Is it true that native americans' goal in warfare was not to kill enemy soldiers, but merely to capture them?

by TheAcademy060

In James Diego Vasquez "From Indians to Chicanos" he claims that native americans' "goal in warfare was to capture, not kill". How true was this, and to what extent can this explain how Cortez was able to be so successful despite being so outnumbered?

TheBankTank

No, not really.

Obviously, different groups would have different attitudes at different times in different situations; capturing an enemy to be a slave could be a major source of wealth or prestige. But a lot of primary sources make it clear that, overall, warfare was WARFARE. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a conquistador who invaded Mexico with Cortes, in his book "The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico" notably mentions more or less none of the stereotypes later authors seems to have been very much in love with. Rather than presenting the soldiers of the Triple Alliance ("Aztec Empire") as fighting individually and attempting to capture rather than kill, he presents them as an extremely disciplined force, staying in formation at all costs, with high espirit de corps and clearly lethal intentions, though certainly willing to capture wounded or incapacitated opponents.

While the Triple Alliance used "flower wars" as a training method and tactic of attrition, in actual warfare they did not appear to have any unwillingness or reticence to kill.

Even groups for whom taking of slaves was a major economic aim often / usually did not take those captives by making efforts to nonlethally subdue the military forces opposing them; the peoples frequently called the Comanche by the Spanish and Texan colonial population tended to kill men or combatants in general (in some terrifying ways - raids and chevauchees and wars have never been clean or gentle or glamorous) and take women or children captive (see some of the primary sources from Comancheria on this - there are at least one or two accounts written by captives, I'll try to find names for you).

The idea that Native American peoples preferred to take captives therefore could be more or less true depending on, well, the Native peoples concerned and their specific economic or strategic goals and preferences - always accept agency. But as an overarching statemement it's false, as source materials generally indicate most indigenous peoples were perfectly willing to, and did, fight to kill in actual warfare even if they might be happy to pick up incapacitated opponents or noncombatants as captives.