Technology and Power

Technology and Power

Effective communication can both create empires and destroy them. For the former, communication is a necessity in connecting the parts of an empire, so to keep the whole sizable. An empire must keep in contact with its armies, outposts, and inner areas so to maintain order to be able to adjust its defenses in response to an enemy attack. It must also, when still growing, be able to conquer new lands and people. For the latter, unless its defenses are in communication with back up forces and resources, the only victorious defense is one that results from a battle of attrition. This essay will exam two forms of one communication technology: encoding.

It will be remembered that one class or race is without representation, and has not the advantages of the press or the telegraph to bring it into communication with the intelligence of the world, and is seldom heard except in the cry of alarm and conflict along the Western frontier.

--Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles, United States Army, March 1879*

Though written specifically about the conflicts that the United States had with the Native Americans throughout the Nineteenth century, General Miles' statement is a fact applicable to every conquest ever made. The ability to communicate effectively with one's forces during a conquest is, except perhaps, in cases where the conquest consists mainly of battles of attrition, a key factor of victory. A commander must have accurate, updated intelligence reports informing him of his conquest's military abilities and locations, any skirmishes between forces, supply routes, etc. This communication ability, as well as every piece of weaponry or tool used by the conqueror, is a direct result of human ingenuity, specifically as it is applied to technological advancement.

In the second half of the 19th century, as the Western world embraced the Industrial Revolution, our nation's political powers focused their eyes on the vast lands of the Western frontier. To better understand the needs for communication technology in this conquest, let's first get a little history lesson on what happened.

During this conquest of the West, an Apache Chief known as Geronimo led the Chiricahua Apaches in a series of revolts against the American tyranny that had seized Apache lands, herded its people into a Reservation, then abolished the Reservation to reclaim the land for white Americans.