I'm reading Ambrose's "Undaunted Courage" and am somewhat mystified by something. As Lewis travels west he encounters tribes with fewer and fewer western weapons (guns). These tribes (like the Shoshones) have been driven from their land by rival clans because those clans have rifles. But as we learned earlier, this tribe or that tribe seems to only possess a small handful of rifles (Lewis's arsenal of a few dozen rifles is described as the most firepower some of these tribes have ever seen). My understanding of rifles from that era is that they are slow to load and inaccurate to fire, leaving the user fairly vulnerable if acting alone or in small numbers. I get what made them effective on the battlefield, but I'm perplexed as to why entire tribes were driven into the mountains by a few rifles in the hands of their enemies.
Great question, and it has a few parts. Fortunately, David Silverman's Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America gets to quite a bit of them, and we can synthesize what's left from other sources.
At the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the typical route for firearms into the northern plains involved the Hudson's Bay Company and the rival North West Company, each of which operated strings of trading posts through what is now southern Canada. French firms operating from St. Louis had only begun to exploit the Missouri River as a transportation artery.
To the south, there were trade routes into Spanish Mexico through the Comanche and other tribes, but these were long and more difficult: The principal trade routes were to the north and east.
I mention trade, because that's the critical factor at this period. What matters is not how many guns you have but how well you can supply and repair them. At the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Blackfeet dominated these supply routes and really were taking it to the Shoshone to the south and west.
Now, it's important to note an observation by fur trader Peter Fidler, who noted what you do ─ that the firearms of the time were heavy, slow to fire, and generally unsuitable for horseback maneuvering. Instead, he observed that while Blackfeet hunters tended to prefer the bow and arrow, Blackfeet warriors adored firearms.
At the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Blackfeet were attempting to corner the market (with some success) on firearm access to the inhabitants of the northern plains and northern Rockies. The benefits were obvious: By collecting furs from more isolated tribes, they could mark up the price of any European goods (especially firearms) by a great deal and thus enrich themselves.
By the end of the first decade of the 1800s, that strategy was beginning to fall apart. Manuel Lisa's Missouri Fir Company built Fort Raymond at the junction of the Yellowstone and Big Horn rivers in 1806; the North West Company built Kootenai House in 1807; and Saleesh House and Kullyspell House came two years later.
Lewis and Clark arrived at a particular moment when the Blackfeet were having the most success cornering the firearms trade in the exact territory they were passing through.
My understanding of rifles from that era is that they are slow to load and inaccurate to fire, leaving the user fairly vulnerable if acting alone or in small numbers.
Smoothbore trade muskets like those used by Native Americans during this period were very well suited for small-scale warfare. At short ranges (<50 yards or so) a round ball or buckshot could pick off individual targets more easily than a low-velocity arrow, especially if that target is moving, and a bullet with a good charge of powder was much more likely to kill or maim than an arrow was. In a forest or on rough terrain a musket could be shot from cover more easily than a bow and the shooter could hide himself during the lengthy reloading process, and in an ambush or sudden attack a pre-loaded musket could help make the initial strike more devastating. During the 16th century the arquebus/musket generally was more effective in skirmishes than in large scale engagement. Instead it was the difficulty of getting 10,000 musketeers to fight effectively on a single battlefield, when the smoke, noise, and general chaos made accuracy almost impossible, which lead to so much experimentation with complex formations and volley drills during the 16th and 17th centuries.
In the Americas it would be a long time before guns were available in large enough numbers for that to be much of a concern. They couldn't always win wars on their own, but they were often a significant advantage even in small numbers. One early example was described by Samuel de Champlain in 1609 while aiding his Algonquin allies in a battle against the Iroquois. After asking his allies to point out the enemy chiefs he stepped forward and fired, killing two and wounding a third (he had dropped four bullets into his arquebus. Both sides began exchanging arrows, but after a couple more of Champlain's men opened fire from the nearby woods the Iroquois fled.
u/The_Alaskan covers the case of the Blackfeet pretty well. With a monopoly on trade routes with europeans the Blackfeet could force their neighbors to pay extremely high prices for european goods or use force to seize more hunting grounds for themselves. In turn as the primary customer of the Hudson's Bay and other companies they could demand more goods and better deals for themselves.
In Silverman's Thundersticks there is an account from a man named Saukamappee describing an encounter from the 1730s between a Shoshone war party and allied Blackfeet/Cree forces who had brought about 10 muskets with them. Both sides approached each other on foot out in the open:
Once the Shoshones closed to within firing range in preparation for making a charge, the allied gunmen stepped to the fore, "and each of us [had] two balls in his mouth, and a load of powder in his hand to reload." Then just as the Shoshones rose up from behind their shields to string their arrows, the musketeers unleashed a volley, killing and wounding several of the enemy, and filling the rest with "consternation and dismay." In their retreat the Shoshones acknowledged that their rivals had obtained a technological advantage just as formidable as the horse.
"The terror of that battle and our guns has prevented any more general battles, and our wars have since been carried by ambuscade and surprise of small camps, in which we have greatly the advantage, from the guns, arrow shards of iron, long knives, flat bayonets, and axes from the Traders."
Could you specify the date more? Technology for weapons changed immensely throughout a 100 year period.