weapon evolution can be said to be the most of mankind, but they can not complete their own weapons upgrade, so in modern times still can not establish their own glory.
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