By Lance R. Blyth
Best Defense bureau of Indian affairs
We typically think of the Plains Indian warrior mounted, usually on a painted pinto pony, wearing a breech-clout, long flowing feathered bonnet, and little else, with a bow and arrow or decorated Winchester in his hand, conducting a lightening raid, riding off, yipping, over the horizon; the “world’s finest light cavalry” someone was supposed to have said.
That, however, was a particular adaptation of traditional modes of warfare to specific technological changes, specifically the horse and the gun, which spread across the Plains from roughly the late-seventeenth century. This adaptation peaked in the …read more
Source: Foreign Policy
