Native American Policy of Taking No Prisoners

Native American Thoughts on Killing the Enemy

      We shudder at the cruel torture inflicted by the Indian on the captives condemned to death. 

Yet he was no more cruel  than the religious zealots of Europe, who in the very same  century 

that the colonies were  founded, were skinning and  disemboweling the heretics under the hideous 

misbelief that  they were saving their souls. In his own way the Indian  was no less logical or consistent. 

He sought to make his foe incapable of harming him again. If possible he made sure  of killing his 

adversary. He scalped and mutilated, not  merely to preserve a trophy of his victory, but in 

accordance  with his belief that no man may enter the future world who is disfigured in body or limb. 

He killed the wife so that she  might not bear any more children to grow up and avenge the  slain husband. 

He killed the boys because they would grow into warriors, and he killed the girls, because they would become the 

mothers of more warriors. If he spared a life, it was to adopt the captive into his   own tribe in  order to inrease its\

 strength. Finally he burned the house in order to damage the     enemy that much more.

                                                           57 gruesome tales of Indian capture and torture