Historiography of the Western frontier

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Ned
Che, I think you and other apologists for unions paint too one-sided a picture concerning strikers. I was personally involved in a strike in Minnesota in 1979. The strikers gave management like me a free pass to the plant. However, they assaulted any "scabs." They slashed tires, strew nails in front of their cars, threatened physical violence, etc.

This was 1979. I can only imagine the violence the unions offered a century earlier.

Can you say, with honesty, that unions in that era were non violent?

Viollence went both ways of course -- in any economic or political conflict, that is the case.

But whichever group is in the position to use government resources, can administer violent repressions on a larger, organized scale than the other group.

[Dis]

Interesting. I love western history. But I'm more into 19th century stuff. I love reading about the old trails going accross the west (and following them today on foot and in my pickup). I'm always fascinated on how people took wagons accross the U.S.

Following the Donner party trail is interesting as well. What can I say: death and cannibalism interests me .

Early 20th century stuff can be intresting though. The rise of unions was pretty cool.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Dissident
Interesting. I love western history. But I'm more into 19th century stuff. I love reading about the old trails going accross the west (and following them today on foot and in my pickup). I'm always fascinated on how people took wagons accross the U.S.

Following the Donner party trail is interesting as well. What can I say: death and cannibalism interests me .

Early 20th century stuff can be intresting though. The rise of unions was pretty cool.

Well, the history of the West can include nineteenth and twentieth centuries.


And what about this "closing of the frontier?" How does one arbitrarily choose a date or time period when the frontier closed??

As I mentioned before, there are several different possible answers but they all seem arbitrary.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

You should check out a great book by Robert Utley called "The Indian Frontier"; it is, as you might guess, a history of the Frontier from the "other side." Very well-researched and engagingly written, by a guy who really knows his stuff.

[MrFun]

I'll check that out Rufus -- but does it over simplify the history by merely portraying whites as the monolithic group of oppressors and Amerindians as the monolithic group of victims??

Victims and oppressors were on both sides.

[chequita guevara]

So let's all hold hands and sing kumbiyah.

[MrFun]

huh???

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Ned
How did the Spanish deal with the "Indians" in Mexico, particularly, Northern Mexico?

I'll limit myself to responding on how they dealt in noerhtern Mexico, as the Spanish-Indian relations in southern Mexico are too complex to even try sketch them in one post.
The first expeditions into the north were not much more than raiding parties and the way to approach the Indians was that, which a robber always takes: Gimme what you have or die.
Later, the more successful campaigns tried to do the same as in the "central" regions. Kill those native leaders who resist and partition the subjects among all who took part in the campaign in "encomiendas", which means they owed personal services to the conquerors. It was a a de facto slavery and compelled the Spanish to make sure that the Indians are doctrinated "in exchange for their services" (As if they had asked for it ).
The problem was: While in Mexico itself the Indians were used to pay tributes (to the Aztecs) and were sedentary (couldn't run away) and had an aristocracy that profited itself from the exploit of their people, northern Mexico had none of it.
Losely organized bands continuously harrassed the Spanish and the "encomended" Indians just retreated to the mountains. The northern frontier became a perpetuous field of conflict with very lose Spanish influence.
Another approach in the 17th century was to acculturate the Indians of Sinaloa, Sonora, New Biscay and California by (most often jesuit) missionary activity. That approach worked sometimes better sometimes worse, yet without military support and lacking funds the projects were abandoned, often after smaller massacres of priests, which could always happen: Indian "authorities" who saw their influence shaken by priests or zealous priests without any sense for the (in such a case necessary) pragmatic approach could have such a situation soon explode and the priests were always the weak ones in the game...
New Mexico was a seperate situation. It was called "New Mexico" because the Spanish felt reminded of the core area for many reasons. It had a comparable climate and there too, they had to deal with organized, sedentary Indians and really: The encomienda system worked better than in other northern parts. Yet it was an isolated enclave and losely connected. The missionary activity was always resented by the Pueblo Indians who on March 20th 1681 had 21 Franciscan friars and over 100 colonists and Indian collaborators slain.
About at that time, the scene changed. The Spanish lost interest in evangelization of northern Mexico (though efforts were never completely abandoned) and too direct control over the area, but used it as a buffer for Mexico against Apache, Comanche, French (La Salle) and English. Rising pressure from Apache and Navajo made defensive cooperation of Pueblo Indians and Spanish necessary. The missions also got another character, they were less demanding, the rethorics against Indian beliefs was less repulsive.

[Ned]

W, thanks. When, if ever, did the Spanish/Mexican northern "frontier" end? About the same time as the American?

[Wernazuma III]

It kind of never ended.
For one thing, the frontier area of the Mexicans in the 19th century ran through those areas which were taken from the US in the American-Mexican war, so the US "inherited" the Mexican frontier.
On the other hand, the desertous peninsula of California for example, or the mountains of Sierra Tarahumara are still retirement zones for native groups. I attended an academic speech of an ethnologist who lived among the Tarahumara (or, more correctly, Raramuri) and from what he told, it certainly had the character of a frontier. Mexican authorities calling for the Indians to accept the Mexican society on leaflets on trees: "Join us, Brother Tarahumara" And it even becomes more so, due to the rising lawlessness of the border.
Even in the south of Mexico, in such a historically important region like Oaxaca, many mountain villages of Indians got connected by roads not before the 90s, not even starting to talk about the notorious forestal southern province of Chiapas. Those areas, among others, definitely still have the character of frontiers.

[Sikander]

Re: Historiography of the Western frontier

Originally posted by MrFun

Through reading her chapter on the complexities of race and conflict in the frontier, she emphasized that past historians had simplified violent conflict as whites being the opressor, and minority race members being the monolithic, hapless victims in a misguided method of counter-attacking white ethnocentric history that minimized these conflicts or ignored them altogether.

Thankfully some of us never subscribed to these stupid notions, and therefore require no disabusing.

Originally posted by MrFun
3) The very diversity of nineteenth and twentieth century West in terms of race, ethnicity and religion strained the racial hierarchial order for whites, and challenged them to think harder (something they never did).

So no white person in the west ever thought harder about these issues? Why is it the painfully "aware" are always the ones who make the most racist statements?

[Ramo]

It was early springtime when the strike was on,
They drove us miners out of doors,
....

Damn commie stealing my post!

Western labor history is a very, very interesting subject IMO. Events closer to civil war, than the Ludlow massacre, were the railroad strikes of 1877. St. Louis was in full rebellion.

[chequita guevara]

The St. Louis Commune.

[Ramo]

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by MrFun
I'll check that out Rufus -- but does it over simplify the history by merely portraying whites as the monolithic group of oppressors and Amerindians as the monolithic group of victims??

Victims and oppressors were on both sides.

My memory (and I read this book in grad school 15 years ago, so I may well be wrong) is that he's uninterested in "victim" or "oppressor" as categories of analysis. He definitely distiguishes between the tribes, noting different cultures, different relations and reactions to the coming of whites, etc. As I recall, he also distinguishes between whites, not by ethnicity but by reason for being on the frontier (i.e., settlres vs. entrepreneurs vs. soldiers). But, as I said, check it out for yourself. Good luck with the project!