Independent Indians and the U.S.-Mexican war

American Historical Review

Volumn 112, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 35-68

  Delay, Brian ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33947717816     PISSN: 00028762     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/ahr.112.1.35     Document Type: Review

References (326)

1. El Registro Oficial del Gobierno del departamento de Durango, August 17, 1845. The editors reprinted translated portions of the Bulletin's editorial from El Diario de Veracruz.
2. I use the terms "autonomous" and "independent" to distinguish Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches, and Navajos from the large majority of indigenous peoples in North America, those in Mexico who by the nineteenth century had long since come under some kind of subordination by nonnative political authorities. Following independence, Mexican officials also came into conflict with semi-autonomous peoples such as the Yaquis and Mayos of northwestern Mexico, but such "rebellions" stood outside of the discourses that are central to my analysis. See Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Yaqui Resistance and Survival; The Struggle for Land and Autonomy, 1821-1910 (Madison, Wis., 1984), 18-65;
3. Cynthia Radding, Wandering Peoples: Colonialism, Ethnic Spaces, and Ecological Frontiers in Northwestern Mexico, 1700-1850 (Durham, N.C., 1997), 288-301.
4. Newspapers are especially valuable sources from this period of northern Mexico's history, because when military and civilian officials corresponded about Indians, editors usually published the letters in their entirety rather than summarize their contents. For this reason, it is possible to recover in some detail Mexican interactions with Indians in any given state by working with the state's official newspaper.
5. Smith's most expansive article is Ralph A. Smith, "Indians in American-Mexican Relations before the War of 1846," Hispanic American Historical Review 43, no. 1 (1963): 34-64.
6. See also his "The Co-manche Invasion of Mexico in the Fall of 1845," West Texas Historical Association Year Book 35, no. 1 (1959): 3-28;
7. "The Comanche Bridge between Oklahoma and Mexico, 1843-1844," Chronicles of Okla-homa 39, no. 1 (1961): 54-69;
8. "Apache Plunder Trails Southward, 1831-1840," New Mexico Historical Review 37, no. 1 (1962): 20-42;
9. and "Apache 'Ranching' below the Gila, 1841-1845," Arizoniana 3, no. 1 (1962): 1-17.
10. Isidro Vizcaya Canales, ed., La invasión de los indios bárbares al noreste de México en los ãnos de 1840 y 1841 (Monterrey, 1968).
11. See, for example, Farnham Bishop, Our First War in Mexico (New York, 1916), 142;
12. Justin H. Smith, The War with Mexico, 2 vols. (New York, 1919), 1: 298, 479, 521;
13. Bernard Augustine De Voto, The Year of Decision, 1846 (Boston, 1943), 156, 249-250, 388-392, 417;
14. Alfred Hoyt Bill, Rehearsal for Conflict: The War with Mexico, 1846-1848 (New York, 1947), 126, 130;
15. Robert Selph Henry, The Story of the Mexican War (Indianapolis, 1950), 131;
16. Seymour V. Connor and Odie B. Faulk, North America Divided: The Mexican War, 1846-1848 (New York, 1971), 95;
17. David M. Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War (Columbia, Mo., 1973), 76;
18. K. Jack Bauer, The Mexican War, 1846-1848 (New York, 1974), 19, 136-137;
19. John Edward Weems, To Conquer a Peace: The War between the United States and Mexico (Garden City, N.Y., 1974), 315;
20. Thomas R. Hietala, Manifest Design: Anxious Aggrandizement in Late Jacksonian America (Ithaca, N.Y., 1985), 145-146;
21. Robert Walter Johannsen, To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination (New York, 1985), 33;
22. John S. D. Eisenhower, So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846-1848 (New York, 1989), 220-221, 234, 249;
23. Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen, The U.S.-Mexican War (San Francisco, 1998), 113;
24. Douglas W. Richmond, "A View of the Periphery: Regional Factors and Collaboration during the U.S.-Mexican Conflict, 1845-1848," in Richard V. Frangaviglia and Douglas W. Richmond, eds., Dueling Eagles: Reinterpreting the U.S.-Mexican War, 1846-1848 (Fort Worth, Tex., 2000), 127-154, 136, 140-141;
25. Paul Foos, A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair: Soldiers and Social Conflict during the U.S. Mexican War (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2002), 140;
26. Douglas V. Meed, The Mexican War, 1846-1848 (New York, 2003), 41, 89.
27. See José de la Cruz Pacheco Rojas, "Durango entre dos guerras, 1846-1847," in Josefina Zoraida Vázquez, ed., México al tiempo de su guerra con Estados Unidos (1846-1848) (Mexico, 1997), 189-212;
28. Ignacio Almada Bay, José Marcos Medina Bustos, and José René Córdova Rascón, "Medidas de gobierno en Sonora para hacer frente a la guerra con los Estados Unidos, 1846-1849," in XXI Simposio de historia y antropología de Sonora: Sonora y la región (Hermosillo, 1997), 229-263;
29. César Navarro Gallegos, "Una 'Santa Alianza': El gobierno duranguense y la jerarquía eclesiástica durante la intervención norteamericana," in Laura Herrera Sema, México en guerra (1846-1848): Perspectivas regionales (Mexico, 1997), 233-251. For older Mexican literature that briefly mentions Indian raids in the context of the U.S.-Mexican War,
30. see, for example, Carlos María Bustamante, El nuevo Bernal Díaz del Castillo o sea historia de la invasión de los anglo-americanos en México (1847; repr., Mexico, 1949), 57-58;
31. Gastón García Cantú, Las invasiones norteamericanas en México (Mexico, 1971), 163-179;
32. Fernando Jordan, Crónica de un país bárbaro (Chihuahua, 1978), 221-230, esp. 227;
33. Leopolde Martínez Caraza, El none bárbaro de México (Mexico, 1983), 130-131.
34. While it says little about Mexican-Indian violence, the important book by Andrés Reséndez is an exception to this observation. See Changing National Identities at the Frontier: Texas and New Mexico, 1800-1850 (Cambridge, 2005).
35. For Chihuahua, see William B. Griffen, Utmost Good Faith: Patterns of Apache-Mexican Hostilities in Northern Chihuahua Border Warfare, 1821-1848 (Albuquerque, N.Mex., 1988);
36. Luis Aboites, "Poder politico y 'barbares' en Chihuahua hacia 1845," Secuencia 19, no. 1 (1991): 17-32;
37. Victor Orozco Orozco, Las guerras indias en la historia de Chihuahua: Primeras fases (Mexico, 1992);
38. Orozco, Lasguerras indias en la historia de Chihuahua: Antología (Ciudad Juárez, 1992);
39. Ana María Alonso, Thread of Blood: Colonialism, Revolution, and Gender on Mexico's Northern Frontier (Tucson, Ariz., 1995), 21-111;
40. Ricardo León García and Carlos Gonzáles Herrera, Civilizar o exterminar: Tarahumaras y apaches en Chihuahua, siglo XIX (Mexico, 2000).
41. For Sonora, see Stuart F. Voss, On the Periphery of Nineteenth-Century Mexico: Sonora and Sinaloa, 1810-1877 (Tucson, Ariz., 1982), 64-74,95-106.
