From Settler to Citizen: New Mexican Economic Development and the Creation of Vecino Society, 1750-1820

Abstract

One of the most vexing topics in Mexican American history remains the ubiquitous “Spanish” identity claimed by so many New Mexicans, often described as a “fantasy heritage” or a “false consciousness.” Little is known about the claim's origins, evolution, or significance in the context of conquest and economic change. Now comes a study that dares to probe the murky and contentious waters of Hispanic ethnogenesis in New Mexico. In From Settler to Citizen, Ross Frank tells a complex tale of economic and cultural transformation on New Spain's northern frontier. He contends that a vecino society took form in a caldron of social relations and economic development. The Boubon reforms that drew New Mexico further into Spain's colonial trade network in the latter years of the eighteenth centuryand the restoration of calm after decades of depredtion by nonsedentary Indians combined to bring a degree of prosperity to the region. That prosperity, Frank writes, enabled vecinos (“non-Indians”) to enhance and reaffirm their dominant position vis-à-vis their Pueblo Indian neighbors.