For next Tuesday please read to page 260, and for Thursday read to page 320 in The Comanche Empire. We will save the Conclusion and the chapter entitled "Collapse" for the next week, which will be our last with the book.If you would like to see some interesting pictures of Santa Fe (taken by an old college friend of mine) check out this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gopster/350485075/in/set-72157594467384290/
We will continue the group exercise we started last Tuesday in class today.
Here are some quotations from the book that some of you may find helpful. Please use this as an example for your presentations. Explain and discuss:
"By regulating the prices and by pledging to establish "just rule" at the fairs, Anza had, at least superficially, embraced the Comanche idea that trade was more than a means of profit-making; it was an avenue for sharing." 123
"Just as Spainards opened New Mexico to Comanches, Comanches unlocked the plains to New Mexicans." 127
"The image of the Comanche-Spanish borderlands as a middle ground in the making was a facade, an elaborate artifice. Beneath the surface of amity and mutual adaptation and respect, a different kind of development was unfolding. Spanish officials were working methodically to reduce the Comanches to dependance and vassalage, using the very acts and institutions-gifts, trade, and political-military collaboration-that seemingly were creating a common ground between the nations." 130
thesis :
ReplyDeleteThe Comanche ideas of diplomacy depended on their present circumstances and needs. They routinely changed their diplomatic stances from region to region and day to day. The Comanche's diplomacy was based on self interest and made ties to other tribes and nations only as long as said relationships were beneficial to them.
Quotes :
"Comanches' power complex was much more than a military creation; it was also, and indeed primarily, a political constrcution. Their colonization of the southern plains was a military enterprise built on astute and pragmatic diplomacy. As they swept across the southern pains, Comanches forged a series of strategic alliances, which buttressed their own strength while leaving their competitors variously defenseless and divided....They sustained their long-standing union with the Utes for decades, only to detach themselves from the alliance in the 1750's when the collapse of Apache resistance on the Llano Estacado turned Utes from useful allies into rivals."
p. 65
"Like most empires, the Comanche empire had many faces. Viewed from the north and east, it was an empire of commerce and diplomacy, an expanding transnational nexus that radiated prestige and power, absorbed foreign ethnicities into its multicultural fold, and brought neighboring societies into its sphere as allies and dependents. Viewed from the Southwest and Mexico, however, the Comanches showed a different kind of face. Here their empire brushed directly against Euro-colonial frontiers, and its tactics were often grounded in violence and exploitation."
p. 181
"What the Comanches did not do was to reciprocate Spain's generosity. Their recompense was the absence of violence. Holding a pronounced power advantage over Texas, they seem to have placed the spaniards in an ambiguous social space where they were not quite friends nor outright enemies"
p. 184
Inter-tribal Wars
ReplyDeleteThesis-" Comanche Empire took advantage of European technologies, goods, and hospitality to expand their Empire to defeat rivaling tribes to a point where they were in control of all other tribes."
"As many Euro-Americans saw it, negotiating with Comanches often meant yielding to their demands or risking a clash with a broad Comanche-led intertribal coalition." pg. 179
"What the Comanches did not do was to reciprocate Spain's generosity. Their recompense was the absence of violence......The peace lasted only as long as gift distributions did... As the gift distributions dwindled, Comanches resumed attacks, raiding and extorting tribute across the colony from the San Saba River to the Rio Grande." pg.184
"Comanche violence was fueled by the gifts, goods, and guns that flowed into Comancheria from the United States. Spanish officials came to believe that it was American markets and American machinations that alienated Comanches from Spainiards and formented the violence in Texas." p.188
Comanche Exceptionalism
ReplyDeleteThesis:
Comanche exceptionalism is evident in their sphere of influence and their ability to adapt to ever changing circumstances that led to their domination of their geographical area and all those residing in it.
The Comanche language was becoming the dominant language of the plains and the Comanche were able to do most of their trading and diplomatic talks in their own language.
"So too does the ascendancy of the Comanche language denote a larger truth: having yielded unparalleled economic, political, and cultural influence, the Comanches were re-creating the midcontinent in their own image." pg 171
"What Comanches did not do was reciprocate Spain's generosity. Their recompense was the absense of violence...The peace lasted only as long as gift distributions did." pg 184
"In June 1825, a party of 330 Comanche men, women, and children rode into the capital[San Antonia] and leisurely looted the town for six days." pg. 196