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Aside from that the expression can be vaguely offensive to some American peoples, are there evidences of settlers' wagons trains being circled up, either for rest or for defense? Even in stories and folklore? If movies, which movies?
I suspect the expression came out of our pure collective imagination for its stark romantic imagery.
What do you think?
So whatever done, was done first by the ancient Chinese, right? (That ought to be an ancient Chinese adage by now.)
That very same Wiki though, ties the idiom to American settlers, in this way:
...attack, such as by hostile Native American tribes, the travelers would rapidly form a circle out of their wagons...This tactic was popularly known as "circling up the wagons", and survives into the modern day as an idiom...
And that tie between the idiom and that American era is supported by a bump up of usage (Google Ngram) in the immediate aftermath.
Now supposing that that was its origin, an interesting question would be whether the tactic it refers to was fact-based. One will find this in another Wiki :
While Indians might attempt to raid horses under cover of darkness, they rarely attacked a train. Contrary to popular belief, wagons were seldom circled defensively. (ref. Gregory, Leland (Jun 15, 2009). "Stupid History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Through the Ages")
On the other hand, you will find no lack of references to the contrary. History sometimes works this way.
Also, beware a syntactic possibility to the tactic of circling the wagons: many literatures mean by it the offensive tactic on the part of the Indian Braves. English sometimes works that way.
Louis Dearborn L;Amour supposedly was very careful with factual details in his stories. If he has a character walk a trail, not only does the trail exist, but L'Amour walled it.
He found 1 case 0f "circle the wagons", but never a case where indians rode around to attack. You can't hit very much that way unless you're inches away from your target. s8ch as a charging buffalo.
I can not quote any evidence about this but I don't see why you question that it ever occurred. If I were in a wagon train and came under attack, circling would seem to be a very logical way to set up a defensive position. To deny that it happened would be to deny that these travelers had common sense.
Well you think differently depending where you are, who you are.
If Indian attacks were not prevalent (that is a main question), you will not think tactically beyond firearms.
If you are not military, or professional escorts, you don't think tactically.
I you are just 1-time migrants, just hurrying on to where you go, you don't think tactically.
There is no evidence that settlements of that era were large well organized endeavors. Or not predominantly so or always so. And where there did not emerge a clear and repeated pattern of operation, neither there would emerge tactics.
Heavy-laden wagons are neither very quick nor very manouverable. If I came under attack, I'd rather stop in my tracks. Sitting up on top of the wagon, I would present a tempting target, and if I was lying on the round under the wagon, I'd be less likely to be hit. While jockeying around the wagon, my hands would be full of reins, and not full of a Winchester 73. While the wagon was moving, my wife and son would be bouncing around, and unable to draw a bead on a target. On the ground under the wagon, my elbows would be planted in the dirt, allowing me to engage in sharpshooting.
If you have a 10”15 appointment for being ambushed, you have time to get into a defensive position, but take a look at modern warfare with highly mobile vehicles. Do you know of tanks circling as a defensive posture? Only about a third of the cannons can be aimed at any target, the other 2/3 being pointed in the wrong direction. Instead, tanks form a line, so every tank is able to fire at a target, an tanks can swivel their turrets 180 degrees and fire behind them
Native Americans were mostly “smash and grab” artists, attacking without warning, and usually gone before their victims had time to think. They were not inclined to think in terms of a siege nor were they equipped for it. They couldn't carry much in the way of arrows or food, so a sustained battle for even ten minutes was pretty uncommon.
deaconB said: He found 1 case of “circle the wagons”, but never a case where indians rode around to attack. You can’t hit very much that way ...
Never really thought about that, but you're obviously correct about reduced accuracy when in motion. Especially if you're trying to shoot an arrow, maybe less so if you have a gun, and even less if it's a shotgun. Reminds me of a Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson. Couldn't find it online ... there's a bunch of wagons circled up with hundreds of Indians on horseback riding around the circled wagons. One of them is going the opposite direction of all the others. As he passes the chief, the chief admonishes him saying "No no Red Eagle ... clockwise. Always clockwise!"
RobertB said
One benefit of circling: so all the wagons can share a fire in the middle and socialize. Again, there's no evidence that's a common practice.Imagine a large crowd everyone hungry and tired to the bones: who wants to spend any extra minutes to round up the wagons?
The circle of wagons would have made it more difficult for Smoky the Bear to dump water on your campfire, putting it out. Only you can prevent prairie fires.
Getting up in the morning and harnessing the horse, knowing that you had a twelve hour day of driving a team, and then unharnessing the team and staking them, before you could eat and sleep... There must have been a lot of three-cup mornings. It wasn't loke you could pull into the drive-thru and get a couple of coffees, black, to go
They didn't talk about that in history class in junior high, nor did we learn it from watching Sugarfoot. I wonder how many kids swallpwed their teeth from asing "Are we there yet?" in the third day.
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