European
governments paid bounty for scalps of people from the other country’s
colony. The Dutch were the first to
offer a bounty and then the practice spread.
In the early colonial era the emphasis was on taking heads. The Connecticut
government offered Mohegans a bounty on every Pequot head, the Dutch for
Raritan heads. By 1675 because so many
heads were turned in, governments accepted head skins, or scalps, instead. Opposing governments ignored the difference
between warriors and noncombatants in their desire to control more land, a
distinction that Native Americans made, and scalps of women and children were
also taken and turned in for bounty payment.
Native American nations to the west learned about scalping as the
frontier moved and brought the practice along.