42. For Coahuila, see Martha Rodriguez, Historias de resistencia y exterminio: Los indios de Coahuila durante el siglo XIX (Mexico, 1995), 55-74;
43. Rodriguez, La guerra entre bárbares y civilizados: El exterminio del nómada en Coahuila, 1840-1880 (Saltillo, Coahuila, 1998).
44. For Nuevo León, see Isidro Vizcaya Canales, Tierra de guerra viva: Incursiones de indios y otros conflictos en el noreste de México durante el siglo XIX, 1821-1885 (Monterrey, 2001). Matthew McLaurine Babcock, "Trans-National Trade Routes and Diplomacy: Comanche Expansion, 1760-1846" (M.A. thesis, University of New Mexico, 2001), 81-123, discusses Comanche activities below the Rio Grande, focusing especially on Coahuila and Chihuahua.
45. For New Mexico, see Ward Alan Minge, "Frontier Problems in New Mexico Preceding the Mexican War, 1840-1846" (Ph.D. diss., University of New Mexico, 1966);
46. Frank D. Reeve, "Navaho Foreign Affairs, 1795-1846," New Mexico Historical Review 46, no. 2-3 (1971): 101-132, 223-251;
47. Frank McNitt, Navajo Wars: Military Campaigns, Slave Raids, and Reprisals (Albuquerque, N.Mex., 1972), 66-123;
48. Daniel Tyler, "Mexican Indian Policy in New Mexico," New Mexico Historical Review 55, no. 2 (1980): 101-120;
49. David M. Brugge, Navajos in the Catholic Church Records of New Mexico, 1694-1875, 2nd ed. (Tsaile, Ariz., 1985), 57-87;
50. James F. Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2002), esp. 180-228.
51. For Texas, see F. Todd Smith, From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859 (Lincoln, Neb., 2005), chaps. 5-6;
52. Gary Clayton Anderson, The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875 (Norman, Okla., 2005), 81-226.
53. Biographies include Edwin R. Sweeney, Cochise: Chiricahua Apache Chief (Norman, Okla., 1991), 3-77;
54. Edwin R. Sweeney, Mangos Colorados: Chief of the Chiricahua Apaches (Norman, Okla., 1998), 27-137;
55. Ralph Adam Smith, Borderlander: The Life of James Kirker, 1793-1852 (Norman, Okla., 1999).
56. For studies of particular native groups, see, for example, Thomas W. Kavanagh, Comanche Political History: An Ethnohistorical Perspective, 1706-1875 (Lincoln, Neb., 1996), 193-294;
57. Morris W. Foster, Being Comanche: A Social History of an American Indian Community (Tucson, Ariz., 1991);
58. F. Todd Smith, The Wichita Indians: Traders of Texas and the Southern Plains, 1540-1845 (College Station, Tex., 2000), 111-154.
59. David J. Weber, The Mexican Frontier, 1821-1846: The American Southwest under Mexico (Albuquerque, N.Mex., 1982);
60. Brooks, Captives and Cousins. Thomas D. Hall, Social Change in the Southwest, 1350-1880 (Lawrence, Kans., 1989), 147-203, takes a broad view and discusses both independent Indians and the U.S.-Mexican War, but does little to combine the two.
61. See Cuauhtémoc José Velasco Avila, "La amenaza comanche en la frontera mexicana, 1800-1841" (Ph.D. diss., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1998), 233-342, for Texas and northeastern México to 1841.
62. While it ends in 1830, the complex analysis in Gary Clayton Anderson, The Indian Southwest, 1580-1830: Ethnogenesis and Reinvention (Norman, Okla., 1999), also embraces multiple peoples and represents a major advance in the literature.
63. The historiography bearing on Indians and inter-imperial conflicts is large. Important works since 1990 include Richard White, The Middle Ground; Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge, 1991);
64. David J. Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America (New Haven, Conn., 1992);
65. Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992);
66. Daniel H. Usner, Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy; The Lower Mississippi Valley before 1783 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992);
67. Eric Hinderaker, Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800 (Cambridge, 1997);
68. Anderson, Indian Southwest;
69. Jerry Adelman and Stephen Aron, "From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, Nation-States, and the Peoples in Between in North American History," AHR 104, no. 3 (June 1999): 814-841;
70. Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (New York, 2000);
71. Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge, Mass., 2001);
72. Gregory Evans Dowd, War under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, and the British Empire (Baltimore, Md., 2002);
73. Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 (New Haven, Conn., 2002);
74. Colin G. Calloway, One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark (Lincoln, Neb., 2004);
75. David J. Weber, Bárbaras: Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment (New Haven, Conn., 2005);
76. Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton, The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500-2000 (New York, 2005), 1-246;
77. Stephen Aron, American Confluence: The Missouri Frontier from Borderland to Border State (Bloomington, Ind., 2006);
78. Alan Taylor, The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution (New York, 2006);
79. Kathleen DuVal, The Native Ground: Indians and Colonists in the Heart of the Continent (Philadelphia, Pa., 2006).
80. See, for example, Sheila McManus, The Line Which Separates: Race, Gender, and the Making of the Alberta-Montana Borderlands (Lincoln, Neb., 2005);
81. Anderson, Conquest of Texas, which includes consideration of Indians and Texan-Mexican relations;
82. and David G. McCrady, Living with Strangers: The Nineteenth-Century Sioux and the Canadian-American Borderlands (Lincoln, Neb., 2006).
83. See, for example, Florencia E. Mallon, Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley, Calif., 1995);
84. Peter F. Guardino, Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico's National State: Guerrero, 1800-1857 (Stanford, Calif., 1996);
85. Eric Van Young, The Other Rebellion: Popular Violence, Ideology, and the Mexican Struggle for Independence, 1810-1821 (Stanford, Calif., 2001);
86. Peter F. Guardino, The Time of Liberty: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750-1850 (Durham, N.C., 2005), 122-291.
87. For thoughts on the place of nomads in Mexican memory, see Aguilar Luis Aboites, "Nómadas y sedentarios en el norte de México: Elementes para una periodización," in Beatriz Braniff C. and Marie-Areti Hers, eds., Nómadas y sedentarios en el norte de México: Homenaje a Beatriz Braniff (Mexico, 2000), 613-621.
88. Miguel Angel Centeno and Fernando Lopez-Alves, eds., The Other Mirror: Grand Theory through the Lens of Latin America (Princeton, N.J., 2001);
89. James Dunkerley, ed., Studies in the Formation of the Nation-State in Latin America (London, 2002);
90. Sara Castro-Klarén and John Charles Chasteen, Beyond Imagined Communities: Reading and Writing the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America (Washington, D.C., 2003).
91. For brief thoughts on how independent Indians might fit into the concerns of this literature, see Miguel Angel Centeno, Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America (University Park, Pa., 2002), 137-138.
92. Changes in the conceptualization and implementation of Spanish frontier policy are explored in Max L. Moorhead, The Apache Frontier: Jacobo Ugarte and Spanish-Indian Relations in Northern New Spain, 1769-1791 (Norman, Okla., 1968),
93. and Weber, Spanish Frontier, 204-235.
94. For this period, see also the classic account in Elizabeth A. H. John, Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confrontation of Indians, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540-1795 (Norman, Okla., 1996), 226-697.
