RWMoranUSMCRet: Blog

Currently, the story "The 400 Year War" has 8 chapters already released and chapter 9 will be issued this weekend. Part 2 or the middle part of the story is contained in chapters 7 thru 13 and deal with the crucial period of the French and Indian Wars and the American Revolution. A reader review reminded me that in chapter 7 I did not give as robust a fictionalized account as in the other chapters. That was a mistake on my part and I hope chapter 8 already published and all of the remaining chapters will be much improved in that regard. I will be certain to re-write the fictional account in chapter 7 before the story is concluded. I have collected almost 300 photos and paintings of the period as well as charts, graphs and maps and will publish a good portion of it in the annex to the 20 chapter story. As a separate project, I am compiling a short background annex on 25 of the most influential tribes in conflict over the period of the 400 year war in the "lower 48". The "lower 48" refers to the 48 states that comprise the mainland of the United States proper exclusive of Alaska and Hawaii. This story does not really treat the status of Indian tribes in Canada, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and any Central American or South American locale including Islands offshore. Some of the tribes involved in the conflict in the "lower 48" did exfiltrate to Canada and adjacent areas but I am only addressing their activities inside the borders of the United States with the possible exception of activities that spilled across the Canadian border into French territory during the French and Indian Wars. There are a lot of "concepts" and tangential circumstances that have influenced the outcomes of this conflict and I have addressed a number of them in the graph of Figure 1 which will be an annex to this story. I have noticed that a number of so-called "historians" have emphasized the huge genocidal decrease in the Indian population and I am not much at odds with that except for the fact that they are ignoring the rise of the European population figures over the same timeframe. I prefer to think of it in terms of opponent ratios rather than raw figures of population rises and declines. I suspect the enhanced population figures for Indian Tribes was the "tail wagging the dog" to reinforce the "genocide" argument. Regardless of the agenda, the figures do point out the rapidly changing opponent ratios and I have concluded that the change in population is most likely the foremost influence on declining Indian Tribe fortunes. It is the underlying reasons for those changes that I have some disagreement with in terms of how the data is historically presented in current day textbooks.
One of the surprises I discovered in the research was that the pivotal battle of Fort Niagara was underappreciated in the French and Indian Wars and that the far away defeat of the French navy in the waters off the French coastline by the British navy was the final nail in the coffin for the hopes of the French Settlers in the area of "New France" for eventual victory. The Indian Tribes were heavily invested in the outcome and they never fully recovered from their backing of the wrong horse in this fateful war. In fact, it was this error in judgment that led to their overall neutrality in the American Revolution further distancing themselves from any degree of mutual interest against outside influences. In at least two instances, the French were able to win a crucial battle but those wins only insured the eventual loss of the war because their strategy was basically flawed. The possibility exists that they were devious enough to foresee all of this coming to pass because their support of the American colonists in the fight against the British in the American Revolution was a "softening up" of American resistance to their dream of extending "New France" all the way from their defeat in Canada down the Ohio River Valley right up to the enclave in New Orleans claiming lands bordering on the Mississippi River system. If they had been successful in that it would have cut off expansion of the English colonies west and the entire concept of "Manifest Destiny" would have never been possible.

Figure 1 of the annex of "The 400 Year War" is titled "Influences on the 400 Year War between the American Indian Tribes and the European Settlers." It is a capsulized spreadsheet covering the entire timeline of 1492 - 1892 expressed in 25 year intervals with the periods of various influences that shaped the conflict blocked in to present the overall pattern in a simple visual graph. It will be part of the package that will be in the Annex to be attached to the story at the completion of the project. I consider it to be a sort of guideline to the existing facts and as such is not biased for either side of the conflict.
However, I do have some observations and some tentative conclusions about the value prioritization of the influences that are admittedly more subjective than objective. Readers might look at the same facts and discern a different pattern and rightly so because in learning more about any subject individuals form their own opinions and come to their own conclusions. So accept my conclusions only to the extent that I profess to not having any agenda in forming them.
There are 30 influences that I have categorized in this graph of specifics facts over a period of 400 years. Some of them are highly influential and others are merely tangential to the end result.
I have concluded that the single most impactful influence was the shift in demographics and population contrast during the entire 400 year war. Contained within this influence is the sub-influence of "Exposure to Disease" that in my opinion is the primary reason for the resulting shift. I have noted 3 other primary influences on the outcome as (1) The French and Indian Wars, (2) Western Migration (Manifest Destiny) and (3) Broken Treaties and Forced Displacement.
To a less important degree, I consider other consequential influences to be (4) Slavery, (5) Spanish Withdrawal, (6) American Revolution, (7) Louisiana Purchase, (8) French Revolution, (9)Loss of Buffalo and (10) Lack of Sufficient Firepower
All throughout the period, the tendency for (Intertribal Warfare) acted as a negative factor for the American Indian Tribes and it was manipulated by the European Settlers and the rising American military forces to sow seeds of discontent amongst the Tribes to keep them at odds with each other.
In my estimation from looking at the data, the crisis point was during the French and Indian Wars of the period 1750 - 1768 when a number of the Indian Tribes were involved either on the side of the English or of the French in a struggle for dominance in the New World. Spanish influence was already waning with the possible exception of California and Texas where Catholic missions were still flourishing. From that point forward, the American Indian Tribes were facing a stacked deck of changing times that could only result in their eventual loss of power and prestige and most of the lands they had held for hundreds of years.
The chart on Figure (1)is also divided into 3 separate timeframes or parts. Part (1) is described as the "Period from discovery to the beginnings of the French and Indian Wars.", part (2)is described as "the period of the French and Indian Wars and the American Revolution" and part (3) is described as "The post American Revolution period.
The story will spend about 6 chapters on part (1), 7 chapters on part (2)and the final 7 chapters will be devoted to part (3). I will add the Annex to a possible e-book of the story as well as an introduction and an epilogue. All of the text content will be available for free to SOL readers and the annex will be forwarded to any interested readers at no charge. I welcome any comments or suggestions and consider them for inclusion in the story as it is written. I have already received dozens of suggestions and have been gratified by the positive response.
RW Moran, USMC Retired (March 2015)

When I started this project I was doing it primarily because I had gotten tired of seeing such biased accounts of the period both in print and portrayed on the screen and on television. I believe I first noticed such historical discrepancies in published textbooks when I was teaching history classes in both middle school and high school. My first inclination was to consider it just an aberration or lack of good editing. Then, after seeing the same pattern in other areas like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the causes of the Indochina wars, I determined it was not accidental but intentional to distort history for younger generations. That might sound a bit paranoid but I have not been able to pin down any other explanation. This story that I am writing is not in any sense a textbook with official citations to meet certain subjective standards but it is drawn from a combination of eye-witness accounts from both sides and diaries of participants with close-up views of the conflict. I have not tried to slant the facts with opinions formed first and then writing the story to fit the opinion. I have done just the opposite and am writing the story and allowing the reader to form the opinion from the facts.
I have been gratified by the volume of comments on the writing thus far and it bolstered my resolution to bring the entire project to a speedy close. It is not my intent to offend any reader with the content of this story but in a story of this nature that deals with a conflict that is in a sense still fresh in the minds of many descendants of the participants, it is only natural to find strongly held viewpoints on both sides. I have made a few charts on excel files to explain the influences that were most important during this period of time from 1492 - 1892 and will try to figure out how to incorporate them into the story for the SOL readers. Additionally, I have collected a number of interesting photos of the Indian Tribes and the other participants along with maps of the Tribal areas and routes of migration. If I am unable to include this content, I will collect them into a single attachment file and make them available to any SOL reader who wants the other content forwarded to them directly.