Western guns revolutionized societies across the globe, no more so in North America. Prior to European contact, indigenous peoples relied on bows and arrows, spears, and hatchets. None of these weapons used iron. Indian demand for metals was immediate, many people replacing stone arrowheads with ones made of iron. Guns were different, at least at first. Arquebuses (or Harquebuses) and matchlocks were heavy and often ineffective. Flintlocks were the gamechanger. In this eighteenth-century painting from the American South, five guns are clearly visible, each hanging carefully from the rafters. Guns transformed the Chickasaw world, vastly accelerating the destruction of game and a vigorous slave trade across the region.