Edge of History

The story of “How the West Was Won” (ie. how native people were pushed into tiny corners of the North American continent or exterminated) has many unexpected elements as well as true clichés. We’ll explore one small but symbolic episode of that history in this episode, drawing (in part) on a very unusual source: the autobiography of a native woman that learned to read and write English, survived war, and became a famous speaker for her people.

The Spartans have a legendary name in military history, only partly earned. I discuss that legend and the time when a motley group of lightly-armed patriots, led by an unlikely general, popped that legend’s over-inflated bubble.

By the late second century BC, the Roman Republic had persevered and conquered through many disasters: so many, in fact, that conquest and eventual victory were taken for granted. In response to a barbaric tribal threat, a small group of selfish and complacent Roman aristocrats would bungle Rome into a catastrophe that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The price for eventual victory would be freedom itself, as events were set in motion that would destroy the Republic and replace it with the autocratic Empire.

The samurai era conjures up many ideas for most of us: honor codes, poetry, tradition, and splendid warriors with legendary swords. This image was never truly accurate, but it was gone by the 1540s. The once-glorious capital was half in ashes, the old lords had nearly all been destroyed, and the country had been in anarchy for two generations. It was a time of total disaster, but also a time in which the class structure was fluid enough that a simple peasant would rise in time to reunify Japan, restore the prestige of the samurai … and erase any opportunity for men like him to do the same again.

The man known to history as Aurelian rose to power in the Roman Empire during the chaotic “Crisis of the Third Century”—a time when rampant civil war, foreign threats, and a collapsing economy brought Western Civilization to the edge of ruin. Over the course of less than five years, this son of a common peasant turned back barbarian hordes, rallied the last imperial resources, and restored breakaway fragments to the whole. A grateful Roman Senate named him “The Restorer of the World,” but while success helped re-stabilize Rome for another 150 years, his achievements were later obscured and his legacy neglected. It’s time to revive his memory.

William “the Conqueror” gets all the press. As the man who changed the course of British (and World) history with his victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, he’s one of the more famous leaders to be crowned King of England. His victory, however, was anything but a foregone conclusion. In a three-way fight for the throne, the decisions of his rival Harold Godwinson loomed large in William’s eventual victory, making The Conqueror’s conquest (and the birth of this wonderfully odd hybrid language we call English) seem far more like fluke swings of fortune than the outcome of destiny.

Against the rushing tide of white European settlers, victories for the native peoples of America were difficult to come by and rarely had even a fleeting effect on the course of events. In the popular imagination, the “Great Indian Warrior” sits astride a horse on the Great Plains, waiting to outmaneuver columns of arrogant, blue-coated cavalry. Few know that the greatest triumph of tribal people over American armed forces came as far back as 1791, held back the line of settlement for years, and humiliated the foolish pride of George Washington himself. The author of that triumph was a complex and little-known Miami chief named Little Turtle.

Guerrilla wars are hard to fight under any circumstances—guerrillas are typically outgunned and outnumbered in any one battlefield, and must deal with constant shortages in supply, medical equipment, and ammunition. Some of the few advantages to being a guerrilla are that at least you can blend in with the local population to hide when you are not fighting, and usually that population and its culture far outnumber your enemy’s army. How do you manage, then, when you don't even have those advantages—when religious faith has brought you to fight on behalf of an oppressed people with whom you have little ethnic or cultural relation? Such was the mission of the greatest guerrilla commander of our generation, known as Ibn-al-Khattab, and his successes in the tiny republic of Chechnya (against the full might of the Russian Army)are worth recounting.