Foreign mercenaries were the chosen tool for suppressing rebellious European subjects

Evidence

European governments … relied very largely on foreign mercenaries. One of the employments for which they were particularly well suited was the suppression of rebellious subjects, and in the sixteenth century, that age of endemic revolution, they were often called upon for this purpose… . Governments … had to look either to backward areas for honest, simple-minded fellows untainted by political ideas … or to foreigners. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 190

Categorization

• XREF: The deployment of alien forces against one’s own subjects is a recurring pattern in the racial-capitalism story — relevant to understanding how states ordered populations.