Bound for Santa Fe: the road to New Mexico and the American conquest, 1806-1848

Abstract

Bound far Santa Fg; TAe Road to New Mexico and American Conquest, 1806-1848. By Stephen G. Hyslop. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. Pp. xiii, 514. Illustrations, map. Cloth, $34.95.)Despite its almost century-long existence, North American borderlands paradigm remains prominent in early American scholarship. Within last fifteen years, works by James F. Brooks (Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in Southwest Borderlands [2002]), and Daniel H. Usner, Jr. (Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi Valley Before 1783 [1992]) have expanded cultural arid geographical venues of borderlands studies, while scholars such as Jeremy Adelman and Stephen Aron (From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, Nation-States, and Peoples in Between in North American History, American Historical Review, 104 (June 1999), 814-41) have extended paradigm's theoretical boundaries. As a result, scope of borderlands research appears endless, and scholars who previously would have identified themselves as regional/local historians or specialists of the now must willingly or grudgingly consider conceptual framework in their interpretations. The uneven impact of these developments is vividly manifested in Bound for Santa Fe by Stephen G. Hyslop.Hyslop's work is centered on Santa Fe Trail, a loosely connected assemblage of pre-Columbian Indian hunting trails, dry riverbeds, community-maintained thoroughfares, and barely penetrable deserts that became a busy conduit for traders, adventurers, and soldiers traveling between St. Louis and Chihuahua during first quarter of nineteenth century. Through over four hundred pages of text, author methodically analyzes origins of trail, principal individuals arid groups key to defining and expanding pathway, and romantic contemporary literature that informed many Americans of its existence. He also provides chapters that concentrate on certain geographical stages of trail, such as Council Grove, Buffalo Country, and Bent's Fortdiverse settings that illustrate various environmental scenarios encountered by travelers. The concluding section of work deals primarily with U.S. conquest of trail, its major outposts during 184Os, and how this armed occupation transformed economic, social, and cultural lives of those who used highway and lived in its vicinity.According to Hyslop, one of goals in presenting this information is to explore trail's significance as an avenue of exchange in broadest sense (xii). Recent historiographical trends appear in author's approach to peoples involved with Santa Fe Trail. Mirroring interpretations by scholars such as Richard White (The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 [1991]) and Patricia Nelson Limerick (The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of American West [1987]), Hyslop emphasizes cross-cultural exchange and mutual accommodation between Indians, Mexicans, and Anglo-American settlers. Such interaction was conducted through exchanges that covered spectrum from thrusts arid parries of a romantic or spiritual nature to duels in marketplace to contests on field of battle (16-17). Eventual U.S. military and political domination belied Mexican and Native American agency in asserting cultural norms and integrating new settlers into traditional social networks. Santa Fe and Bent's Fort resembled other notable locales such as Taerisa and pays d'en haut in terms of their function as meeting grounds devoid of a centralizing dominant power. …