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American Rifle - Alexander Rose [221]

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History of the Explosives Industry in America, pp. 32–36.

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24. See, for example, Washington’s letter to Francis Fauquier, December 2, 1758, which urged “that a trade with the Indians should be upon such terms, and transacted by men of such principles, as would at the same time turn out to the reciprocal advantage of the colony and the Indians, and which would effectually remove those bad impressions that the Indians received from the conduct of a set of rascally fellows, divested of all faith and honor, and give us such an early opportunity of establishing an interest with them, as would be productive of the most beneficial consequences, by getting a large share of the fur-trade.” See also Kah-Ge-Ga-Gah-Bouh (“A Chief of the Ojibwa Nation”), “The American Indians,” American Whig Review 9, no. 18 (1849), esp. p. 634.

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25. Quoted in J.P. Reid, A Better Kind of Hatchet (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976), pp. 194–96.

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26. Quoted ibid., p. 195.

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27. The best modern introduction to this subject is K. E. Holland Braund, Deerskins and Duffels: The Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685–1815 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993).

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28. J. Underhill, “Newes from America; or, a New and Experimentall Discoverie . . .” (1638), in C. Orr, ed., History of the Pequot War . . . (Cleveland, Ohio: Helman-Taylor, 1897), p. 82.

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29. R. Williams, “An Helpe to the Native Language of That Part of America Called New-England,” in The Complete Writings of Roger Williams, ed. J. H. Trumbull (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963), p. 1:204. By way of comparison, between 1689 and 1713 about five percent of all able-bodied males in Massachusetts died fighting other Europeans; in a single year, 1690, around one thousand perished. Over the course of the 1740s one in five Massachusetts men between the ages of 18 and 40 died in battle. See J. Ferling, “The New England Soldier: A Study in Changing Attitudes,” American Quarterly 33, no. 1 (1981), p. 34.

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30. D. K. Richter, “War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience,” in P. C. Mancall and J. H. Merrell, eds., American Encounters, 2d ed. (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 432–33.

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31. “It is not for the sake of tribute . . . that they make war,” remarked Cadwallader Colden, referring to the Five Nations (the Iroquois Confederacy, composed of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk), “but from the notions of glory, which they have ever most strongly imprinted on their minds.” Quoted in Richter, “War and Culture,” p. 429. Roger Williams ascribed the outbreak of their wars to “mocking between their great ones” or “passion.” See Williams, “Helpe to the Native Language,” pp. 1:200–202.

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32. J. Lawson, The History of Carolina . . . (London: T. Warner, 1718), p. 199.

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33. Richter, “War and Culture,” pp. 435–36. See also D. Gookin, Historical Collections of the Indians in England . . . (1674; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1972), pp. 21–22.

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34. Richter, “War and Culture,” p. 434. See also J. Winthrop, Winthrop’s Journal: “History of New England,” ed. J. K. Hosmer (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1908), p. 2:80, on the trade in firearms.

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35. Gookin, Historical Collections of the Indians, p. 27.

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36. Richter, “War and Culture,” pp. 436–37.

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37. A good introduction to this broad subject is W.E. Lee, “Peace Chiefs and Blood Revenge: Patterns of Restraint in Native American Warfare, 1500–1800,” Journal of Military History 71 (2007), no. 3, pp. 701–41.

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38. A. T. Vaughan, New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians, 1620–1675 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), p. 133.

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39. A. J. Hirsch, “The Collision of Military Cultures in Seventeenth-Century New England,” Journal of American History 74, no. 4 (1988), p. 1201.

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40. See Vaughan, New England Frontier, p. 20.

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41. On praying towns and

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