ABSTRACT
The traditional view advocates that before the coming of the Europeans, warfare among the native tribes of North America was in a state of stasis and not casualty prone. The argument runs that the introduction of gunpowder technology by the Europeans in North America initiated a Military Revolution among the Indians. This in turn made inter-tribal warfare and conflict between the European settlers and the North American Indians bloody. Scholars also debate on whether Indian versus European warfare could be categorised as Total War or not. This chapter argues that warfare among the natives of North America before 1492 experienced certain evolutionary changes. Instead of using the much cliched concept of Military Revolution, Kaushik Roy proposes that the forces of both the Europeans and American Indians experienced a Military Synthesis. The result was that both the American Indians and the Europeans came up with hybrid military forces. Also, the impact of war which the Europeans waged against the Indians in certain aspects could be termed as total.