95. For gifts, see Ross Frank, From Settler to Citizen: New Mexican Economic Development and the Creation of Vecino Society, 1750-1820 (Berkeley, Calif., 2000), 132-136.
96. For independent Mexico's fiscal troubles, see Barbara A. Tenenbaum, The Politics of Penury: Debts and Taxes in Mexico, 1821-1856 (Albuquerque, N.M ex., 1986).
97. For outbursts and "humiliating" explanations, see, for example, Kavanagh, Comanche Political History, 201, 205.
98. On the reduction of rations, see William B. Griffen, Apaches at War and Peace: The Janos Presidio, 1750-1858 (Albuquerque, N.Mex., 1988), 131-133.
99. For the initial years of the conflict in Chihuahua, see Griffen, Utmost Good Faith, 21-41. There were also scattered reports of deaths caused by Apaches in southern New Mexico during the 1830s. See Cayetano Martínez to Governor of New Mexico, March 9, 1836, frame 535, roll 21, Mexican Archives of New Mexico (microfilm). For Mescaleros in Ourango, see "Ofensas a la nación por bárbaros que la invaden," folder 10, Uncataloged Imprints, W. B. Stephens Collection, Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas, Austin.
100. For presidios, see Max L. Moorhead, The Presidio: Bastion of the Spanish Borderlands (Norman, Okla., 1975);
101. Weber, Spanish Frontier, 204-235.
102. For a brief but insightful analysis of the problems facing presidios following independence, see Pedro García Conde, "Memoria del secretario de Estado y del Despacho de Guerra y Marina leida en la camara de Senadores el dia 10 y en el de Diputados el dia 11 de Marzo de 1845," document no. 501 in Coleccíon Lafragua, Biblioteca National, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City [hereafter Lafragua]. Data from presidios is taken from the annual reports of the ministers of war for the years 1841, 1844, 1845, and 1846, available as documents no. 517, 494, 501, and 499, respectively, in Lafragua. There were no reports for the years 1842 and 1843, when Congress was not in session.
103. Manuel Gonzalez Cosio to Valentín Gómez Farías, Zacatecas, October 17, 1845, Doc. no. 1288, Valentin Gómez Farías Collection, Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas, Austin. My thanks to Daniel Gutiérrez for sharing this document with me. For disarmament in Durango, see Gaceta del Supremo Gobierno de Durango, August 22, 1833.
104. The pioneering work emphasizing inequalities on the southern plains was Bernard Mishkin, Rank and Warfare among the Plains Indians (New York, 1940).
105. More recently, Jane Fishburne Collier, Marriage and Inequality in Classless Societies (Stanford, Calif., 1988),
106. and Brooks, Captives and Cousins, have made in-group inequality a still more revealing analytic.
107. Weber, Mexican Frontier, 83-105, esp. 95.
108. For Apaches, see Smith, Borderlander, 47-58;
109. "Comunicado de José Agustín de Escudero," 1839, in Orozco, Guerras indias: Antología, 263-273;
110. Josiah Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, ed. Max L. Moor-head (Norman, Okla., 1954), 202.
111. For the southern plains, see, for example, testimony of Dionisio Santos, Lampazos, July 11, 1873, in Cuauhtémoc José Velasco Avila, ed., En manos de los barbares (Mexico, 1996), 40-43.
112. For Texan traders and Indian agents distributing ammunition to Comanches, often following explicit instructions from Texan officials, see, for example, Thomas G. Western to Benjamin Sloat, Washington, May 12, 1845, and "Report of a Council with the Comanche Indians," Trading House Post No. 2, November 23, 1845, both in Dorman H. Winfrey and James M. Day, eds., The Indian Papers of Texas and the Southwest, 1825-1916, 5 vols. (Austin, Tex., 1966-1995), 2: 238-240, 410-413;
113. Telegraph and Texas Register, May 21, 1845.
114. For glimpses of usages trading, see Telegraph and Texas Register, October 3, 1841;
115. The Weekly Despatch [Matagora, Tex.], March 16, 1844;
116. James Mooney, Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians (Washington, D.C., 1979), 274-275.
117. For Cheyennes, see J. C. Eldredge to Sam Houston, Washington on the Brazos, December 8, 1843, in Winfrey and Day, Texas Indian Papers, 1: 251-275.
118. For the trade generally, see David La Vere, Contrary Neighbors: Southern Plains and Removed Indians in Indian Territory (Norman, Okla., 2000), 115-118;
119. R. A. Irion to Sam Houston, Houston, March 14, 1838, in Winfrey and Day, Texas Indian Papers, 1: 43;
120. Testimony of Cornelio Sánchez, Lampazos, June 4, 1873, in Velasco Avila, En manos de los bárbares, 52-54.
121. For other Indians trading for captives taken by Comanches, see, for example, Weekly Despatch, March 16, 1844;
122. Grant Foreman, "Journal of Elijah Hicks," Chronicles of Oklahoma 13, no. 1 (1935): 68-99, n. 2;
123. Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, November 25, 1844, in Senate Doc. no. 1, 28th Cong., 2nd sess., 307, 439. For firearms specifically, see Barnard E. Bee to John Forsyth, Washington, D.C., December 15, 1840, in William R. Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States: Inter-American Affairs, 1831-1860, vol. 12: Texas and Venezuela (Washington, D.C., 1939), 208-211;
124. Ralph A. Smith, "Mexican and Anglo-Saxon Traffic in Scalps, Slaves, and Livestock, 1835-1841," West Texas Historical Association Year Book 36, no. l (1960): 98-115, 99;
125. Testimony of Francisco Treviño, Musquiz, September 21, 1873, in Velasco Avila, En manos de los bárbares, 44-49;
126. Manuel de Mier y Terán, "Noticia de las tribus de salvajes conocidos que habitan en el Departamento de Tejas, y del número de Familias de que consta cada tribu, puntos en que habitan y terrenos en que acampan," in Mauricio Molina, ed., Crónica de Tejas: Diario de viaje de la Comisión de Limites (Mexico, 1988), 129-139, 130.
127. On the need to take internal politics seriously before we draw conclusions about how a community confronts outside powers, see Sherry B. Ortner, "Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal," Comparative Studies in Society and History 37, no. 1 (1995): 173-193.
128. Quantitative information in this and the next paragraph comes from data in the appendix of Brian DeLay, The War of a Thousand Deserts (New Haven, Conn., forthcoming).
129. See Francisco Lofero to judges of sections 6, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18-23, Matamoros, October 12, 1844, 8-9, vol. 51, Matamoros Archives Photostats, Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin [hereafter MAP]. Jorge L. de Lara to Francisco Lofero, Matamoros, October 13, 1844, 11-13, vol. 51, MAP; Gaceta del Gobierno de Tamaulipas, October 19, 1844, and editorial and list of dead, ibid., October 26, 1844.
