Enemies or hostile people; in American frontier history, the term was used to refer to Native American groups considered hostile or at war with settlers.
From Latin 'hostilis' meaning belonging to an enemy, derived from 'hostis' meaning enemy. The word entered English in the 1400s and was used as both an adjective and noun, especially in military and colonial contexts.
This word carries the colonial weight of American history—settlers used 'hostiles' to dehumanize Native Americans by turning them into abstract enemies rather than people. Words like this show how language was a tool of colonization.
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