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Pellisworth posted:Sounds like the Mamelukes were somewhat analogous to the Ottoman Janissaries? Elite slave soldiers intended to be loyal only to the Sultan, but eventually accumulated a great deal of power themselves. I don't know much about this subject, but I've read that slavery in Islam is restricted to non-Muslims, meaning that slaves weren't a self-sustaining serf class, as in other slave societies, but extremely valuable commodities because they had to be imported from outside the muslim world, or captured in war, with better living conditions than the general populace. This might mean that there wasn't the same necessity to keep them unarmed and powerless. So the ruling class liked to have armed slaves, because the ruled class didn't have slaves, so the more powerful the slaves the more powerful the ruling class. Whereas in, say, the anti-bellum south, slaves were common, and there were more slaves than there were very poor non-slaves, so slaves were the ruled class, and the it was in the interests of the ruling class to keep them unarmed. I'm open the suggestion I'm talking out of my arse.
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Sep 18, 2015 19:28
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Pellisworth posted:Sounds like the Mamelukes were somewhat analogous to the Ottoman Janissaries? Elite slave soldiers intended to be loyal only to the Sultan, but eventually accumulated a great deal of power themselves. Its more specific to the Islamic kingdoms in north africa, the levant and iraq, due to court intrigue being very complex affairs involving kinsmen or the local bigwigs trying to usurp power from the Sultan/Caliph, a bunch of foreign slaves are less keen on that and more comfortable with just doing their job, that was the idea anyway. AFAIK places like the Arabian Peninsula, and Central Asia (tribal domains) didn't have them. Mr Enderby posted:I don't know much about this subject, but I've read that slavery in Islam is restricted to non-Muslims, meaning that slaves weren't a self-sustaining serf class, as in other slave societies, but extremely valuable commodities because they had to be imported from outside the muslim world, or captured in war, with better living conditions than the general populace. This is pretty accurate. A slave owner could arm his slave when fighting though, but i'm not sure how common was that. Fizzil fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Sep 18, 2015 |
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Sep 18, 2015 19:30
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Mr Enderby posted:Whereas in, say, the anti-bellum south, Antebellum! Meaning before the war, not against the war 
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Sep 18, 2015 21:56
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Woops antebellum south is in north america, but let me clear up a thing, a child born from a slave mother is still a slave in Islam though. And slaves can be Muslim, its not really restricted, emancipation is encouraged but it never really abolished the system. There is a lot of legalese to go through with the religion, but thats a thing for another thread.
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Sep 18, 2015 22:49
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Did a little reading and it seems like having an elite palace guard of slave soldiers was common throughout the Islamic world and for much of its history. In theory, I guess it makes sense to have an elite personal army/bodyguard that isn't tied up in internal politics (because they're foreign) and has little interest in amassing personal wealth and power because they're slaves and not hereditary. In practice it seems like they almost always end up essentially taking the court hostage for their own benefit, palace coups and all that.
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Sep 18, 2015 23:17
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Freudian slippers posted:Antebellum! Meaning before the war, not against the war This is more embarrassing because I did Latin for loving years, and some Greek. gently caress. But you take my point.
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Sep 19, 2015 01:39
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Pellisworth posted:Did a little reading and it seems like having an elite palace guard of slave soldiers was common throughout the Islamic world and for much of its history. In theory, I guess it makes sense to have an elite personal army/bodyguard that isn't tied up in internal politics (because they're foreign) and has little interest in amassing personal wealth and power because they're slaves and not hereditary. In practice it seems like they almost always end up essentially taking the court hostage for their own benefit, palace coups and all that. Sounds a lot like the way the Chinese kept coming back to the idea of court eunuchs for similar reasons. Worked out about as well for them, too.
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Sep 19, 2015 06:01
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so i acquired a thing last week: You can see where the tassets should attach; mine are out for repairs, like I said. They were probably originally keyed attachments like the shoulder ones, but when those break people replace them with leather straps and buckles. Detail of the way the breast attaches to the back:  It should look like this, but it's shittier: 
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Sep 19, 2015 17:32
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I love how beat up and dented it looks. I'll bet it's much more realistic in that regard for what your people would have worn than that shiny museum piece b
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Sep 19, 2015 18:18
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Yeah, this is one of several that belong to my company communally so it's real old. Next year I'll buy one of my own, I think.
