The other North American frontier, or should we say frontiers? | The Spanish Frontier in North America (The...

Highly recommended | The Spanish Frontier in North America (The Lamar Series in Western History) | David J. Weber

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	• The Spanish Frontier in North America (The Lamar Series in Western History) David J. Weber Yale University Press, 1994 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Wonderful History of Spanish Colonial Frontier

This is an excellent history of the Spanish colonial experience in North America. Like most of us, I grew up thinking of England when the word "colonial" comes around. The Spanish coolonial history is just as fascinating and far more romantic than their counterparts. Weber's history should be required reading in our universities. Anyone remotely interested in colonial history will find this a pleasant diversion.

The other North American frontier, or should we say frontiers?

Frontiers, in the plural, might be better. While many of us may call to mind Santa Fe, or the Alamo, the Spaniards were settled in, or exploring or defending, many places in North America. Only tenuously connected to each other, these frontier areas included Florida, the Gulf Coast, Texas, New Mexico, California and Arizona.

While New Mexico was reachable from Chihuahua, the Llano Estacado separated it from Texas. The Sierra Madre, water supplies in Mexico and such, separated New Mexico from the late-settled California and the even more tenuous hold on Arizona, not to mention that it was easier to get to California by sailing from Mexico out into the Central Pacific then taking trade winds back ... even from the Philippines. Apaches and Yaquis separated Arizona from California.

Meanwhile, the Gulf Coast and Florida weren't settled or explored from Mexico and so the first pages of their Spanish history were different.

As with all the European powers, dealing with the various Indian tribes was a large part of colonization. Weber takes a careful look at this, shows how the interaction went both ways and how the Spanish at least come off better in many ways than the English. That is also to say they come off better than the English's Anglo-American descendants as well.

Weber shows how Spain was less exterministic and more flexible in dealing with Indians than Anglos were, while doing so on a shoestring.

None of the Spanish frontiers in today's United States had anywhere near the degree of colonization that the British colonies had; for that matter, the Spanish would have settled for the number of Frenchmen who went to Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. Meanwhile, outside of New Mexico and Florida, by the time the Spanish got into various parts of North America, the empire's administration, military prowess and economy were all on the decline.

Yet, Spain persevered.

Read how, and what it does, could and should mean for our country today, in this very informative book. Ironically, I bought it at Coronado National Memorial -- one of Spain's first crossings into today's United States.

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Highly recommended

This is an excellent study of Spain in North America, well written and superbly organized.

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EXCELLENT BOOK !!!

VERY PROFOUND AND EXCELLENT HISTORY OF THE SPANIARDS IN NORTH AMERICA. AMAZING STORY !!! WORTH EVERY PENNY !

BUY AND FIND OUT !!

In 1513, when Ponce de Leon stepped ashore on a beach of what is now Florida, Spain gained its first foothold in North America. For the next 300 years, Spaniards ranged through the continent building forts, missions and farms, ranches and towns to reconstruct the Iberian world. This illustrated book presents an overview of the Spanish colonial period in North America. It provides an account not only of the Spaniards' impact on the lives, institutions and environments of the native peoples but also of the effect of native North Americans on the societies and cultures of Spanish settlers. With quotations and illustrations, David Weber describes the establishement, expansion and retraction of the Spanish frontier and recounts the forging of a Hispanic empire that ranged from Florida to California. Weber refutes the common assumption that while the English and French came to the New World to settle or engage in honest trade, the Spanish simply came to plunder. The Spanish missionaries, soldiers and traders who lived in America were influenced by diverse motives and Weber shows that their behaviour must be viewed in the context of their own time and within their own frame of reference. Throughout, Weber deals with many other issues, including the difference between English, French and Spanish treatment of Indians, the social and economic integration of Indian women into Hispanic society and the reasons why the Spanish communities in North America failed to develop at the rate that the English settlements did.

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