Apache Navaho And Spaniard

Across the Northern Frontier

In lean, swift-moving prose, Across the Northern Frontier chronicles the compelling adventures of the Spaniards who ventured north from colonial New Mexico into the unknown, and their contacts and conflicts with Native Americans. The narrative takes the reader along on those dangerous frontier expeditions for diplomacy, trade, and war.North of colonial New Mexico, the northernmost province of New Spain, loomed the region's highest mountains, seemingly limitless plains, moving black hills of buffalo, and a bewildering maze of mesas and canyons held by disparate and often hostile native peoples. Few journeys across the frontier were routine, for they included unpredictable encounters, with natives and exposure to the hazards of the wild. Water, and its scarcity, influenced every decision. Expedition leaders routinely kept journals of their often momentous travels, and those that survive provide rich detail on the new lands and strange peoples.Spanish explorers exerted a profound influence on the subsequent history of the present-day states of New Mexico and Colorado -- a legacy not fully documented until now -- as well as Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and Utah. Colorado's people, their cultural practices, place names, and even occasional artifacts all attest to this early Spanish influence.

Apache, Navaho, and Spaniard

The Apache Diaspora

Across four centuries, Apache (Ndé) peoples in the North American West confronted enslavement and forced migration schemes intended to exploit, subjugate, or eliminate them. While many Indigenous groups in the Americas lived through similar histories, Apaches were especially affected owing to their mobility, resistance, and proximity to multiple imperial powers. Spanish, Comanche, Mexican, and American efforts scattered thousands of Apaches across the continent and into the Caribbean and deeply impacted Apache groups that managed to remain in the Southwest. Based on archival research in Spain, Mexico, and the United States, as well Apache oral histories, The Apache Diaspora brings to life the stories of displaced Apaches and the kin from whom they were separated. Paul Conrad charts Apaches' efforts to survive or return home from places as far-flung as Cuba and Pennsylvania, Mexico City and Montreal. As Conrad argues, diaspora was deeply influential not only to those displaced, but also to Apache groups who managed to remain in the West, influencing the strategies of mobility and resistance for which they would become famous around the world. Through its broad chronological and geographical scope, The Apache Diaspora sheds new light on a range of topics, including genocide and Indigenous survival, the intersection of Native and African diasporas, and the rise of deportation and incarceration as key strategies of state control. As Conrad demonstrates, centuries of enslavement, warfare, and forced migrations failed to bring a final solution to the supposed problem of Apache independence and mobility. Spain, Mexico, and the United States all overestimated their own power and underestimated Apache resistance and creativity. Yet in the process, both Native and colonial societies were changed.