130. Non-Indian observers occasionally glimpsed connections between pan-tribal meetings and emerging raiding campaigns. In December 1847 and January 1848, for example, a Texan Indian agent reported a meeting of between five and six thousand members of "upper" Comanche tribes, Kiowas, and a few Mescalero Apaches. "The avowed intention of the present assembling is to make preparation for a descent upon the northern provinces of Mexico, Chihuahua, and others, early in the spring." See Robert S. Neighbors to W. Medill, U.S. Special Indian Agency, December 13, 1847, in Senate Report Com. no. 171, 30th Cong., 1st sess.; and same to same, January 20, 1848, House Executive Doc. no. 1, 30th Cong., 2nd sess., 573-575. For more on the political mechanisms mentioned above, see DeLay, War of a Thousand Deserts, chap. 4.
131. Jean Louis Berlandier, The Indians of Texas in 1830, ed. John C. Ewers, trans. Patricia R. Leclercq (Washington, D.C., 1969), 69-75;
132. José María Sánchez, "A Trip to Texas in 1828," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 29, no. 3 (1926): 249-288, 262.
133. See also Mooney, Calendar, 282. It seems that Kiowa notions of justice did not demand that the death be revenged upon the killer per se, but simply upon one of his people.
134. See Mishkin, Rank and Warfare, 29.
135. For parallels, see White, Middle Ground, 75-82;
136. Walter Goldschmidt, "Inducement to Military Participation in Tribal Societies," in Paul R. Turner and David C. Pitt, eds., The Anthropology of War and Peace: Perspectives on the Nuclear Age (Granby, Mass., 1989), 15-31;
137. John Phillip Reid, A Law of Blood: The Primitive Law of the Cherokee Nation (New York, 1970), 153-162.
138. More generally, see Reid, Patterns of Vengeance: Crosscultural Homicide in the North American Fur Trade (Pasadena, Calif., 1999).
139. As important as vengeance was for the prosecution of the Comanches' war with Mexico, their conflict fits poorly with the notion of a "mourning war" as described by Daniel K. Richter for the Iroquois, waged not just to avenge but to formally replace deceased community members. See Richter, "War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 40, no. 4 (1983): 528-559.
140. For the distinction between a raid executed simply to obtain horses, captives, and plunder and a raid motivated by revenge, see Mishkin, Rank and Warfare, 28-34;
141. Berlandier, Indians of Texas, 71-72;
142. Anderson, Indian Southwest, 238-239;
143. William C. Meadows, Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche Military Societies: Enduring Veterans, 1800 to the Present (Austin, Tex., 1999), 313.
144. Five hundred is almost certainly an underestimate. Comanches took tremendous risks to recover the bodies of dead comrades - a cultural imperative reinforced by the Mexican practice of taking as trophies the hands and heads of fallen raiders. See, for example, José María de Ortega to Governor of Nuevo León, Monterrey, March 1, 1841, in El Seminario politico delgobierno de Nuevo León, March 4, 1841;
145. Sánchez, "A Trip to Texas in 1828," 262. Ethnographers working with Comanches in the early twentieth century reported that if a warrior's corpse was scalped, he was forever barred from heaven. See Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains (Norman, Okla., 1952), 188.
146. Because Comanches absconded with fallen comrades, Mexican authorities often had to refer to the number of enemy dead in adjectives rather than numbers, or by gesturing to the amount of blood they left behind; see, for example, Miguel Guerra to D. Francisco Casteñeda, Santa Rosa, December 10, 1843, in El Voto de Coahuila, December 16, 1843.
147. Mooney, Calendar, 269-271.
148. The vast majority of Comanche casualties in Mexico were men, but occasionally women who accompanied raiding campaigns were killed as well. See, for example, Orozco, Guerras indias: Primeras fases, 160-161.
149. For Hois, see Thomas G. Western to A. Coleman, Washington on the Brazos, May 11, 1845, in Winfrey and Day, Texas Indian Papers, 2:236-237;
150. and Telegraph and Texas Register, September 3, 1845.
151. For the Kiowa version of the attack on Los Moros, see Mooney, Calendar, 282.
152. On Indians and colonization, see Dieter George Berninger, La inmigración en México (Mexico, 1974), 28-29.
153. On the decision to open Texas to foreign colonists, see also Mattie Austin Hatcher, The Opening of Texas to Foreign Settlement, 1801-1821 (Austin, Tex., 1927);
154. Edith Louise Kelly and Mattie Austin Hatcher, trans. and eds., "Tadeo Ortiz and the Colonization of Texas, 1822-1833," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 32, no. 1-4 (1929): 74-86, 152-164, 222-251, 311-343, 153;
155. and Weber, Mexican Frontier, 158-178.
156. For a fresh interpretation of the Texas Rebellion, see Reséndez, Changing National Identities, 146-170.
157. As soon as news spread about the war in Texas, there were public meetings in support of the rebels in New Orleans, Mobile, Montgomery, Boston, New York, and other cities. The earliest debates in Congress over the recognition of Texan independence were taken up in response to petitions received from several different states. See Ethel Zivley Rather, "Recognition of the Republic of Texas by the United States," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 13, no. 2 (1910): 155-256, 171, 213.
158. "An Address Delivered by S. F. Austin of Texas, to a very large Audience of Ladies and Gentlemen in the Second Presbyterian Church, Louisville, Kentucky, on the 7th of March, 1836," in Mary Austin Holley and William Hooker, Texas (Lexington, Ky., 1836), 254, 269.
159. The address was quickly reprinted. See Rebecca Smith Lee, "The Publication of Austin's Louisville Address," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 70, no. 4 (1967): 424-442.
160. For Austin's tour, see Gregg Cantrell, Stephen F. Austin, Empresario of Texas (New Haven, Conn., 1999), 329-347.
161. In defining this collective story as a "creation myth," I have been influenced by the discussion of mythogenesis in Richard Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860 (Middletown, Conn., 1973), 6-24.
162. For the descriptive and historical literature that elaborated upon the Texas Creation Myth, see, for example, Chester Newell, History of the Revolution in Texas, particularly of the War of 1835 & '36: Together with the latest geographical, topographical, and statistical accounts of the country, from the most authentic sources, also, an appendix (New York, 1838), 14-15;
163. T. Pease, A Geographical and Historical View of Texas, With a Detailed Account of the Texian Revolution and War (Hartford, Conn., 1837), 252-254;
164. Joseph Emerson Field, Three Years in Texas: Including a View of the Texan Revolution, and an Account of the Principal Battles, Together With Descriptions of the Soil, Commercial and Agricultural Advantages, &c (Boston, 1836), 6-7;
165. William Kennedy, Texas: The Rise, Progress, and Prospects of the Republic of Texas (1841; repr., Fort Worth, Tex., 1925), 297-298, 329-338;
166. William H. Wharton, Texas: A Brief Account of the Origin, Progress, and Present State of the Colonial Settlements of Texas, Together with an Exposition of the Causes Which Have Induced the Existing War with Mexico (Nashville, Tenn., 1836), 3-5.
167. Written under the pen name "Curtius," most of Wharton's Texas pamphlets were sent directly to Washington. See Lee, "The Publication of Austin's Louisville Address." For diplomatic use of the Creation Myth, see Memucan Hunt to John Forsyth, Washington, August 4, 1837, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, 12: 129-140.
168. For "either through want," see Field, Three Years in Texas, 6.
169. For "the untiring perseverance," see Wharton, Texas, a Brief Account, 5.
170. For a later rendition of the Texas Creation Myth, complete with quotes from Austin, see Charles Hunter Owen, The Justice of the Mexican War (New York, 1908), 92-96.
