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"You Have Guns and So Have We...": An Ethnohistoric Analysis of Creek and Seminole Combat Behaviors

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Date Issued:
2012
Abstract/Description:
Resistance to oppression is a globally recognized cultural phenomenon that displays a remarkable amount of variation in its manifestations over both time and space. This cultural phenomenon is particularly evident among the Native American cultural groups of the Southeastern United States. Throughout the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries the European and American states employed tactics and implemented laws aimed at expanding the geographic boundaries of their respective states into the Tribal Zone of the Southeast. None of these groups, however, sat passively during this process; they employed resistive tactics and strategies aimed at maintaining their freedoms, their lives, and their traditional sociocultural structures. However, the resistive tactics and strategies, primarily manifested in the medium of warfare, have gone relatively unnoticed by scholars of the disciplines of history and anthropology, typically regarded simply as guerrilla in nature. This research presents a new analytical model that is useful in qualitatively and quantitatively analyzing the behaviors employed in combat scenarios. Using the combat behaviors of Muskhogean speaking cultural groups as a case study, such as the Creeks and Seminoles and their Protohistoric predecessors, this model has shown that indigenous warfare in this region was complex, dynamic, and adaptive. This research has further implications in that it has documented the evolution of Seminole combat behaviors into the complex and dynamic behaviors that were displayed during the infamous Second Seminole War. Furthermore, the model used in this research provides a fluid and adaptive base for the analysis of the combat behaviors of other cultural groups world-wide.
Title: "You Have Guns and So Have We...": An Ethnohistoric Analysis of Creek and Seminole Combat Behaviors.
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Name(s): Lawres, Nathan, Author
Howard, Rosalyn, Committee Chair
Barber, Sarah, Committee Member
Walker, John, Committee Member
, Committee Member
University of Central Florida, Degree Grantor
Type of Resource: text
Date Issued: 2012
Publisher: University of Central Florida
Language(s): English
Abstract/Description: Resistance to oppression is a globally recognized cultural phenomenon that displays a remarkable amount of variation in its manifestations over both time and space. This cultural phenomenon is particularly evident among the Native American cultural groups of the Southeastern United States. Throughout the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries the European and American states employed tactics and implemented laws aimed at expanding the geographic boundaries of their respective states into the Tribal Zone of the Southeast. None of these groups, however, sat passively during this process; they employed resistive tactics and strategies aimed at maintaining their freedoms, their lives, and their traditional sociocultural structures. However, the resistive tactics and strategies, primarily manifested in the medium of warfare, have gone relatively unnoticed by scholars of the disciplines of history and anthropology, typically regarded simply as guerrilla in nature. This research presents a new analytical model that is useful in qualitatively and quantitatively analyzing the behaviors employed in combat scenarios. Using the combat behaviors of Muskhogean speaking cultural groups as a case study, such as the Creeks and Seminoles and their Protohistoric predecessors, this model has shown that indigenous warfare in this region was complex, dynamic, and adaptive. This research has further implications in that it has documented the evolution of Seminole combat behaviors into the complex and dynamic behaviors that were displayed during the infamous Second Seminole War. Furthermore, the model used in this research provides a fluid and adaptive base for the analysis of the combat behaviors of other cultural groups world-wide.
Identifier: CFE0004280 (IID), ucf:49532 (fedora)
Note(s): 2012-05-01
M.A.
Sciences, Anthropology
Masters
This record was generated from author submitted information.
Subject(s): warfare -- Native Americans -- Seminoles -- Creeks -- Muskhogee -- Seminole Wars -- First Creek War -- Redstick War -- Spanish military entradas
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004280
Restrictions on Access: public 2012-05-15
Host Institution: UCF

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