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Sep 19, 2015 18:22
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That gets me all excited inside. I'm in the process of getting some armor made for HEMA fencing because I'm tired of loving with terrible sparring gloves and I want some real gauntlets. http://www.bestarmour.com/gauntlets_5.html I'm getting the RG 5.5s from this website, and may get some elbow and knee protection because gently caress it
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Sep 19, 2015 18:46
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cyrano, if it makes you feel even better, it also does not fit.Verisimilidude posted:this website  the Czechs.Edit: Where was that website when i bought a gorget for something like 70 british pounds? HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Sep 19, 2015 |
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Sep 19, 2015 18:55
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Pellisworth posted:Did a little reading and it seems like having an elite palace guard of slave soldiers was common throughout the Islamic world and for much of its history. In theory, I guess it makes sense to have an elite personal army/bodyguard that isn't tied up in internal politics (because they're foreign) and has little interest in amassing personal wealth and power because they're slaves and not hereditary. In practice it seems like they almost always end up essentially taking the court hostage for their own benefit, palace coups and all that. It's not only in theory that this makes sense, this type of parallel army was used to counterbalance landed nobility, which it did quite well. The nobles got their timar and have their men, but as the boot in the neck, there's a numer of forts and castles with a garrison of state payed Janissaries on their territory. It worked quite well until things get turned upside down by a number of economic factors and by gradually weakening the controlls that kept them in check, like e.g. letting them marry before they retire, and then the next step isn't far off to make the job hereditary (blame in on the success of the system for making concessions necessary). Maybe somebody else can effortpost on the Safavids, but the Ottomans aren't a good example for this palace revolt thing, because the house of Osman was always on the throne and never got replaced by others until the aftermath of WW1 ended the show. Compare that to the number of Iranian dynasties. Meddling? Aboslutely. Taking over? No. For the Ottomans, the system worked pretty well when there was an able sultan, up to Hegel's time, by then, the whole thing became so ludicriously volatile, so that they could demand to have e.g. the grand vizier killed, which happened quite often and got rid of some exceptional characters. It's amazing how impossible it was to unfuck the situation, even with massive support from the French. Killing the sultan and installing a brother of his happened only a couple of times, mainly, because when the sultan had a son or two, then all the sultan's brothers got strangled. So there's only the period when the old sultan passes away and his sons come of age where things got really dangerous. Clerics (also responsible for jurisdiction in the empire) and the Janissaries are the reason why the Ottomans developed some a really nasty case of backwardness, because those were the classes that completely resisted any attempts to modernize, and there were more numerous. In the end, they were only able to get rid of the Janissaries, because they pissed of the clerics and had new troops trained after western standard close by, which shelled the poo poo out of them. That was in 1826. It would also have eased alot of things to get rid of the harem, because that's were the real life threatening trouble for the emperors came from. These 300 years or so of Ottoman history would make a really interesting case for why the separation of power is such an amazing idea. HEY GAL posted:so i acquired a thing last week: May I proofshoot your armor one day?
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Sep 19, 2015 20:10
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JaucheCharly posted:May I proofshoot your armor one day?
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Sep 19, 2015 20:15
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HEY GAL posted:it's twice as thick as the originals, so go ahead Then we can use bigger balls!
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Sep 19, 2015 20:39
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JaucheCharly posted:It's not only in theory that this makes sense, this type of parallel army was used to counterbalance landed nobility, which it did quite well. The nobles got their timar and have their men, but as the boot in the neck, there's a numer of forts and castles with a garrison of state payed Janissaries on their territory. It worked quite well until things get turned upside down by a number of economic factors and by gradually weakening the controlls that kept them in check, like e.g. letting them marry before they retire, and then the next step isn't far off to make the job hereditary (blame in on the success of the system for making concessions necessary). Maybe somebody else can effortpost on the Safavids, but the Ottomans aren't a good example for this palace revolt thing, because the house of Osman was always on the throne and never got replaced by others until the aftermath of WW1 ended the show. Compare that to the number of Iranian dynasties. Meddling? Aboslutely. Taking over? No. You're right about janissaries being a counter-balance against the landed nobility and them not being a threat to the dynasty itself, as they needed the state and its central gov. to enjoy their privileged position within society. But blaming them for the Ottoman backwardness is seen problematic on many levels these days. They get a bad rap because Ottoman chroniclers and historians who have wrote about their degeneracy were their political & social rivals. I guess you can claim that their combat effectiveness really went down when compared to European armies, but the later janissaries were less of a military corp and more the armed wing of urban guilds and craftsmen anyway. They were fiercely protective of that class' interests, and were crushed when they appeared as an obstacle to the absolutist ambitions of 19th century sultans. Most Ottoman modernizing reforms can be summed up as attempts in strengthening the sultan and the central government at the expense of everyone else. But that's not really a medieval subject so let me add to the Mamluk chat instead: The idea does not seem that self-defeating when you consider the precarious situation of the sultans in the medieval Islamic world. Unlike European monarchs, the existence of sultans were somewhat of an embarrassment to medieval Islamic political thought. Any landed noble with a power base could usurp their place with brute force and without having to go great lengths at justifying themselves, since that's how they got their hands on their throne in the first place. You can observe how short lived these dynasties were before the rise of Ottomans, Safavids etc. and how most of them ended in a violent way or another. So if you're really looking for an elite force of armed men you can depend on, who's better than people who are completely ripped away from their social background, so they can't use it against you? Whom you'll arm from your own budget, and train and indoctrinate from a young age? People who will not be accepted by your subjects as rulers because they are barbaric foreigners, alien to their ways, and ignorant of statesmanship? Well my friend, you want slave boys from faraway places, and lots of 'em. Of course there were numerous problems with this theory, but hey it kinda worked for a time. 