171. Speech of Sen. Robert Walker, April 26, 1836, Congressional Globe, 24th Cong., 1st sess., 401.
172. Speech of Rep. E.W. Ripley, May 7, 1836, Congressional Globe, 24th Cong., 1st sess. Appendix, 369-370;
173. Speech of Rep. Adam Huntsman, March 2, 1837, Congressional Globe, 24th Cong., 2nd sess., Appendix, 226-228.
174. Memorial of the Assembly of Missouri, Senate Doc. no. 225, 25th Cong., 3rd sess., 1-4;
175. Gregg, Commerce, 203.
176. For the consular reports, see, for example, D. W. Smith to U.S. Secretary of State, Matamoros, October 24, 1836, frames 613-614, reel 1, Despatches from United States Consuls in Matamoros, 1826-1906 (microfilm, 12 reels, National Archives Microfilm Publications) [hereafter Despatches];
177. same to same, November 30, 1837, frame 744, reel 1, Despatches;
178. Kennedy, Texas, 330. Kennedy was an English writer and diplomat.
179. See Laura Lyons McLemore, Inventing Texas: Early Historians of the Lone Star State (College Station, Tex., 2004), 41-42.
180. For references to his work in congressional debates, see, for example, Congressional Globe, 28th Cong., 1st sess., Appendix, 696-701;
181. ibid., 760-775.
182. For reports of Indian raids into San Luis Potosí and Durango, see Niles', April 4, 1840, 66.
183. Richard Belt to John C. Calhoun, Matamoros, July 5, 1844, frame 369, reel 2, Despatches;
184. W. Smith to U.S. Secretary of State, Matamoros, May 26, 1840, frame 166, reel 2, Despatches; Niles', November 23, 1844, 178;
185. Henry S. Foote, Texas and the Texans; or, Advance of the Anglo-Americans to the South-West; including a history of leading events in Mexico, from the conquest by Fernando Cortes to the termination of the Texan revolution, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, Pa., 1841), 1: 298.
186. Waddy Thompson, Recollections of Mexico (New York, 1846), 172.
187. For the reported slaughter of Arista's soldiers, see Miles', April 4, 1840, 66.
188. For the Picayune's reports,
189. see Matthew C. Field, Matt Field on the Santa Fe Trail, ed. John E. Sunder (Norman, Okla., 1960), 269;
190. Gregg, Commerce, 436;
191. Orceneth Fisher, Sketches of Texas in 1840; designed to answer, in a brief way, the numerous enquiries respecting the new republic, as to situation, extent, climate, soil, productions, water, government, society, religion, etc (Springfield, Ill., 1841), 47.
192. For "incapable of united and skillful action," see A. B. Lawrence, A History of Texas; or, The emigrant's guide to the new Republic, by a resident emigrant, late from the United States (New York, 1844), 255.
193. Kennedy, Texas, 332-333.
194. For "an enemy more cowardly," see Francis Moore, Map and description of Texas, containing sketches of its history, geology, geography and statistics: With concise statements, relative to the soil, climate, productions, facilities of transportation, population of the country; and some brief remarks upon the character and customs of its inhabitants (Philadelphia, Pa., 1840), 31-33.
195. Gregg, Commerce, 203-204.
196. For the compelling argument that anti-Mexican prejudice in the nineteenth-century U.S. should be understood as a legacy of the "Black Legend" of earlier centuries that had long demonized Spaniards in Anglo eyes, see David J. Weber, "Scarce More than Apes: The Historical Roots of Anglo-American Stereotypes of Mexicans in the Border Region," in Weber, Myth and the History of the Hispanic Southwest (Albuquerque, N.Mex., 1988), 153-168,
197. and Raymund A. Paredes, "The Origins of Anti-Mexican Sentiment in the United States," in Weber, ed., The Idea of Spanish Borderlands (New York, 1991), 145-174.
198. For the pseudo-scientific foundations of racism in this period, see Andrew Delinton Ferrand, "Cultural Dissonance in Mexican-American Relations: Ethnic, Racial and Cultural Images of the Coming of the War, 1846" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1979), 98-138. The standard work on the intersection of racism and territorial expansion is Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, 1981).
199. For an early articulation of similar ideas, see Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation (New York, 1963), 237-247.
200. See also Hietala, Manifest Design, 132-172;
201. Thomas R. Hietala, "This Splendid Juggernaut': Westward a Nation and Its People," in Sam W. Haynes and Christopher Morris, eds., Manifest Destiny and Empire: American Antebellum Expansionism (College Station, Tex., 1997), 48-67;
202. John M. Belohlavek, "Race, Progress, and Destiny: Caleb Cushing and the Quest for American Empire," ibid., 21-47.
203. Wharton, Texas, a Brief Account, 3;
204. Kennedy, Texas, 338;
205. Field, Three Years in Texas, 6.
206. Thompson, Recollections of Mexico, 239.
207. The influential New Mexican priest Antonio José Martínez, for example, insisted that los bárbares were fully human, lacking only education. He attributed raiding to desperation (shrinking bison populations, for instance), and found evidence of Indian capacity for conversion and reduction to civilized life in the many convertidos (referring to baptized Indian captives, especially-in the 1840s-Navajos) who lived alongside the New Mexicans. See Antonio José Martínez, Esposición que elprebítero Antonio José Martínez, cura de Taos de Nuevo México, dirije al Gobierno del Exmo. Sor. General Antonio Lópes de Santa Anna: Proponiendo la civilisación de las naciones bárbaras que son al contorno del Departamento de Nuevo México (Taos, N.Mex., 1843), n.p.,
208. reproduced in David J. Weber, ed., Northern Mexico on the Eve of the United States Invasion: Rare Imprints Concerning California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, 1821-1846 (New York, 1976), n.p.
209. For "slaves to some wandering barbarian tribes," see letter from Chihuahua signed "a contributor," in Orozco, Guerras indias: Antología, 247-248. For "what is a miserable handful," see Carlos Pacheco to the permanent diputation of the congress of Chihuahua, Chihuahua, December 13, 1833, ibid., 227-229. For the lieutenant governor, see Ignacio de Bustamante to Ignacio Mora, Arizpe, May 13, 1835, Doc. no. 373, Pinart Prints microfilm set, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley [hereafter Pinart Prints].
210. For "the ground seems to vomit," see "Comunicado de José Agustín de Escudero, 1839," in Orozco, Guerras indias: Antología, 265. For "kills the poor shepherd," see La Luna de Chihuahua, March 2, 1841, quoted in Smith, Borderlander, 123. For "destruction and eternal war," see J. Joaquín G. Herreros, circular, Arizpe, June 30, 1835 (copy of notice from June 2), Doc. no. 405, Pinart Prints. For consideration of savagery rhetoric in the centuries-long contest between Spaniards/Mexicans and northern Indians, with a focus on nineteenth-century Chihuahua, see Jorge Chávez Chávez, "Retrato del Indio Bárbara: Proceso de Justificación de la Barbarie de los Indios del Septentrión Mexicano y Formación de la Cultura Norteña," New Mexico Historical Review 73, no. 3 (1998): 389-425.
