The Spanish Frontier in North America

The Spanish Frontier in North America
© 1992 David J. Weber
602 pages

Although American history books will generally mention the early exploration of North America by figures like de Soto,  little attention on the whole is given to the Spanish colonial enterprise. At its height, Spain's flag flew from the eastern coast of Florida, at St. Augustine, all the way across the continent to Baja California.  That height was reached shortly after the American Revolution, followed by a dramatic decline after the French wars erupted.  While the Southwest still retains its Spanish stamp, in places like the Carolinas or Alabama there's very little left to remember New Spain by.  The Spanish Frontier in North America offers a history of the Spanish colonial enterprise in North America as it waxed and waned with Spain's continental ambitions.

Largely a work of politics, Weber devotes some space toward the end on culture, and especially toward how Spain is remembered in architectural styles like Mission Revival.  At its most basic, it is a sweeping history of Europe's exploration and resettlement of southern North America,  The author contends that understanding American (U.S.) history is impossible without appreciating Spanish America.  It certainly can't be ignored, especially given Spain's role in the war for independence, and The Spanish Frontier opens a new world for me in demonstrating not only the expanse of Spanish exploration, but  the amount of conflict between Spain, France, and Britain which unfolded for centuries before the thirteen English colonies ever entered the international arena.  Also of note, and displayed here, are the European powers'  ever-shifting attitudes towards Native Americans, spanning war and marriage. While all three major powers attempted to cultivate their neighboring tribes as trading partners -- Spain was also very keen on Christianizing the Pueblos, Hopis, etc. This christening wasn't simply a religious introduction, either: the intent was to create Europeans out of the Pueblos, in language, farming, and dress.  Ultimately, even the españoles would adopt their diet and architecture to the new climate as the native incorporated European plants and animals into their culture, creating something closer to a dynamic than a one-way cultural conquest.

I found The Spanish Frontier dense but fascinating. I never knew how far north Spanish explorers trekked, creating posts even in the Carolinas, and that they explored deep into the American interior. I was also unaware of the amount of European warfare on the continent prior to the revolution:  Florida  exchanged hands several times!  Similarly eye-raising was the swiftness of Spain's fall: while it was able to reclaim a lot of lost territory after the Treaty of Paris which ended the American revolution, that brief moment when it stretched from coast to coast was a definite peak: shortly thereafter, Spain fell into succession crises, followed by the French revolution which isolated the colonies from Spain proper. The rising Americans made short work of claiming Florida and pushing across the Mississippi, The author has an odd detachment from European culture, sometimes writing about it as though it were foreign. He informs the readers, for instance, that the Christian rite of initiation is baptism, and that Christians worshiped in places called 'churches'.  Is he writing to Martians?    Weber's work has the heft of a textbook, and is copiously researched:  slightly less than half the text consists of notes.   Though it looks intimidating, it seems very valuable as a colonial reference book.

Our America

Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States
© 2014  Felipe Fernández-Armesto
416 pages

Spain disappears from American history books following the Spanish-American war, in which the tired old empire was given a sound thrashing and retreated from the hemisphere, but Spanish America isn't a thing of the past.  Its heritage is older than English America, not only because the Spanish arrived first but because Spanish colonialism fused itself with the peoples and culture which it found.  Our America is a history of Spanish America, principally Mexico,  delivered from the rare perspective of a Spaniard raised partially in England.  While not nearly as sweeping as Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in the United States,  it offers abounding detail on the Anglo-Spanish struggle for power, first around the Gulf Coast and then later in the southwest as English colonies developed their own identity and ambition.  It is problematic, in that a Spanish Brit spends the book lecturing a American audience on what being 'American' is, but the perspective is unusual and at times refreshing.