fspades fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Sep 19, 2015 |
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Sep 19, 2015 23:21
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I've never stated that they're the sole reason, but it's very hard to argue that they're not one of the major reasons why the Ottoman state was such a collosal dysfunctional mess from the mid 17th on that never again really managed to catch up with their competitors. They weren't the armed wing of guilds and craftsmen, but were in direct concurrence with them, while holding executive power. This led to quite drastic problems (e.g. in the form of Istanbul burning down multiple times). The corps ran a parallel economic structure with their own manufactures and farms that fed their system with supplies and weapons. They were a major state run enterprise. Every recruit wasn't only trained as soldier, but learned a trade, or according to talent received sort of accademic training which lead to employment in public works as engineers or as members of the administration. Until the economic crisis in the early to late 17th century, they weren't allowed to compete with the economy at large (and didn't need to) and offer their wares and services to the public. It was the debasement of the currency, while their wages barely grew, that made it impossible to survive without being able to take part in the economy outside the state's system of fixed wages and prices. At that time their number grew excessively, putting great strain on the state's finances, which was another reason that intensified the debasement. Reliance on importing metals being another great source of outflow of currency. Tax base didn't expand either and they had to consider to tax the merchants harder. So there's why eventually there were so many riots that pitted them against the guilds, with the guilds ending up having the short stick. Kinda unlucky when the guys running the police and the firefighters set fire to your districts (while plundering workshops) and are actually armed to the teeth. In the last decade of the 17th century, the economic situation was improving, which helped to solve the most pressing issues of social nature and putting an end to the constant riots. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Sep 20, 2015 |
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Sep 20, 2015 21:09
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Of course this was a problem European monarchs had as well. Strip out the slave part (and, lets be honest, when parents are desperately trying to have their children taken,* the slaves are armed, and hereditary slavery is a right to be demanded, we've moved past a lot of the modern American connotations of the term) and you've got the same conflict with the Varagians and the late Romans, or the household/personal/state troops vs. Aristocrat troops provided. Why DoD early modern x hire foreig nerd to do y? Because nationalism wasn't a thing yet and the polity needed poo poo done. State payroll/supported/whatever offers a very direct (if expensive and yes, dangerous in its own way) method. Oh, also China and ye olde cycle of outsourcing military needs to steppe tribes. *it happened occasionally when the Jannisaries were doing very well and the population they were drawn from were not. In these cases enslavement was a big move up the social/economic ladder, and regardless shifted the burden of feeding off to the state.
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Sep 20, 2015 21:25
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JaucheCharly, how did the harem threaten Ottoman Sultans? What does the harem have to do with separation of powers? I know in East Asia the maternal families of Emperors often meddled in Imperial politics, is something similar going on here?