211. For los indios bárbaros as Mexicans, see Weber, Mexican Frontier, 103-104.
212. For the conceptual position of Indians in post-independence Mexico, see Charles A. Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 1821-1853 (New Haven, Conn., 1968), 215-247.
213. For an insightful discussion of how Indian identities complicated the national project in Latin America, see Héctor Díaz Polanco, Indigenous Peoples in Latin America: The Quest for Self-Determination, trans. Lucia Rayas (Boulder, Colo., 1997), 3-22, 65-82.
214. For the cancellation of Chihuahua's scalp-hunting program, see Smith, Borderlander, 71.
215. For the president's quote, see law of January 8, 1835, in Manuel Dublán and José María Lozano, eds., Legislación Mexicana; 6 Colección completa de las disposicions legislativas expedidas desde la independencia de la República, 22 vols. (Mexico, 1876-93), 3: 9-12.
216. For "the war against the barbarians is eminently national," see El Republicano: Periodico Official del Gobierno de Coahuila, November 1, 1845. The "banditti" characterization was an attempt by the U.S. ambassador to Mexico to explain Mexico's perspective to the U.S. secretary of state.
217. See Joel R. Poinsett to Henry Clay, Mexico City, April 13, 1827 [private], in Despatches from United States Ministers to Mexico, 1826-1906 (microfilm, 179 reels, National Archives Microfilm Publications), M97.
218. For editorials, see, for example, Gaceta del Gobierno del Tamaulipas, October 26, 1844.
219. For "directed by the Texans," see Smith, "Comanche Bridge," 69. For an example of the successful use of this connection in an appeal for resources, see Juan N. de la Garza y Evia to Minister of War, Monterrey, July 25, 1845, and Pedro García Conde to Juan N. de la Garza y Evia, Mexico, August 4, 1845, E4 and E5, C18, Correspondencia con la secretaría de Guerra y Marina, Archivo General del Estado de Nuevo Leon, Monterrey, Nuevo León [hereafter AGENL-MGM].
220. Mexico's foreign ministry complained repeatedly about arms sales to its U.S. counterpart during the 1830s. See, for example, the documents in Expedience H/610 "837"/2, Legajo 16-3-31, Archivio Histórico de la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico City.
221. Diario del Gobierno de la Republica Mexicana [Mexico City], February 24, 1841,
222. as described in Antonio Escobar Ohmstede and Teresa Rojas Rabiela, eds., Lapresencia del indígena en laprensa capitalina del siglo XIX (Mexico, 1992), 168.
223. For the coat of arms, see Dublán and Lozano, Legislación Mexicana, 4: 198-199.
224. For congressional appeal, see "Contestación del presidente de la cámara de diputados," July 4, 1844, no. 1519, Lafragua.
225. For diplomacy between Mexico and the United States in these years, see Pletcher, Diplomacy of Annexation, 113-311.
226. For Apaches, see Griffen, Utmost Good Faith, 91-114.
227. For Utes and Navajos, see Ward Alan Minge, "Mexican Independence Day and a Ute Tragedy in Santa Fe, 1844," in Albert Schroeder, ed., The Changing Ways of Southwestern Indians: A Historic Perspective (Glorieta, N.Mex., 1973), 107-122.
228. For Arapahos, see Frank D. Reeve, "The Charles Bent Papers [Letters from Charles Bent to U.S. Consul in Santa Fe Manuel Alvarez, from the Benjamin J. Read Collection, Historical Society of New Mexico, Santa Fe]," New Mexico Historical Review 30, no. 2 (1955): 155-159.
229. Texas-Comanche relationships during this period are best discussed in Anderson, Conquest of Texas, 195-211.
230. For the medals, see Gaceta del Gobierno de Tamaulipas, October 26, 1844.
231. For Chihuahua, see Smith, "Comanche Bridge," 67-68. For the "men of reason," see José Francisco Terán to Marcelino Castañeda, Labor del Rodeo, October 15, 1845, in Registro Oficial, October 19, 1845.
232. For "more advanced," see Gaceta del Gobierno de Tamaulipas, October 26, 1844.
233. Final quote is from Registro Oficial, September 25, 1845.
234. For the U.S.-Indian connection reported elsewhere in Mexico, see, for example, the article from La Prudencia, the official paper of Guanajuato, reprinted in Registro Oficial, October 9, 1845.
235. Pedro Garcia Conde, "Memoria del secretario de Estado y del Despacho de Guerra y Marina," Doc. no. 501 in Lafragua. This sort of argument can be found even in recent literature.
236. See, for example, Jesús Vargas Valdez, "La resistencia del pueblo de Chihuahua ante la invasion norteamericana," in Serna, México en guerra, 157-184.
237. Holland Coffee and James Kirker were the two American traders most credibly accused of arming and encouraging raiders. For Coffee, see Angel Navarro to Domingo de Ugartechea, Bexar, June 1, 1835;
238. James Bowie to Henry Rueg, Natches [Neches], August 3, 1835;
239. and Peter Ellis Bean to Domingo de Ugartechea, Nacogdoches, August 11, 1835, all found in Malcolm Dallas McLean, ed., Papers Concerning Robertson's Colony in Texas, 18 vols. (Fort Worth, Tex., 1974-1995), 10: 347, 11: 250, 280.
240. For Kirker, see Smith, Borderlander, 47-58.
241. For "hijos del desierto" [a quote from General Mariano Arista], see Gaceta del Gobierno de Tamaulipas, February 16, 1843.
242. Observations of deserted homes and tales of raiding, etc., are common in eyewitness accounts of the war. See, for example, James William Abert, Abert's New Mexico Report, 1846-'47 (Albuquerque, N.Mex., 1962), 49, 62, 66, 125, 135-136;
243. Ross Calvin, ed., Lieutenant Emory Reports: A Reprint of Lieutenant W. H. Emory's Notes of a Military Reconnaissance (1848; repr., Albuquerque, N.Mex., 1951), 80, 82-84, 88;
244. Maurice G. Fulton and Paul Horgan, eds., Diary and Letters of Josiah Gregg (Norman, Okla., 1941), 90, 91, 98, 99, 108, 109, 111, 112, 119, 123-125;
245. H. Hill, A Fighter from Way Back: The Mexican War Diary of Lt. Daniel Harvey Hill, 4th Artillery, USA, ed. Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, Jr., and Timothy D. Johnson (Kent, Ohio, 2002), 59-60, 145;
246. Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, Monterrey Is Ours! The Mexican War Letters of Lieutenant Dana, 1845-1847, ed. Robert H. Ferrell (Lexington, Ky., 1990), 103, 115;
247. John T. Hughes, Doniphan's Expedition: Containing an Account of the Conquest of New Mexico; General Kearny's Overland Expedition to California; Doniphan's Campaign Against the Navajos; His Unparalleled March upon Chihuahua and Durango; and the Operations of General Price at Santa Fe (Cincinnati, 1848), 143-144, 151, 162, 202-203, 285, 326, 358, 363;
248. Frederick Adolph Wislizenus, Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico (1848; repr., Fairfleld, Wash., 1992), 24, 27, 46, 56, 58, 59, 63, 66, 67, 71.