Fernández-Armesto examines American history not from the east to the west -- which is how, in fact, the history of the United States as a government unfolded -- but from south to north.  He sees the United States as more colonial than European, and interprets affairs like the Revolution and the Civil War as part of general new-world struggles against colonial power. He sees the South's bid for independence as very kin to Mexico's own battles between centrists and decentralists, for instance . As mentioned, Our America's focus is Mexico and the Southwest, with Cubans and Puerto Ricans receiving scant attention at the very end. Our America is thus more a history of "New Spain" -- a label which, prior to the collapse of the Spanish empire during the Napoleonic wars, encompassed both areas.  If Fernández-Armesto actually hailed from Mexico, this could be called a localist history of the United States, rather like a history of the US delivered from the perspective of the South.  The chief weakness of this book is that the author confuses the United States and 'America' when he argues that the United States began with Spanish America. While the Euro-American experience as a whole began with Spanish exploration, the 'United States' is a government formed by thirteen States along the eastern seaboard of North America, ground never trod by the Spanish.  He also attributes European success in the Americas largely to the 'stranger effect' -- an effect which included hospitality given to visiting strangers, respectful awe of travelers from afar, and  the inclusion of them in native government to swing local battles for power one way or another.  While it's a factor to take into account, he completely writes off the 'guns, germs, and steel' triad in favor of this social element.

As a general history of Latin America, I think Harvest of Empire superior; but the amount of detail given to Spain and England's colonial wrangling, and later the American conquest of the southwest, makes it a book of note. It's certainly gotten my interest in the Spanish colonial period fired up!

Related:
American Colonies, Allen Taylor. Colonial history of Spanish, French, English, Dutch, and even Russian America.
The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America, James Wilson
Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, Juan Gonzales

Harvest of Empire

Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America
©  2000 Juan Gonzalez
416 pages

Harvest of Empire is a tale of two civilizations, Anglo and Spanish. In general terms, it recounts the history or rather the plight of Latin America, of people and cultures dominated first by European powers, and then by the colonial rebels turned colonial master, the United States.  The author ends by arguing that the United States owes as much its Hispanic tradition as its Anglo, and that it should embrace Hispanic culture  and make amends to foreign policy which has wreaked havoc throughout the eastern hemisphere.  Divided into three parts, Harvest first dwells on the roots of Anglo-American conflict by recounting the age of discovery and rise of American imperialism, moves to the "branches", in which populations disrupted by war and famine (often linked to American foreign policy) migrate to the United States to seek their fortunes, and then ends with a "harvest" that looks towards a stronger role played by Latino culture in the United States.

 Considering that two of the leading recent  Republican candidates for El Presidente were Cruz and Rubio, 'los hermanos cubanos',  there's no denying the book's relevance, despite its sixteen years of age. Even though neither are in the running now,  immigration  -- the causes and consequences of which are explored here -- remains a big-ticket item.  While some of the author's recommendations (that the United Staces embrace its Hispanic heritage and start promoting and protecting Spanish) are likely to fall flat,  at the very least this review of the United States' catastrophic record of international meddling in central America might give American leadership pause about supporting future debacles.  More convincing is the authors' case for settling the matter of Puerto Rico, which for a century has been a bastard, neither  sovereign, nor a territory or a state.  Harvest has a lot to recommend it, first as a general history of Latin America, secondly by focusing on the widely varying experiences of different Latino groups as they moved to the US.  What name recognition does Puerto Rico have with most Americans, other than the film West Side Story? ("Puerto Rico is en America now!")   The author is right when he points out that the United States is scarcely over two hundred years old, a mere blip in the historical perspective, and the past century of exploitation and dominance by D.C. over Latin America are not likely to last. Latinos will play a larger role in the United States as they continue to migrate here, and will shape D.C's policy as they achieve political influence -- and as the descendants of those who have experienced the consequences of foreign-policy imperialism, they are unlikely to support more of it.

