‘Raid or Trade? An Economic Model of Indian-White Relations’ by Terry L. Anderson & Fred S. McChesney
The traditional domain of law & economics is the courtroom, the legislature, and the administrative agency. But in their 1994 article, “Raid or Trade? An Economic Model of Indian-White Relations,” Terry Anderson and Fred McChesney took the theoretical tools developed to explain modern legal disputes and set out to settle a wider continent.
When European settlers arrived in North America, they brought royal charters granting them ownership of vast tracts of land. Almost immediately, they encountered numerous Indian tribes that could credibly claim control over those same lands. Faced with these conflicting claims, both parties had to decide whether to press their claims or abandon them. If they pressed, they then had to decide whether to exchange the land peacefully or fight it out.
Contrary to the popular narrative, Indian-white relations were not violent from first contact. History is complex, but the general pattern is that Indian-white relations began fairly peacefully and worsened over time. At first, Indian tribes often appeared inclined to drop ownership claims in the face of settler intrusion. When Indians did press a claim, the typical result was peaceful negotiation and exchange. Anderson and McChesney show that, from the Founding era to about 1830, treaties between Indians and whites were frequent, while battles were few and far between. As the American frontier moved farther west, the dominant mode of settling disputes shifted to warfare.
Why did Indian-white relations move from the peaceful interactions symbolized by the first Thanksgiving to the Massacre at Wounded Knee? Or, as Anderson and McChesney put it: “If both sides prefer settlements to violence, what caused the increasing resort to warfare between Indians and whites?” More broadly, under what conditions might Europeans have settled North America more peacefully?