According to some leading scholars of colonial America, New England’s Native American population avoided resorting to war before European settlers arrived in the 17th century. When finally forced to take up arms, Indians allegedly preferred waging limited wars aimed at intimidating and scattering their foes rather than exterminating them. Native warriors also rarely fought in the open, preferring a “skulking way of war” based on surprise attacks and ambushes calculated to inflict maximum harm on their enemies while minimizing their own losses.

Major Jason Warren, U.S. Army – an assistant professor and strategist at the Army War College and author of the prize-winning book, Connecticut Unscathed: Victory in the Great Narragansett War, 1675-1676 – challenges these and other tenets cherished by colonial military historians in "Myths and Realities of Warfare in 17th-Century New England."

Admission is free and the proceedings are open to the public.