# kaal:claim:3782193-024

**Claim.** The Spanish strategy of capturing or killing a group's leader, which succeeded against the Aztec and Incan empires, was impossible to apply to the Apaches because they had no static, official rulers and no rigid power hierarchy to manipulate.

**Type.** mechanism  **Support.** evidenced

**Holds when.**

- Spanish colonial expansion in the Americas
- groups whose leadership is by example rather than coercion

**Source quote.**

> The Apaches had no static, official rulers, which made it impossible for the Spanish to replay their strategy of killing or controlling the leader of each new territory they invaded. The Apaches had no rigid power hierarchy to manipulate.

**From.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, *Historical Sketches of Centralization vs. Decentralization* (2021), The Apaches vs. Bitcoin, page 20

**Cite as.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Historical Sketches of Centralization vs. Decentralization (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782193

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `74df9cc9a19a098bdacd0424a4174795f6e184f7a31c8ee7541195186701ebd2` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Calcaterra%20and%20Kaal%20-%202021%20-%20Historical%20Sketches%20of%20Centralization%20vs.%20Decentralization.pdf

**Failure mode.** Decapitation strategy failure  (family: enforcement-gap)

**Topics.** decentralization

**Keywords.** apache, decentralization, leadership, conquest, political-organization

**Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of the claim. Its sha256 is the content hash used for attestation.