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Sep 20, 2015 21:59
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Squalid posted:JaucheCharly, how did the harem threaten Ottoman Sultans? What does the harem have to do with separation of powers? I know in East Asia the maternal families of Emperors often meddled in Imperial politics, is something similar going on here? I'll leave it to a less amateur historian to give details, but there definitely was a similar pattern of the Sultan's mother or wife exerting enormous influence on young or weak Sultans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanate_of_Women
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Sep 20, 2015 23:57
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Pellisworth posted:I'll leave it to a less amateur historian to give details, but there definitely was a similar pattern of the Sultan's mother or wife exerting enormous influence on young or weak Sultans. Yes, the Valide Sultan wielded quite great power, but these women were already a force to be reckoned with when they were wives. The Ottomans didn't place great emphasis on nobility of their wives, but they chose more or less the ones which appealed to them the most. So you have a large number of ethnicities. Greek, Italian, French, Spanish, Ruthenian, etc. The list in that link already contains the best of them, and Roxolane is definitely worth reading about. The lack of some sort of rule for succession turned the whole business into a quite murderous affair in the 15th and 16th century. The era we're talking about, the mid 17th century, already rejected these procedures and put the unsuccessful contenders into the Kafes, where they remained until they would take them throne themselves or die. This produced a number of quite insane sultans, like Mustapha I. and Ibrahim the Mad. Later this was changed and the brothers would be brought to the Prince Islands, where they remained. Keeping people in solitary confinement for a decade or so isn't going easy on their psyche, and it's especially unfunny for everyone else around them when they take the throne.
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Sep 21, 2015 12:40
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What was the last Crusade? Kings kept retroactivly declaring their wars a crusade for a long time. It`s really hard to define cut off point. Did they only end with the Napoleon`s capture of Malta?( then occupied by a still military active templar order).
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Sep 22, 2015 19:36
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Baudolino posted:What was the last Crusade? Kings kept retroactivly declaring their wars a crusade for a long time. It`s really hard to define cut off point. Did they only end with the Napoleon`s capture of Malta?( then occupied by a still military active templar order). If you require that Crusades have to be called by a Pope, then either Varna in 1444, where Pope Eugene IV published a Crusading bull and Hungary+Poland+Bohemia invaded the Ottomans (and lost), or in 1480, where in response to the Ottomans taking Otranto in southerrn Italy, Pope Sixtus IV called for a crusade to throw them out, and Hungary did send troops to help Naples kick them out. The use of calling a war a "Crusade" is rhetorical sense probably continued for much longer, and so did the crusading orders.
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Sep 23, 2015 18:09
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That brings me to my next question. What makes a military campaign a "real" crusade? Does the pope have to finance and directly organize it? Is it enough that he calls it himself, or is it sufficent that he retroactivly calls it a crusade?
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Sep 24, 2015 23:18
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I wonder if someone in this thread could describe to me how one provisions a campaigning army in Medieval Europe? Specifically I'm interested in the Hundred Years War, but really any roughly contemporary information would be helpful. Things I'd like to know would be: Was there a standardized daily ration for a soldier, and who in the command structure of the army (as much as one can be said to exist at that time) provided that ration? My understanding is that a great deal of an army's food and supplies were pillaged from the countryside, which would certainly impede the possibility of any 'standardized' rationing, but I don't have any decent sources to confirm or deny that suspicion. Similarly I assume that soldiers of any rank would be invested in providing their own food and drink of better quality than the rank and file would receive- which would indicate to me some kind of alternate, personalized supply chain? As I say I have a lot of hazy conceptions on how these things work and I would love to et some more concrete answers. Thanks to anyone who can help out!
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Sep 25, 2015 19:02
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Baudolino posted:That brings me to my next question. What makes a military campaign a "real" crusade? Does the pope have to finance and directly organize it? Is it enough that he calls it himself, or is it sufficent that he retroactivly calls it a crusade? Speaking very broadly, popes didn't finance or directly organize crusades. Those actually undertaking the crusade were responsible for organizing and equipping their men. Hence all the confusion in the "chain of command" (such as it was) of the first few crusades. The pope's major role (again, speaking very broadly) was his ideological authority to authorize crusades and to promise remission of sin for those who went. As for the second part of your question, the answer varies. The first crusade, for example, began after Pope Urban II - partially in response to a request from the Byzantine Emperor - urged western Christians to go to the Levant and fight the Muslims (several versions of this call to crusade are conveniently translated into English if you're interested: http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/urban2-5vers.html). On the other hand, around the time of the second crusade Saint Bernard of Clairvaux preached the crusade at an assembly in Frankfurt and the Saxon aristocrats there basically told him they would rather fight the non-Christian Slavic peoples to the east than go to Palestine. The pope (at that time Eugenius III) sanctioned their proposed war against these peoples (collectively known as the Wends) and said there was no difference between fighting "pagans" in the north and crusading in near east. All of this was very convenient for the Saxons, who for less-than-pious reasons were expanding and settling in the Baltic already.
