The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics Among the New England Indians Paperback – October 18, 2000

Patrick M. Malone has shattered the myth of the American Indian as being an ignorant savage who was incapable of learning or of having the ability to learn European ways. "The Skulking Way of War" presented the argument that the American Indians of New England learned many skills from the English and adapted those newly learned skills into their culture and used those skills to improve their way of life. Malone brings to the forefront the concept of Indigination,or the Anglosizing of the New England Indians which led to drastic misunderstanding between the New England Indians and the English - especially in warfare.Malone puts forward the concepts that the English immigrants to New England were more farmers and shop keepers than hunters of game, thusly had little practical skills needed for the using of Flintlock of Matchlock muskets. In contrast the New England Indians had the hunting skills from using the bow and arrow combined with the skills of the stalking style of hunting. When the New England Indians acquired English technology of the Flintlock, the Indians became extremely good marksmen. By apprenticeship to the English the New England Indians also learned to become gunsmiths and even competent gun builders, enough so that the Dutch of the Hudson River Valley was smuggling gun parts to the New England Indians for repairing or the building of guns.There are many instances of indigination/assimilation between cultures and this book presents this cultural exchange in a very well research manner. This book is a must read for any student of early American history or for any teachers or professors of history to either use for class lectures or to have students read as part of the ongoing studies of early American Colonial history. This book should be a shining example that shatters the myth of European superiority over American Indian ignorance and puts the reflection of arrogance not on the Indians, but upon the Europeans where it must reside.This book will help cure your ignorance and enlighten your knowledge of the New England frontier of the seventeenth century. Enjoy.

The Skulking Way of War came to my attention shortly after the paperback was published in 2000. I paged through it quickly, so I set it down again. I was reading on the French and Indian War, but 17th century New England held no interest for me. I should have kept reading! Although focused on King Phillip's War, the text can also aid in the study of woodland Indian military actions of the 18th century: FIW, Pontiac's Rebellion, and AWI. As the author puts it: "In studying the tribes of southern New England, a scholar must sometimes draw inferences from known practices of other tribes."For a general history of King Phillips War, one must look elsewhere. Much like the content of one of Osprey Publishing's Men at Arms* titles, Malone's book is concerned with details of the Indians' and Puritan's respective military systems, logisitcs, tactics and weapons technology. Attention is paid to the fusion of these two traditions: The Indians were very quick to employ European latest weapons and the European's will to completely destroy one's enemy. The English, on the other hand, were very reluctant to apply Indian fighting methods and long suffered for it. In the end, the American colonists acquired a great appreciation for the Indian's "skulking way" of forest warfare. Their use of high mobility, stealth, surprise, and individual marksmanship would serve them well in their future wars against other Indians, the French, and the English.Chapters:I. The Aboriginal Military systemII. The Arrival of the White ManIII. The Arming of the IndiansIV. Proficiency with Firearms: A Cultural ComparisonV. Technology, Tactics, and Total Warfare*I should note that the text does not include full-color illustrations like an Osprey Book. My comparison applies only to the detailed subject and the concise, well-organized writing. The book does feature many charming contemporary engravings.

This author took a subject not enough explored since Samuel Adams Drake and expanded upon it greatly. The authors enthusiasm for the subject is apparent.The book might have a bit too much on the technology and not enough on the discussed tactics but the research is executed very well.This book suffers the rare circumstance of being really good and yet too short. Malone presents his material so well at the end that I wish there was more - but I'm grateful for what was received.

This is another "postmodernist" history -- one that assumes that the Indians were a spiritual, peace loving, disease free people who communed with nature. Then came the big bad honkies with their diseases, guns and "total warfare."Malone takes bits of information and constructs them in is to history. He finds an obscure record of a White who got in trouble with White authorities for selling a defective gun to an Indian. Obviously the Indian knew the gun was defective, claims Malone, he was just buying for parts and we can assume he was a technological genius.Worse is that the book gives of very little information on the skulking tactics and technology of the Indians. For example, the Indian of was a master of deceit and subterfuge but Malone avoids that topic like a plague.The Puritans won the war because of more men and virtually unlimited supplies, according only to Malone. Other authors such as Schultz (King Philip's War) and Leach (Flintlock and Tomahawk) tell us that the colonists were short of nearly everything, couldn't get their crops in, and faced starvation. Certainly the colonists had a larger population but fielded smaller army. The books by Leach and Schulz remain the only two good recent histories.Researchers can use Malone's book for its references. And it's worth reading for those taking more than a casual interest in the 1775-1776 King Phillip's War.

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