Don Shift Sends: Indian Raid and American Frontier Lessons for SHTF, Part Two

​This article is a part of my new non-fiction book, Rural Home Defense: A cop’s guide to protecting your rural home or property during riots, civil war, or SHTF.

Mistakes made by settlers

• Indians usually selected an isolated and under-defended home for attack.
• Settlers didn’t keep watch outside their homes and were taken by surprise.
• Settlers didn’t clear foliage from obvious hiding places often after acknowledging the danger the concealment provided.
• Individuals would become separated from each other or go out alone only to be attacked and then wounded, captured, or killed.
• Persons would be attacked while outside, alone, and unarmed.
• The father/husband would often be absent (hunting, working, or in town) when raids happened.
• The family didn’t have enough firearms to adequately arm all the adults, often leaving wives alone without a gun.
• Neighbors were distant and were not able to mutually support each other to ward off the attack.
• Recovery/reprisal parties chasing after the Indians were often outnumbered and lacked flank security or scouts.

Discussion

Settlers did not set themselves up for success. Their farms/ranches were isolated, in poor defensive locations, had few capable defenders, and their situational awareness sucked. If your house is in a poor physical defensive position (or design), you have to overcome this with technology or manpower. Remember that barricades and obstacles can only delay an attack; manpower can defeat an enemy and turn that obstacle into a force multiplier. More men allows for more area to be defended and casualties to be absorbed. Lastly, if you aren’t paying attention and get surprised you’ve lost the advantage.

I get that everybody wants their own land and that scarcity of resources like grazing land and water made it necessary to spread out, but it was stupid from a defensive standpoint. Houses that were widely separated could not rely on each other for mutual support. Given that many of these frontier families were a nuclear family with one adult male, maybe some older boys, there wasn’t the manpower to defend them.

When help was needed, anyone who could escape and manage to evade the Indians faced a desperate run, ride, or walk to neighbors that could be miles away. Even a one mile jog might take 10 minutes for someone in average shape. Up to half an hour might pass before help arrives and God only knows what horrors may have transpired in the balance.

The houses should have been built much closer to each other, like 100-200 yards maximum; an easy rifle shot. With a clear view, each house could offer supporting fire to the others. Neighbors would be in close proximity for refuge and defense. More eyes could more easily keep watch. Modern building practices where homes are on smaller lots now naturally accommodate this kind of thing, though the homes weren’t laid out and built to maximize defensive fire.

Today, homeowners will probably have to clear brush and trees to improve sightlines for natural surveillance and for supporting angles of fire. Radio communication and cameras can supplement human lookouts. Vehicles conquer the tyranny of distance. Technology and development patterns change some of the risks, but there are plenty of rural properties that are just as isolated and undermanned as in the frontier days.

One repeatedly losing tactic was for a settler to chase after raiders by himself. Pursuing Indians alone or in pairs was a recipe for disaster as the Indians almost always outnumbered the settlers. In many cases “Pa” was ambushed or routed and killed when he went rushing off alone to recover the stolen horses or try to get some parting shots in. If the family was lucky, they were able to defend alone from inside but often the house fell anyway.

It might seem natural to try and recover a stolen vehicle or livestock as the enemy flees, but this is like swimming out into shark infested waters. As you leave the house, you deprive it of a capable defender, lose the benefit of any defensive works (fencing/covered positions), and are more easily flanked by the enemy. Going out alone is stupid.

A smart enemy who is being pursued would setup a hasty ambush or just circle back and engage their pursuer. Perhaps they were content to “live and let live” until you decided to chase after them. Too many victims of robberies, etc. have been killed because they decided to go after their attacker, usually unarmed. If you are in a weak position, don’t do things that make yourself more vulnerable. You could be running into a trap.

You cannot afford to let ego or revenge blind you to tactical realities. If your family is alone, if the enemies are withdrawing, and if you are outnumbered, let them go. I understand that things might be different if a family member is kidnapped, but act smartly. In today’s world, a vehicle could be identified or followed from a distance while you radio for help. There may be moments of necessary self-sacrifice, like if a family member is a captive, but don’t potentially sacrifice your life for “stuff.”

Tips for today

• Don’t be lured outside by anger or indignation. Curses and taunts are provocations intended to get you to forget yourself long enough to make mistakes.
• Do not chase after raiders to recover property or for revenge unless you can do it in force with competent fighters and you have both greater numbers and more firepower.
• In the event of a kidnapping, you may need to put yourself in harm’s way to recover your loved one. Make sure that whoever you leave behind is well protected when you are gone and accept that you may not survive.
• If your numbers are small and your defensive abilities are low, fight from within the home as much as possible. The structure keeps bad guys away from you and makes it much more difficult for them to see you, shoot you, and physically get to you. Remove this this protection and you become more vulnerable.
• On the contrary, being outside to fight allows more freedom of movement, draws fire away from the house where others may be sheltering, and allows better visual/aural observation. People fighting outside should be in prepared positions, well armed, and capable.
• Build or buy a house that is close to other neighbors. Ideally shooters should be able to support each other from each home or property with interlocking fields of fire. In Rhodesia, farmers went so far as to tear down or move buildings for better angles of fire.
• Strong homes kept Indians from battering down the doors or breaking through windows and walls. Fortified homes can provide both ballistic and forced entry resistance. Bullet resistant walls or sandbagged positions can help.
• Have as many people living with you as possible. More people gives you more eyes and ears to keep watch as well as fight back. Neighbors may want to move in together or spend the night in the best prepared home.
• Setup a robust communications network with your neighbors. If the phone network goes down, you don’t want to be running through danger so you can pound on the neighbor’s door.
• Have a rapid/quick reaction force that can come to your aid, especially for homes with just a few residents. A family might be able to hold off the bad guys for a few minutes while ten armed neighbors show up.
• Whenever you are pursuing someone, be alert and prepared to walk into an ambush. Protect your flanks and utilize scouts. If you do not need to immediately recover a kidnapping victim, it is better to discreetly track the enemy and hit them at a time and place of your choosing where you hold the advantage.
• Arm everyone who can safely handle a gun and make sure they can shoot well enough to protect themselves. Women don’t necessarily need to be soldiers but they should always be able to protect themselves and the family. If Dad gets killed, Mom should be able to hold her own until help arrives.
• Women are seen as weaker. Individually they may not be a pushover but even if a woman is an above average fighter, she is physically at a disadvantage against men. Without men around, an enemy will be emboldened even if he finds out he targeted the wrong ladies. A man around the house can be a deterrent the same way a woman walking a large dog can intimidate creeps on the street.
• Any adults going outside should be armed at all times. “Stay strapped or get clapped.”
• Site a house in a defensible location when possible or modify the terrain/property to be more defensible. Clear out brush or remove features that could hide ambushers. In South Africa, large decorative gate supporters (walls or pillars) are favorite hiding places for thugs.
• Be prepared to escape and evade should the house be captured. Having hiding places and concealed escape routes mapped out. Practice getting to these places and escaping undetected. Have bug-out-bags so that you don’t run empty handed. Also consider hidden stashes of supplies on your property, along your escape route, or in selected hiding places.
• Always fight and fight hard. Bad guys may not withdraw from the field out of honor for your warriorship but they may decide that you are too hard of a target to continue pressing the issue. Make the cost of the attack too high for the enemy to pursue.
• Be prepared for attacks at multiple locations or diversionary actions.
• Modern Americans may a lack of cooperation of neighbors across fractured religious, political, or ethnic lines. A Republican may refuse to help a Democrat or vise versa. This has been seen in various 20^th and 21^st century ethnic conflicts elsewhere.