Early American Military Tactics: A Contrast in Fighting - Essay Example

Why does that happen? It is these occurrences that inspire people to pursue greater understanding of the tactics and preparations that lead to these unexpected successes. Exploring these eras of conflict we can understand the time period and the people living and fighting in those times better. History North America in the 1600s was quite a different place from the one we know today. There was no United States and much of the land was endless woods, grasslands, and plains. These were the lands populated by Native Americas who lived at peace with nature but not, always, with each other (West Virginia Archives & History 2013).

However, the disagreements between the tribes and skirmishes over hunting territories would seem quite insignificant in comparison to what was coming by sea just on the horizon. In the 1500s British settlers came to the east coast of what would, eventually, be the oldest part of the United States of America. By 1607 these European settlers had laid claim to the land. They became permanent colonists of the first established colony, Jamestown, a simple settlement, as can be seen on the above right.

This would be followed, over the next 120 years, by, of course, 12 other colonies (Millett et al. 2012). As can be seen in the diagram, above left, these colonies moved up the eastern coast. In the beginning the interactions between the settlers and the native people were peaceful. However, over time, the differences in culture, settler perception of the natives, and continually deteriorating experiences turned to something violent. This forced the colonists to take up arms and fight for the land that they had chosen to settle.

Discussion Today we seldom think about American involvement in warfare on American soil. In fact, until the bombing of Pearl Harbor and, of course and the number of terrorists attacks that have occurred in the 21st century there have been no warfare violence on American soil since the Civil War. Traditionally American troops are shipped far away to take the fight to foreign soil, ideally, to protect the American people for the harshness, danger, and realities of warfare. However, that was not always the case.

As mentioned much of conflicts in America were fought during eras of founding, development, and expansive growth into the North America that we know today. Some of the most crucial conflicts in American history are those between the earliest settlers, the colonists, and their experiences with Native Americans, the Revolutionary War, as it fought British forces, and the Mexican-American War, which was fought as the United States worked to expand. The Colonist Struggles with Native Americans The Colonists took their military traditions from their mother country.

English battle and warfare among themselves and with other opposing European forces. However, they found quickly that the Native Americans were a very different force than they had ever faced before. Native Americans, whose associations had once been peaceful, were finally pushed to acts of violence, would raid settlements, steal from camps, and participated in unusual battle tactics that the colonists, simply, were not familiar with