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Sep 25, 2015 19:42
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Bendigeidfran posted:I've got some questions about the Genoese Crossbowmen during the early crusades era. Because it seems like everyone in the 11th/12th century is loving terrified of crossbows and they were basically the best at crossbows. You posted this a while ago and I don't think anybody replied, so I thought I would just take a shot at it. The famous Genoese crossbowmen have their origins in mercantile regulations imposed by the Most Serene Republic of Genoa. Genoese merchant ships were obliged to carry a number of men armed with crossbows and trained in their use, as a deterrent and defense against pirates and other people who might want to attack Genoan shipping. Since Genoa was a highly successful merchant republic with interests all over the Mediterranean and a pretty vast merchant marine, this meant there was a continuous demand for mercenaries bearing crossbows. This led to the development of a military establishment for training and equipping such men. The Genoese Balistai Corporation manufactured high-quality crossbows, others supplied equipment like body armor and pavise shields, and more-or-less permanently established mercenary companies recruited, trained, and equipped their men for service. Genoese crossbowmen served not only on galleys, but also in the defense of the Republic's trading depots and the city of Genoa itself. They were also for hire throughout Christendom, Eastern as well as Western, as Genoa had interests throughout the Mediterranean. A big portion of the French army at the battle of Crecy was composed from Genoese mercenaries, although the French command badly misused them. In the 1453 siege of Constantinople, the core of the defending army was made up from a body of 700 Genoese mercenaries led by Giovanni Giustiniani, and it was his withdrawal from the battlefield after being mortally wounded that precipitated the final Ottoman victory. The Genoese had the reputation of being the best mercenaries available anywhere, at least until the Swiss began hiring themselves out. It probably has to do with the relative guarantee of quality you got by hiring them. You knew when you put the money down that they would come fully equipped, trained, and disciplined. On top of that, they specialized in a weapon that was not just highly effective but also added a capability for skirmishing and ranged combat lacking in many armies of the time, rounding out their tactical options. As to how they were recruited, Hegel would be the best person to expand on this. But basically you would have a guy with a stack of money and he would put the word out that he was looking for able-bodied men to take up arms. In a monarchy the king might give his marshal or another household official some money to do this. There were also professional recruiters who would accept X amount of money to raise Y number of soldiers, and they would act as paymaster, liaison, and often captain of that body of men for the duration of the fight. Historically speaking it doesn't appear it was ever all that hard to pull an army together, as long as you had money and didn't develop a reputation for always getting all your guys killed.
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Sep 26, 2015 00:48
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Thanks! VoteTedJameson posted:I wonder if someone in this thread could describe to me how one provisions a campaigning army in Medieval Europe? Specifically I'm interested in the Hundred Years War, but really any roughly contemporary information would be helpful. Things I'd like to know would be: Was there a standardized daily ration for a soldier, and who in the command structure of the army (as much as one can be said to exist at that time) provided that ration? My understanding is that a great deal of an army's food and supplies were pillaged from the countryside, which would certainly impede the possibility of any 'standardized' rationing, but I don't have any decent sources to confirm or deny that suspicion. Similarly I assume that soldiers of any rank would be invested in providing their own food and drink of better quality than the rank and file would receive- which would indicate to me some kind of alternate, personalized supply chain? As I say I have a lot of hazy conceptions on how these things work and I would love to et some more concrete answers. Thanks to anyone who can help out! Provisions stolen during the Chevauchée wouldn't be standardized, no. There is some conception of how much grain, meat, and drink is needed for an army of a given size, but with how haphazard logistics was at the best of times (30% of your army could just up and desert, the bakers/butchers/etc. you contracted with could come up empty) there's nothing it can provide consistently. Ration provision is more or less handled by the king/whatever nobles happen to be leading you. If they raise enough money to pay for food and somehow deliver it in time, that's great. If they mess up, and they will, there aren't many options besides pillage. A wealthy man-at-arms might be able to bring/buy his own supplies (and his family, and servants as camp followers occasionally). But stuff like "dedicated provisions officers" and "consistently receiving food and pay" just...aren't. Now there are some cases where the local population voluntarily provided food due to sympathy or the army's ability to pay them on the spot. And conversely there are times where pillaging the countryside to burden your enemy with refugees is an intentional tactic. The latter is especially common in the Hundreds' Years War, where armies with nothing but contempt for the local population mill around for years.
