Depredation and Deceit: The Making of the Jicarilla and Ute Wars in New Mexico by Gregory F. Michno

Abstract

Reviewed by: Depredation and Deceit: The Making of the Jicarilla and Ute Wars in New Mexico by Gregory F. Michno William S. Kiser Depredation and Deceit: The Making of the Jicarilla and Ute Wars in New Mexico. By Gregory F. Michno. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017. Pp. 336. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) Gregory Michno's account of the antebellum Indian Wars in New Mexico Territory offers a new interpretation of that conflict. He suggests that much of the trouble stemmed from false or exaggerated reports of raids, pursuant to the Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts and the government reimbursement program prescribed in those laws. Focusing specifically on Utes and Jicarilla Apaches, he contends that violence was "caused, in major part, by American and Mexican greed and . . . bolstered by a depredation claims indemnification system that almost guaranteed war" (3). The author focuses on the period from 1849–1855 and provides one of the most detailed accounts yet written about Indian warfare in northern New Mexico during that time. He begins with Kearny's conquest in 1846 and the White Massacre of 1849 along with brief ethnohistorical overviews of tribes. The narrative then traces the origins of conflict with the Jicarillas and features such prominent figures as John C. Frémont and Lucien B. Maxwell. In chapter 3 the reader finds information on an array of topics, including territorial politics, military operations, and even sheep herding. Colonel Edwin Sumner, a notorious figure in antebellum New Mexico, enters the story in chapter four. Unlike most historians who have treated this subject, Michno presents Sumner as a protagonist, while Governor James Calhoun emerges as his antagonistic counterpart. Under Sumner's watch, U.S. troops spent as much time trying "to curb militarist civilians" who worked to "impede a peacekeeping army" as they did campaigning against Indians (136). The final two chapters cover the proliferation of warfare between New Mexicans and their Jicarilla and Ute adversaries, beginning in 1854 and lasting for more than a year thereafter. Events such as the Battle of Cieneguilla and the concomitant army campaigns of total warfare take center stage. The author argues that "depredations on the American frontier were more hype than genuine" (137), that Indians "were more sinned against than sinners" (141), and New Mexico's Indian wars were largely "the end result of all those false depredation claims [and] false reports of robberies and murders" (199). Michno is correct that Hispanos and Anglos in the Southwest sometimes exaggerated their reports of thefts and raids, and indeed the government's depredation indemnity process unwittingly invited fraud among unscrupulous citizens. Based on the evidence in this book, it is well for historians to reconsider the multifarious causes of these frontier conflicts to arrive at a more balanced assessment, and he makes a convincing argument that Nuevomexicanos embellished the frequency and barbarity of Indian raids to serve their own economic interests. In his [End Page 451] attempt to write revisionist history, however, Michno sometimes oversteps the bounds of objective empirical analysis. The reader often encounters subjective interpretations that present a sweeping assumption of Indian innocence and settler guilt, distorting the shared responsibility for New Mexico's violent conflicts between Natives and newcomers. The level of detail in this book and the original research of depredation claims represent its most significant contributions to the existing literature, and the accessible writing style is another attribute. Those with an interest in nineteenth-century American military history and the antebellum Southwest Borderlands will find this book particularly appealing. William S. Kiser Texas A&M University-San Antonio Copyright © 2018 The Texas State Historical Association