American Colonies

American Colonies: The Settling of North America
© 2001 Alan Taylor
526 pages          

American Colonies is a sweeping history of the New World,  one that attempts to convey the full American experience, beginning with the arrival of natives and then covering Spanish, French, English, Dutch,  and Russian colonial efforts in turn.  (Hawaii is also addressed, though it’s a bit of a two-thousand mile stretch to call it ‘American’.)  Taylor's declared intention is to tell more than simply the Anglo-American story, which relegates the Indians and other European powers to the role of villains.  At this, he is largely successful, providing a complete survey of native and European settlement and rendering the history of their relations with one another.  The work demonstrates how profoundly diverse both the natives and the Europeans were, documenting the extent of their tangled military and diplomatic relationships. The tacks taken against the natives by Europe varied not only from country to country (in Spain's case, no tact was involved), but from colony to colony, as varied geography and the nature of the neighbors demanded intelligent adaptation. The story of the New World is not simply one of Europeans plowing over the war-and-disease-ravaged lands of peoples like the Iroquois and the Lakota, however, for Europe’s nations also waged war against one another in this new battlefield.

Taylor's narrative style is pleasant enough, even if bothered with a little factual repetition. The content itself is a different story, being nearly five hundred pages of disease, war, slavery,  misery, and death.  No group discussed here comes off particularly well, not even the one-paragraph Vikings. Both the European and native powers wage war against one another and themselves, and in utterly vicious ways;  every chapter brings descriptions of  women raped, children executed, homes and fields burned, men tortured. There are no noble savages here,  and no exemplars of Christian civilization -- only ambitious and wrathful men with blood on their hands.

Taylor's narrative gives a good general view of European evolution, as explorers turned to nation-builders. Death ended to follow in the wake of the pioneers, as many of the diseases Europeans were exposed to as children never existed in the Americas, particularly those which originated from domestic animals, like smallpox.  Early colonists arrived with varying motives; some seeking fortune,  some to create a new society in their own ideal image, and others because it beat starving to death at home.  Invariably they offended their new neighbors, and war erupted.  Conflict between the native peoples and the newly-arriving colonists forced them to adapt to one another:   after seizing Canada, for instance, the English realized it was easier to give their new neighbors tribute every now and again than to maintain a war-footing. The natives, too, had adjustments to make: in the first pitched battle between European forces and Indians, for instance, the tribe in question attacked in a massed formation that fared none too well against organized gunfire. They quickly adopted the guerrilla tactics now associated with 'Indian warfare'.  

Taylor also puts forth a few theories of his own, all rooted in a worldview that sees economic warfare as the driver of everything else. In his view, the French and Iroquois maintained war between themselves for economic advantage,  as the warzone between their territories prevented regional competition with other powers for their goods. Though no fan of capitalism, Taylor's punches against mercantilism could be thrown by Adam Smith himself, pointing out how mother-country meddling smothered economic development time and again. Intriguingly, he suggests that the tax policies that sparked the American Revolution were not simply enacted to cover the costs of the French and Indian War, but to discourage too much emigration to the colonies. 

Slavery is a recurring topic here; a common byproduct of war,  in the age of discovery and colonization it became an economic institution,  especially as practiced in the colonies of the deep south and in the Caribbean.  The sugar plantations of the Indies were particularly dependent on slave labor; for this reason the abolitionists of William Wilberforce’s day avowed that those who took sugar in their tea might as well be drinking the blood of captives. The ranks of slaves were initially more diverse, consisting of captive natives who died in great numbers, and indentured Europeans who ran away and assumed the identity and status of free settlers.  Africans were already accustomed to Old World domestic diseases, and stood out from among both the native and European populations. Consequently,  the plantation lords drew more from African markets, and slavery assumed a racial-and color-based nature, the legacy of which continues to poison the society of the New World.   Before this, however, African slaves had been treated like any other indentured servants,  freed after a time of service and thereafter at liberty to create their own fortune – sometimes by investing in slaves.

American Colonies is a book to be considered,  taking on centuries of North American history  and taming it. Taylor's stated goal was to go beyond the English colonies on the seaboard, and this he does -- taking the reader as far south as Mexico, and galloping through the plains of the Apache to the northern wastes of Alaska.  He makes the complex comprehensible and is especially valuable in the time spent on Spain and France. He has a particular animus against the English and their American 'spawn' that grows tiresome; to his credit, however, he does not make their rivals into moral paragons.  Perhaps it's not so easy to be detached from one's ancestors as those in academia might wish.

Related:

• 1491: The Americas Before Columbus, Charles C Mann
• The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America,  James Wilson
• Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond