War of a thousand deserts : Indian raids and the U.S.-Mexican War / Brian DeLay.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

DeLay, Brian, 1971-

Series:

Lamar series in western history.

The Lamar series in western history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mexican War, 1846-1848--Indians.

Mexican War, 1846-1848.

Mexican War, 1846-1848--Mexican-American Border Region.

Mexican War, 1846-1848--Mexico, North.

Indians of North America--Wars--Mexican-American Border Region.

Indians of North America.

Indians of North America--Wars--Mexico, North.

Mexican-American Border Region--History, Military--19th century.

Mexican-American Border Region.

Mexico, North--History, Military--19th century.

Mexico, North.

Mexican-American Border Region--Ethnic relations--History--19th century.

Mexico, North--Ethnic relations--History--19th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxii, 473 pages) : illustrations, maps.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press ; [Dallas, TX] : Published in association with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University, c2008.

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 Deserts recovers 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.-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

Prologue. Easy stories

Part One. Neighbours

1. Danger and community

2. Buffalo-hide quiver

3. Plunder and partners

4. The politics of pengeance

Part Two. Nations

5. Indians don't unmake presidents

6. Barbarians and dearer enemies

7. An eminently national war?

8. How to make a desert smile

Part Three. Convergence

9. A trophy of a new kind in war

10. Polk's blessing

Epilogue. Article 11

Appendix. Data on Comanche-Mexican violence, 1831-48

Introduction to the data

Table and figures

Data

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 425-455) and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9786612351976

9786612088681

9780300150421 (electronic book)

9781282351974

1282351974

9780300150421

0300150423

9781282088689

1282088688

OCLC:

402467172