The Cutting-Off Way

“An ambitious and thoughtful reassessment of Native American war-making before and after permanent European settlement in the early 17th century...Lee draws upon extensive new evidence to engage with existing scholarship and investigate previously unexplored territory.”—Wall Street Journal

“One of the benefits of studying the military histories of non-European groups is that it reminds us that there are very different means of waging war, as well as reasons for doing so. In The Cutting-Off Way, Wayne E. Lee argues that the fluid, Native American style of war was quite alien to the European soldiers who encountered it . . . . The aims of their wars were also different, argues Lee.”—New York Times Book Review

“This book is remarkable. . . . It is poised to become an instant classic.”—Journal of Southern History

“The Cutting-Off Way deserves to become an influential and widely read book. Lee provides a carefully crafted study. He frequently explores and engages with the scholarship in a magisterial and nuanced way. . . . [A] must read for anyone interested in the history of early modern Indigenous, North American, and Atlantic warfare.”—American Historical Review

“Deeply researched and broadly sympathetic, [The Cutting-Off Way] provides an important new take on the ways, means, and ends of warfare among the Haudenosaunee, Lenape, Cherokee, Creeks, and their neighbors, will stimulate new lines of inquiry in the future.”—Journal of American History

“A concise, lucid summary of Native American military operations, the product of a lifetime’s study of the violence in eastern colonial North America. For any scholar eager to quickly and effectively summarize the dynamics of how Native Americans waged war, this is an essential text.”—North Carolina Historical Review

“The Cutting-Off Way is too rich to summarize fully here. . . . An archaeologist in his own right, Lee draws on that field as well the latest works in anthropology and history to craft a compelling ethnohistorical analysis.”—Ethnohistory

“A resource for any reader interested in the early colonial era of North America, the cultural and military power and eventual plight of the Native Americans of the Eastern woodlands, as well as for anyone interested in irregular warfare. . . . [A] must-read.”—Journal of America’s Military Past

“A compelling and engaging exploration of the system of Indigenous warfare that evolved in the Eastern Woodlands of North America both before and after contact. . . . The Cutting-Off Way reveals a careful and nuanced reading of the past aimed at recentering Native Americans’ understanding as central to these multi-faceted experiences.”—Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

“Extremely enlightening. . . . Lee is conversant in the current scholarship on these indigenous nations, while as a military rather than a cultural historian he is able to highlight facets that recent works have left undeveloped.”—Western Writers of America Roundup Magazine