War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War (The Lamar Series in Western History)

Brian DeLay is currently an associate professor of history at UC Berkeley, having studied at Harvard under Laurel Thatcher Ulrich as his main adviser, but also John Womack and John Coatsworth. This book, based on his dissertation is an excellent work of historical research and analysis and should be read by anyone who is interested in 19th century U.S.history or the history of the US Mexico borderlands.DeLay argues that the war between the United States and Mexico had another actor, one who has been regularly ignored: the Comanches. Furthermore he argues that this war, which has been often ignored or brushed over in most survey courses, had far reaching international ramifications and effected all of the continents peoples. “I argue that the bloody interethnic violence that preceded and continued throughout the U.S.-Mexican War influenced the course and outcome of that war and, by extension, helped precipitate its manifold long-term consequences for all the continent’s peoples.”DeLay organizes his work into three sections: Neighbors, Nations and Convergence. The major theme running throughout the work is that of natives as co-equals to the U.S. and Mexico, specifically the Comanches. While the book does deal with the area under Spanish control, it truly begins with the Independence of Mexico and it’s first constitution which was approved in 1824. Another theme of the book is in the form of a question: who has regional power? In this case, the regional power was the Comanche people themselves, up until the late 1840s. The Mexicans were unable to deal with the Comanches, as DeLay makes clear early on in the introduction when he discusses article 11 of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Finally, another theme at work is one of subaltern, as the Comanches represent a power outside of the hegemonic power structure represented by both the U.S. and Mexico. This allows DeLay to restore agency to the Comanches and further strengthens his work.While works by Hamalainen look at the Comanches as a state, and Weber argues for the borderlands as a region, DeLay’s work presents something new. His work argues not only for native agency, but shows just how the Comanche’s were able to effect the outcome of the war between the United States and Mexico as well as, to a certain extent, cause the outbreak of the American Civil War just 13 years later. DeLay’s work also goes a long way to filling in the gap which exists in this period (1821-1846) in the history of the American Southwest.DeLay’s work looks at the region in a way which erases the current border, and he is acutely aware of the tendency to “read the modern border backward into history.” Because of this, DeLay is able to, as one reviewer puts it, “delivers on the promise of the new borderlands history.” One reviewer criticized the author for his dependence upon official newspaper reports. While there is validity to this argument, DeLay has contributed to the literature of borderlands history in such a way that not only can this time period no longer be ignored, his work is going to be seen as definitive.

The description above is from a Mexican official, Jose Maria Sanchez, writing in 1830 about the North Americans flooding into Texas (then a Mexican state). Manuel Mier y Teran also noted the North Americans' contempt for Mexican laws and refusal to learn the language. The Mexicans clearly saw the threat to their sovereignty, and outlawed immigration from the north.However, the Mexicans were unable to stop the eventuality they clearly foresaw. The Mexican North was a "thousand deserts", laid waste by Comanche raids, terrifying attacks of up to 1,000 warriors who could travel 100 miles a day. Roiling internal politics and a poor economy meant that Mexico did not protect its north from the norteamericano or Indian menaces. American and Mexican willingness to turn a blind eye to buying branded animals created a ready market for stolen livestock.The next time I hear someone extolling Indian simplicity and virtue, I will grit my teeth. The Comanches were renowned for their gratuitous cruelty and devotion to vengeance and retribution, leaving behind "bellowing farm animals dragging their guts behind them",slaughtered noncombatants, some burned alive, and wholesale destruction of grain stocks and wells poisoned with corpses. Because Texans appear to have matched Comanches for ferocity, most of these raids were directed into the Mexico, even as far south as San Luis Potosi and Tamaulipas, victimizing people who were no conceivable threat. Warriors would engage in a scorched earth campaign (as opposed to merely efficiently stealing animals) even when this put them in danger by giving defenders time to organize. There was plenty to seek vengeance for. For instance, in 1846, James Kirker, an American, led a party which slaughtered and scalped 130 unarmed Chiricahua Apaches in Galeana, Chihuahua, to general acclaim from the Mexican populace, an incident which discredited Apache voices advocating peace. All the while, of course, American politicians (especially those looking to expand slave territories)were observing these events with interest, realizing that the Indian raids helped create the opportunity for the United States to acquire northern Mexico, by purchase or conquest.Professor DeLay's gripping book is full of these telling insights. I read this based on a recommendation from Larry McMurtry in The New York Review of Books. Who better to recommend readings on the American Southwest during this period?

Both DeLay's book and Hämäläinen's "The Comanche Empire" were published by Yale University Press in its Lamar Series of Western History. Together they offer an in-depth perspective on a fascinating period in post Columbian history. I would recommend both books to anyone interested in the Mexican-American War/US Civil War. The strength of DeLay's book lies in its presentation of the attitudes, expectations, and relations between the heterogeneous, non-Indian peoples of northern Mexico and the government of that newly independent nation state and the way the mexicanos' attitudes and expectations toward their new government evolved in the face of attacks by Comanches, Kiowas, and Apaches. These dynamics of the relationship between the people of Mexico and their new, evolving government are marginalized in Hämäläinen's book. By contrast, Hämäläinen's offers an extraordinary, even revelatory view of the Comanche peoples in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I would suggest reading Hämäläinen's book first because its focus is broader and because of the insight that that book offers into Comanche social organization and cultural values and the importance of those factors in shaping the interactions between the Comanche and all the non-Indian players at the table (eg, Spain, New Spain, Mexico, Texas, and the United States, both settlers/traders and government leaders/political figures/shapers of policy). "The Comanche Empire" also offers important insight into relationships between the Comanche and other Indian nations. Together, these books offer a fascinating view into an extraordinary period of Western history.

Fachlich brilliant, quellensatt und überwiegend gut lesbar, nur in einigen Passagen etwas langatmig.Insbesondere die Interaktion der verschiedenen Akteure und die unmittelbaren Folgen für Mexiko und die USA werden spannend geschildert.