War of a Thousand Deserts : Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War

by Brian DeLay

• ISBN13: 9780300119329
• ISBN10: 0300119321
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2008-11-06
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

In the early 1830s, after decades of relative peace, northern Mexicans and the Indians whom they called "the barbarians" descended into a terrifying cycle of violence. For the next fifteen years, owing in part to changes unleashed by American expansion, Indian warriors launched devastating attacks across ten Mexican states. Raids and counter-raids claimed thousands of lives, ruined much of northern Mexico's economy, depopulated its countryside, and left man-made "deserts" in place of thriving settlements. Just as important, this vast interethnic war informed and emboldened U.S. arguments in favor of seizing Mexican territory while leaving northern Mexicans too divided, exhausted, and distracted to resist the American invasion and subsequent occupation. Exploring Mexican, American, and Indian sources ranging from diplomatic correspondence and congressional debates to captivity narratives and plains Indians' pictorial calendars,War of a Thousand Desertsrecovers the surprising and previously unrecognized ways in which economic, cultural, and political developments within native communities affected nineteenth-century nation-states. In the process this ambitious book offers a rich and often harrowing new narrative of the era when the United States seized half of Mexico's national territory.

Author Biography

Brian DeLay is assistant professor of history, University of Colorado, Boulder. He lives in Boulder.

Table of Contents

A Note on Names	p. xi
Introduction. A Little Door	p. xiii
Prologue. Easy Stories	p. 1
Neighbors
Danger and Community	p. 35
Buffalo-Hide Quiver	p. 61
Plunder and Partners	p. 86
The Politics of Vengeance	p. 114
Nations
Indians Don't Unmake Presidents	p. 141
Barbarians and Dearer Enemies	p. 165
An Eminently National War?	p. 194
How to Make a Desert Smile	p. 226
Convergence
A Trophy of a New Kind in War	p. 253
Polk's Blessing	p. 274
Epilogue. Article 11	p. 297
Data on Comanche-Mexican Violence, 1831-48	p. 311
Introduction to the Data	p. 313
Table and Figures	p. 317
Data	p. 320
Notes	p. 341
Bibliography	p. 425
Acknowledgments	p. 457
Index	p. 461
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