Who didn't play cowboys and Indians in their childhood? Who wasn't a dashing cavalryman or noble savage? Most of us remember John Wayne as cavalry captain Cuttling Brittles in "She wore a Yellow Ribbon," Clint Eastwood in "The Texan," or Kevin Costner in "Dances with Wolves." We sat spellbound in front of the television and cheered along.
Even though most of these stereotypes are rightly being questioned today. The films that most of us grew up with portray the American history of the West from the perspective of the victors. From the perspective of the brave settlers who had to defend themselves against the inhospitable wilderness and the savages who inhabited it. But it's not quite that simple, that black and white. Since the founding of the United States of America, the Indian Wars have always been about the economic interests of the white settlers. The customs and traditions of the Indians played no role in the considerations. When you consider this, it becomes understandable why the Native Americans resisted so desperately. They wanted to preserve at least a small remnant of their culture and traditional way of life. And in their fight, they did not shy away from atrocities.
But even if the story behind the Indian wars is full of cruelty and injustice on both sides, it also offers room for exciting stories and tabletop battles.
We don't even have to pit the two sides against each other, we can simply organize a buffalo hunt. The bison formed the basis of the life cycle of the Plains Indians, they provided food (through their meat), clothing (through their fur) and jewellery (through their bones). The Indians did not use the whole animal like the commercial fur hunters did later, who caused the population of the Plains buffalo to collapse within a decade because they shot the buffalo by the thousands for their fur and then left the carcasses to rot, eating at most the tongue as a delicacy.
If you now think of a scenario in which the aim is to catch the valuable animals, you can immerse yourself in the Wild West without having to fight a battle.
However, you can also recreate the famous battles of the US Army against the Plains Indians, the most famous of which was the Battle of Little Big Horn. There, in the summer of 1876, a combined force of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho succeeded in devastatingly defeating a detachment of the 7th US Cavalry Regiment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.
According to new findings, this debacle was due to Custer clearly underestimating the enemy's strength. In his estimate, he probably assumed a total of around 800 warriors who would face his regiment of around 600 men. He would have been outnumbered, but if you consider the military doctrine in force at the time, which assumed that well-trained and disciplined troops could take on two to three times the number of Indian warriors, his decision to risk the attack is understandable. His assessment of the situation may also have been influenced by the fact that he could not estimate the true size of the camp in front of him, as it was located in a valley that he could not see from his observation point. The camp
that Custer faced was a huge collection of tents belonging to the tribes involved. Today it is assumed that there were between 6,000 and 10,000 people there in the valley of the Little Big Horn River, including 1,500 to 2,500 warriors. Even though only 1,200 Indian warriors were likely involved in the subsequent battle, this was still a sizeable force that Custer faced.
In addition, Custer did not have precise knowledge of the location of his opponent's main forces, and therefore divided the twelve companies of his regiment into three detachments, which were to separately reconnoitre the area of operations and then encircle the Indian camp in the valley floor from both ends.
Strictly speaking, Custer acted strictly according to the military textbook. At West Point, the theory was put forward with regard to the Indians' fighting style that Indians, who were known to have no rigid command structure and thus had problems carrying out coordinated actions, would always avoid a direct confrontation with larger enemy units because they were primarily concerned with getting their families to safety. The strategy taught there was to attack an Indian camp from different directions, if possible, in order to prevent coordinated resistance from the Indians and thus ensure that they only had the option of fleeing or being captured.
In theory, therefore, even a small force should be able to defeat a much larger number of Indians.
In this light, Custer did not act particularly carelessly or irresponsibly, but neither was he very creative or particularly clever. As he had done so often before, he relied on his talent for improvisation and on the combat experience of his soldiers. Knowing full well that there was always the possibility that individual isolated companies could suddenly find themselves alone against the main enemy force.
And that is exactly what happened that day. Custer himself found himself facing superior numbers and his separate attacking units were crushed.
The result of this battle was 252 soldiers killed on the US cavalry side. The number of Indian casualties is unknown, but it is assumed that 80-200 Indians were killed, a lower number of casualties than on the cavalry side, but a shockingly high number when you consider the small size of the Indian nation.
But it was not only the Plains Indians who offered bitter resistance to the advance of the white settlers. Other Indian nations also defended themselves. Above all the Apaches in what is now Arizona and New Mexico.
Their resistance to white conquest began in the days of the Spanish and lasted until 1886, making this war the longest fought on American soil.
In contrast to warfare on the prairie, the Apaches' fight was characterized by guerrilla tactics. They attacked gold prospectors and settlers and forced them to leave their territory or killed them. This tactic also arose out of necessity, as the area they lived in was characterized by its barrenness and this was how they obtained what they needed to survive.
Here you can recreate small skirmishes, the Apache against the Texas Rangers or cattle drivers. A wide range of interesting scenarios.
The Indian Wars in the Southwest officially ended ten years after those on the Prairie in 1886, when Geronimo, who had escaped from the reservation the year before with only 30 warriors, was forced to return.
This marked the end of the era of the Indian Wars, although it is interesting to remember that individual raids by isolated groups of Apache continued until the 1930s.
But the history of the Wild West has not yet been fully told, as parallel to the conflicts with the Indians there were also fights among the white settlers themselves. Examples of this include the shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone in 1871 and the Lincoln Country Cattle War from 1878 to 1881.
In both, well-known characters played a not insignificant role. In the shootout at the O.K. In addition to Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday was also involved, in the conflict in Lincoln Country, as was a certain Henry McCarty, better known as “Billy the Kid”.
It doesn't matter if you played cowboys and Indians in your childhood, now it's possible. You can recreate large battles or small skirmishes. You can decide to lead the US cavalry against the Sioux and their allies or the Apache. Or you can recreate wild shootouts as a skirmish between the law enforcement officers and the outlaws we know so well.
I hope you enjoyed my little trip to the Wild West and that I was able to give you a few ideas along the way.
See you soon, Martin