Review of The Comanche Empire

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS The Comanche Empire. By Pekka Hama- lainen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. to thrive in an area being steadily colo- nized by the United States, and how its conflict with Mexico enabled American expansion. By blunting efforts to colonize north of the Rio Grande and leaving these areas depopulated, Comancheria indirectly forced Mexico to let American settlers into them, leading to both Texan independence and the Mexican-American War. The dep- redations inflicted on New Mexico by the Comanches were so thorough that Ameri- can forces faced virtually no resistance in those areas, and were sometimes wel- comed and aided. The Americans were aware of this, offering protection from Co- mancheria that Mexico was unable to pro- vide. Chapter 6 breaks the chronological trend of the book and discusses Comanche soci- ety, how it influenced their foreign policy, and how expansionism altered it from the 18 th to 19 th century. The overall structure and gender roles did not change greatly, but herding operations grew exponentially, as did the number of slaves. Comancheria developed a proto-capitalist economy and a growing wealth gap, but a cultural em- phasis on generosity helped alleviate the negative effects, and a “warrior cult” helped channel male aggression outwards, aiding the empire and society simultane- ously. Chapter 7 details the collapse of this sys- tem, as a drought in the mid-1840's deci- mated the Comanche bison herds, sending their economy into a free-fall. American settlers and soldiers whittled down Co- mancheria, although the Civil War brought a short resurgence of the empire. Chapter 8 is the short, brutal story of Comancheria's final fall after the Civil War, and the Co- manche nation's confinement on an Okla- homa reservation. Hamalainen's book is an enlightening history of a forgotten empire and a neces- sary read for anyone with a sphere of study remotely related to the Southwestern United States, although I feel that Hama- lainen should have used the term South- Central United States for total geographic Pekka Hamalainen's The Comanche Em- pire is a political, economic, and cultural history of the eponymous nation and its ef- fects on the history of the modern South- western United States. Hamalainen is argu- ing for the very idea that a native empire could have had agency and been actors, ra- ther than just victims, in the history of North America. He also uses his analysis to view the history of the Southwest as indi- vidual towns and tribes, rather than borders and nation-states – in short, to view the world as the Comanche empire did to bet- ter understand them. Chapter 1 is the story of the Comanche's rise to power, starting with their arrival in New Mexico from the Great Plains in 1706 as the Numunu. Their background as refu- gees made them exceptionally hardy and adaptable, and by the middle of the century they had turned the northern Mexican fron- tier into fertile raiding and trading grounds. Chapter 2 deals with Spanish colonial policy in the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, and how Comancheria took ad- vantage of it. Spain's obsession with the threat of Britain's empire left them open to the Comanche's, who, via a comparatively huge population and a flexible foreign pol- icy, maneuvered themselves into a position capable of resisting expansion by the Spanish. Chapter 3 deals with Spain's response to the power of the Comanches – an alliance, albeit one only possible due to a smallpox epidemic decimating Comancheria and the independence of the United States radi- cally altering the balance of power on the continent. However, Spain treated the Co- manches poorly and failed to aid them, and Comancheria resumed its assault on New Mexico. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with Coman- cheria's height in the mid-19 th century: how its focus on hunting, trading, and raid- ing instead of territorial control enabled it