249. For "over portion," see Hughes, Doniphan's Expedition, 362.
250. See, for example, Dana, Monterrey Is Ours, 115;
251. Smith, War with Mexico, 1: 204, 479;
252. Joseph B. Ridout, "An Anti-National Disorder: Antonio Canales and Northeastern Mexico, 1836-1852" (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1994), 136;
253. Samuel E. Chamberlain, My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue, ed. William H. Goetzmann (Austin, Tex., 1996), 259.
254. For Polk's concern with occupation strategy, see James K. Polk, The Diary of James K Polk during His Presidency, 1845 to 1849, ed. Milo Milton Quaife, 4 vols. (Chicago, 1910), 2: 5.
255. See also Elbert W. Smith, Magnificent Missourian: The Life of Thomas Hart Benton (Philadelphia, Pa., 1958), 214-215;
256. Marcy to Taylor, Washington, June 3, 1846, in House Executive Doc. no. 60, 30th Cong., 1st sess., 153-155. For fears about Mexicans depriving the U.S. Army of provisions, see Taylor to the Adjutant General of the Army, Matamoros, July 2, 1846, in House Executive Doc. no. 60, 30th Cong., 1st sess., 329-332. These were realistic anxieties. In August and September 1846, for example, military authorities in Nuevo León ordered residents of Cerralvo and Marín to abandon their homes and carry their belongings with them, to hide their animals, to deprive the enemy of all resources, and to attack them when possible. See Miguel A. González Quiroga, "Nuevo León ante la invasión norteamericana, 1846-1848," in Serna, Mexico en guerra, 425-472, 431. Instructions to Taylor and Kearny are in Senate Doc. no. 19, 29th Cong., 2nd sess., 17-18.
257. Kearny's proclamation can be found in Calvin, Emory Reports, 50.
258. For similar attempts to convince Mexicans of the failure of their government to protect them from Indians, see Matamoros Reveille, June 27, 1846;
259. Manuel Alvarez to James Buchanan, Santa Fe, September 4, 1846, Despatches from U.S. Consuls at Santa Fe, 1830-1846 (microfilm, 1 reel, National Archives Microfilm Publications, 1951), reel 1.
260. For continued violence in New Mexico, see J. Lee Correll, Through White Men's Eyes: A Contribution to Navajo History - A Chronological Record of the Navaho People from Earliest Times to the Treaty of June 1, 1868 (Window Rock, Ariz., 1976), 214-230;
261. McNitt, Navajo Wars, 122-131.
262. Quote is from Hughes, Doniphan's Expedition, 187.
263. For periodicals, see Niles' National Register, November 6, 1847, 155,
264. which took the story from the St. Louis Republican.
265. For another, similar lament, see Niles' National Register, June 19, 1847, 252.
266. For the massacre and quotes, see Smith, Borderlander, 161-168.
267. See also the graphic second-hand description of the event in George F. Ruxton,Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains (1848; repr., Glorieta, N.Mex., 1973), 151-154.
268. For the effect on Apache policies, see Sweeney, Mangos Coloradas, 135-158.
269. In August 1846, P. M. Butler and M. G. Lewis reported that 500 Mescaleros and 3,500 "Esreequetees" had "formed an alliance and acquisition to" a Comanche tribe they called the "Nocoonees," referring to the Nokonis, an ethnonym that only begins to appear in the documents around this time. When they used the term "Esreequetees," Butler and Lewis were referring either to the Comanche word for Mescaleros, "esikwita," or to the Kiowa term from which it was derived, "ésèkwità -g" both of which mean "gray feces" or "brown feces," a condition thought to be the consequence of eating mescal. (See Morris Edward Opler, "Mescalero Apache," in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 10: Southwest, ed. Alfonso Ortiz [Washington, D.C., 1983], 419-439, 438.) Thus the 4,000 people to whom Butler and Lewis referred were all Mescaleros. The authors added that the Mescaleros "have heretofore been at war with the Camanches, but recently become their allies, and are now at war with Mexico."
270. See P. M. Butler and M. G. Lewis to W. Medill, Washington, D.C., August 8, 1846, in Senate Report Com. no. 171, 30th Cong., 1st sess. For similar observations,
271. see Robert S. Neighbors to W. Medill, Austin, Tex., January 6, 1847, House Executive Doc. no. 100, 29th Cong., 2nd sess. For previous Mescalero-Mexican cooperation against Comanches,
272. see, for example, Mauricio Ugarte to commander general of Chihuahua, El Norte, May 18, 1841, in Diario del Gobierno, June 14, 1841.
273. For Mescalero-Comanche conflict, see also Diario del Gobierno, October 19, 1841.
274. For the drought and the decline in the herd, see Dan Flores, "Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy: The Southern Plains from 1800 to 1850," Journal of American History 78, no. 2 (1991): 465-485, 482.
275. See also Pekka Hämäläinen, "The First Phase of Destruction: Killing the Southern Plains Buffalo, 1790-1840," Great Plains Quarterly 21, no. 1 (2001): 101-114.
276. For the loss of habitat along the Arkansas (and for shrinking herds), see Elliott West, The Way West: Essays on the Central Plains (Albuquerque, N.Mex., 1995), 13-83.
277. For the consumption of horses and mules, see Robert S. Neighbors to W. Medill, Torrey's Trading House, June 22, 1847, in Senate Doc. no. 734, 30th Cong., 1st sess. For the antelope drive, see Mooney, Calendar, 287-289.
278. Registro Oficial, October 22, 1846. For the traveler, see Ruxton, Adventures in Mexico, 113-129, 161.
279. For the draft order, see Juan N. Almonte to Juan N. de la Garza y Evia, Mexico City, August 28, 1846, E10, C18, AGENL-MGM. For failures to supply requested men, see Miguel A. González Quiroga, "Nuevo León ocupado: El gobierno de Nuevo León durante la guerra entre México y los Estados Uni
280. dos," in Vázquez, México al tiempo, 333-359, 341-342;
281. González Quiroga, "Nuevo León ante la invasion," 429. An official in Chihuahua blamed his inability to field men against U.S. soldiers on the fact that Indians had stolen all of the horses; "this land is plagued with savages."
282. See Registro Oficial, December 31, 1847.
283. For Santa Anna's efforts at raising men, see William A. DePalo, The Mexican National Army, 1822-1852 (College Station, Tex., 1997), 108-109.
284. The government's order called for 1,600 men from Zacatecas, 600 men from Durango, and 560 men from Chihuahua. See Tomás Calvillo Unna and María Isabel Monroy Castillo, "Entre regionalismo y federalismo: San Luis Potosí, 1846-1848," in Vázquez, México al tiempo, 417-454, 423.
285. For the states' refusal, see Albert C. Ramsey, ed., The Other Side; or, Notes for the History of the War between Mexico and the United States (New York, 1850), 85-86;
286. Smith, War with Mexico, 1: 376.
287. For explanations why, see, for example, Isidro Reyes to Governor of Durango, San Miguel del Mesquital, November 1, 1846, Registro Oficial, November 8, 1846.
