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  • Adventurism and Empire: The Struggle for Mastery in the Louisiana–Florida Borderlands, 1762–1803 by David Narrett
  • Francis X. Galán
Adventurism and Empire: The Struggle for Mastery in the Louisiana–Florida Borderlands, 1762–1803. By David Narrett. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Pp. 392. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.)

David Narrett’s Adventurism and Empire is a subtle reminder that Texas has always been part of something bigger. From the supplying of Texas beef by Spanish cattle ranchers to support of the American Revolution, despite what Comanche raiders stole, to Philip Nolan’s fateful mustang roundups, Narrett contextualizes Texas events within the imperial drama of the late eighteenth century struggle for contested land claims and trade [End Page 320] routes to the Gulf of Mexico in the Lower Mississippi Valley (or the LouisianaFlorida Borderlands), which Spain feared might lead to the loss of its silver mines in Mexico. Narrett argues that adventurism and intrigue were the “vital forces that shaped cross-border and transnational interchange” (265) among a diverse array of characters in this region.

Narrett explains that trade and immigration were just as important during times of peace in the emerging power struggles of the Louisiana– Florida Borderlands, where private adventurers heavily shaped colonization, commerce, and allegiance under weak imperial control. He defines “intrigue” as an expression of competing European and American Indian agendas based upon a policy embracing “stratagem, covert maneuver, rumor or conspiracy, and ruse or deception” (7). Contraband traffic is one important aspect of intrigue that made regional politics and diplomacy messier and more disruptive.

Narrett supports his narrative with a mix of archival and secondary sources. His utilization of Spanish-language works is outstanding in explaining Spain’s attempts to colonize Louisiana after its transfer from France in 1762 with both German and Irish immigrants as well as Spanish or indigenous settlers. Interestingly, by the 1790s, Spain fully understood the growing threat of numerous Anglos settling in the Kentucky and Tennessee backcountry. These settlers might well have extended American conquest and intrigue to Mexico on the one hand but, according to one Spanish diplomat in Philadelphia, they also hated the U.S. government and could be open to becoming subjects of Spain.

Narrett discusses shady characters such as James Wilkerson, who sponsored Nolan’s adventures, but he also includes plenty of individuals who might not otherwise be considered. Bernardo de Gálvez, as governor of Spanish Louisiana, proved highly successful in defeating the British in the Gulf campaigns of the American Revolution, while Martín Navarro, Louisiana’s chief administrative and financial officer, is described like Adam Smith, “a believer in private economic ambition as a public virtue” (144). Navarro encouraged the spread of slave-based agriculture in the Lower Mississippi Valley from the Caribbean islands, especially Cuba, and backed Anglo settlers, whom he felt worshipped the king’s silver as much as Indians did their gods. William Augustus Bowles of the Creek Nation is another figure who by hook or crook made Indians believe in their own independence, but this proved unacceptable to Spain or the United States.

This is not your ordinary story of westward expansionism with the spread of civilization and democracy. Narrett’s book flows and surprisingly concludes with the Louisiana Purchase, leaving the reader clamoring for more. While it is mostly a tale about ambitious men as women’s voices are largely absent, we learn that Indians and African Americans had [End Page 321] dreams of freedom that complicate American exceptionalism and Texas provincialism. In sum, this is a book that is well worth reading.

Francis X. Galán
Texas A&M University–San Antonio
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