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Sep 28, 2015 19:53
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EvanSchenck posted:The Genoese Balistai Corporation manufactured high-quality crossbows quote:As to how they were recruited, Hegel would be the best person to expand on this. Bendigeidfran posted:armies with nothing but contempt for the local population mill around for years. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Oct 1, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 15:48
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Who likes pictures of well-fitting, beautiful armor? http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/th...mpaign=mondayPM
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Oct 1, 2015 12:25
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HEY GAL posted:Who likes pictures of well-fitting, beautiful armor? Reminder that not a single one of those dudes has been laid ever Probably worth it for a set of that armour though
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Oct 1, 2015 14:54
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MikeCrotch posted:Reminder that not a single one of those dudes has been laid ever
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Oct 1, 2015 15:56
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did someone say fortifications???
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Oct 1, 2015 16:14
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The Swiss Guard might get laid more than you think, just not in the way you would expect: quote:A former Swiss Guard has claimed that he received sexual advances from cardinals, bishops and other clergy while serving in the elite corps, the Pope's personal bodyguard. 
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Oct 1, 2015 16:16
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Ashcans posted:The Swiss Guard might get laid more than you think, just not in the way you would expect: edit: and i doubt there's a single one among us who was not expecting that
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Oct 1, 2015 16:21
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Rabhadh posted:did someone say fortifications??? Fornication.
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Oct 1, 2015 16:26
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Does anyone here know about "medieval" combat in the African empires? Basically anything between let's say 500 AD and the introductions of gunpowder. I'm vaguely aware that the Mali empire had a well-organized army and that there's a decent amount of iron-working going on, but otherwise I'm clueless.
Bendigeidfran fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Oct 2, 2015 |
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Oct 2, 2015 17:47
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Hm, well are there any good resources about superstitions in medieval European warfare? I've heard there were some requirements about clergy being part of an army, but were there any juicy pagan holdovers that were practiced into the High Middle ages?
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Oct 14, 2015 18:13
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Bendigeidfran posted:Hm, well are there any good resources about superstitions in medieval European warfare? I've heard there were some requirements about clergy being part of an army, but were there any juicy pagan holdovers that were practiced into the High Middle ages?
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Oct 14, 2015 20:24
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Bendigeidfran posted:Does anyone here know about "medieval" combat in the African empires? Basically anything between let's say 500 AD and the introductions of gunpowder. I'm vaguely aware that the Mali empire had a well-organized army and that there's a decent amount of iron-working going on, but otherwise I'm clueless. Not directly, although I have found some titles that might be useful just by doing wiki-searches and checking out the footnotes. Stride, G.T. & C. Ifeka (1971). Peoples and Empires of West Africa: West Africa in History 1000-1800. - covers some stuff on the Oyo Empire. I do not have the book yet, but it seems to mention stuff like professional armies, combined arms tactics, the empire fielding large forces and so on. Smith, Robert S. (1989). Warfare & Diplomacy in Pre-Colonial West Africa Second Edition – covers some stuff on the Oyo cavalry. Thornton, John K. (1999). Warfare in Atlantic Africa 1500-1800 – mentions more about the infantry, describing them as armed with swords, tall shields, and often javelins (although other spears are not uncommon), as well as ox-hide armour. Another interesting thing I have come across that indirectly touches on the subject is the military effectiveness of maroons and Africans resisting the slave trade. I do not have my sources with me at the moment, but during a study of English colonial expansion, the journals and logs of early attempted slave-trading voyages by the English sometimes mention attempting to raid the coastline and take slaves that way… and the accounts did not go into detail on the fighting but they summarise the results with typically something along the lines of “we were driven off, with some of our crew dead, and we took no captives to show for it.” Indirectly addressing the subject are the Cimaroons later on in Spanish America. Basically I did an essay on the alliance between Francis Drake and the Cimaroons against the Spanish, and how important the Cimaroons were to the spread of English pirates into the Caribbean… and the answer is, immensely so. Ian Heath, ARMIES OF THE AZTEC AND INCA EMPIRES, OTHER NATIVE PEOPLES OF THE AMERICAS, AND THE CONQUISTADORES (Armies of the Sixteenth Century) - mentions some of this conflict, and the Cimaroons appeared to be *very* capable fighters, even taking defended positions with minimal casualties. They set up traps and camouflaged fortifications. Basically the range of skills meant that clearly many of the Cimaroons were highly skilled warriors, or at least had enough in the way of warriors to teach the others. I hope that helps.
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Oct 14, 2015 20:24
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