288. For Gregg, see Fulton and Horgan, Diary and Letters of Josiah Gregg, 2: 141.
289. There was intense debate in Mexico about whether to formally support a system of guerrilla war. See Ramsey, The Other Side, 439-442,
290. for the argument that sustained guerrilla activity would have driven the U.S. Army out of Mexico. See also Irving W. Levinson, Wars within War: Mexican Guerrillas, Domestic Elites, and the United States of America, 1846-1848 (Fort Worth, Tex., 2005), 66.
291. For U.S. attacks upon villages as reprisals for guerrilla activity, see Foos, Short, Offhand, Killing Affair, 113-148.
292. For Durango, see Registro Oficial, April 8, 1847.
293. For charges against Chihuahua, see, for example, Bustamante, El nuevo Bernal Díaz, 226.
294. For Chihuahua's response, see "La Diputación de Chihuahua a la Nación, March 25, 1847," in José María Ponce de León, ed., Reseñas históricas del estado de Chihuahua (Chihuahua, 1913), 350-357;
295. and Luis Jáuregui, "Chihuahua en la tormenta, su situación política durante la Guerra con los Estados Unidos: Septiembre de 1846-Julio de 1848," in Vazquez, México al tiempo, 134-156, 145-147.
296. Final quote is from "La Diputación Permanente de la Honorable Legislatura de Chihuahua a sus comitentes, Villa de Allende, April 6, 1848," in Ponce de León, ed., Reseñas histó ricas, 344-346.
297. For "essential to us," see speech of Sen. Edward Hannegan, February 26, 1847, Globe, 29th Cong., 2nd sess., 516.
298. For "believe it practicable," see speech of Sen. Robert Hunter, February 7, 1848, Globe, 30th Cong., 1st sess., 310.
299. For "well-known fact," see [Sen.] S. W. Downs, Speech on the Mexican War, delivered before the Senate on January 31, 1848 (Washington, D.C., 1848).
300. Similarly, see Rep. Truman Smith, March 1, 1848, Globe, 30th Cong., 1st sess., 416-417.
301. For the desire on the part of Polk, Secretary of Treasury Robert J. Walker, and Secretary of State James Buchanan to make the Sierra Madre the new boundary rather than the Rio Grande, see Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission, 186-187. Others championed the wildly unrealistic notion of annexing all of Mexico.
302. See John Douglas Pitts Fuller, The Movement for the Acquisition of All Mexico, 1846-1848 (Baltimore, Md., 1936);
303. John H. Schroeder,Mr. Polk's War: American Opposition and Dissent, 1846-1848 (Madison, Wis., 1973), 120-141.
304. Speech of John C. Calhoun, February 9, 1847, Globe, 29th Cong., 2nd sess., 357;
305. Calhoun, March 17, 1848, Globe, 30th Cong., 1st sess., 496-497.
306. The U.S. Senate approved the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on March 10. Calhoun's speech seven days later was part of a larger discussion of how the U.S. might respond if Mexico failed to ratify the treaty. Calhoun's dilemma is discussed at length in Ernest McPherson Lander, Jr., Reluctant Imperialists: Calhoun, the South Carolinians, and the Mexican War (Baton Rouge, La., 1980).
307. For generalities, see, for example, the language cited in Lyon Rathbun, "Champions of Mexico in Ante-Bellum America," Journal of Popular Culture 35, no. 2 (2001): 17-23.
308. For congressional opposition during the war, see Schroeder, Mr. Polk's War, 3-88, 160-167.
309. Folk's address is in Senate Doc. no. 1, 30th Cong., 1st sess, See pp. 7-11 for Mexico material. Quote is from p. 11.
310. For northern insistence on Article Eleven, see Nicholas P. Trist to James Buchanan, Mexico, January 25, 1848, in Senate Doc. no. 52, 30th Cong., 1st sess., 280-294. For "civilization vs. barbarism," see Bemardo Couto Miguel Atristain and Luis G. Cuevas, "Exposición dirígida al supremo gobierno por los comisionados que firmaron el tratado de paz con los Estados-Unidos," Mexico, March 1, 1848,
311. reprinted in Registro Oficial, May 25 and May 28, 1848.
312. For "encumbered by conditions," see speech of Sam Houston, February 28, 1848, Senate Doc. no. 52, 30th Cong., 1st sess., 5. For the votes, see Senate Doc. no. 52, 30th Cong., 1st sess., 12-13.
313. Luis de la Rosa to John M. Clayton, Washington, March 20, 1850, in William R. Manning, ed., Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States: Inter-American Affairs, 1831-1860, vol. 9: Mexico, 1848 (Mid-Year)-1860 (Washington, D.C., 1937), 350-352.
314. The U.S.-Mexican controversy over Indian raiding following the war is explored in detail in J. Fred Rippy, "The Indians of the Southwest in the Diplomacy of the United States and Mexico, 1848-1853," Hispanic American Historical Review 2, no. 3 (1919): 363-396;
315. Rippy, The United States and Mexico (New York, 1926), 68-84, 126-147;
316. Luis G. Zorrilla, Historia de las relaciones entre Mexico y los Estados Unidos de América, 1800-1958 (Mexico, 1965), 275-292.
317. For ongoing violence in U.S.-controlled New Mexico, see Sister Mary Loyola, The American Occupation of New Mexico, 1821-1852 (Albuquerque, N.Mex., 1939), 74-99.
318. For initial discussion of lawsuits, see R. P. Letcher to John M. Clayton, Mexico City, April 8, 1850, Despatches from United States Ministers to Mexico. On continued raiding below the Rio Grande after 1848,
319. see the detailed report made by the Mexican government, based on interviews and on archival and periodical sources from northern states, Informe de la comisión pesquisidora de la frontera del norte al ejecutivo de la union, en cumplimiento del articulo 3 de la ley de 30 de septiembre de 1872 (Mexico, 1874), 15-108.
320. The Gadsden Treaty was signed in late 1853 and ratified in 1854. See Odie B. Faulk, Too Far North, Too Far South (Los Angeles, 1967).
321. See Claudio Esteva Fabregat, Mestizaje in Ibero-America, Irans. John Wheat (Tucson, Ariz., 1995), 232,
322. as cited in David J. Weber, "Bourbons and Barbares: Center and Periphery in the Reshaping of Spanish Indian Policy," in Christine Daniels and Michael V. Kennedy, eds., Negotiated Empires: Centers and Peripheries in the Americas, 1500-1820 (New York, 2002), 79-103, 79 n. 1. Philip D. Curtin estimates that Europeans actually governed less than one-quarter of the Americas in 1800.
323. See The World and the West: The European Challenge and the Overseas Response in the Age of Empire (Cambridge, 2000), 12.
324. See, for example, the essays by Kristine L. Jones, James Schofield Saeger, Neil Whitehead, and Jonathan D. Hill in Frank Salomon and Stuart B. Schwartz, eds., The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, vol. 3: South America (Cambridge, 1999);
325. Brooke Larson, Trials of Nation Making: Liberalism, Race, and Ethnicity in the Andes, 1810-1910 (Cambridge, 2004);
326. and Erick D. Langer, "The Eastern Andean Frontier (Bolivia and Argentina) and Latin American Frontiers: Comparative Contexts (19th and 20th Centuries)," The Americas 59, no. 1 (2002): 33-63.