The Boundaries between Us: Natives and Newcomers along the Frontiers of the Old Northwest Territory, 1750–1850, and: Creeks and Southerners: Biculturalism on the Early American Frontier, and: From Domination to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786–1859 (review)

The three books reviewed here reflect a persistent interpretive dichotomy in the historiography of the frontier. F. Todd Smith's From Domination to Disappearance offers a structural reading of relations between Indians and Europeans. His principal concern—like that of the authors of the official and quasi-official documents on which the book is based—is the relative military, economic, and demographic strength of various tribes and colonies. By contrast, both Creeks and Southerners and many of the eleven essays in The Boundaries between Us rely on the same kinds of sources as Smith, but instead trawl them for insights into the Native cultural beliefs and values in which military and economic relations were embedded. This concern with the substance of relations between Indians and Europeans and the recovery of Native cultural perspectives aligns Creeks and Southerners and The Boundaries between Us more closely with the dominant scholarly trend of the last decade.

In From Dominance to Disappearance, Smith provides a coherent, thorough, and generally persuasive account of relations between Natives in Texas and Louisiana and successive colonizers: Spain, France, the Texas Republic, and the United States. Smith presents his work as a continuation of Elizabeth A. H. John's monumental 1975 book, Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds. Extending that work into the mid-nineteenth century, Smith has mined some previously overlooked sources and prudently limited his research to a narrower compass. Although Smith writes with less flair than his predecessor, From Dominance to Disappearance is a worthy complement to the Texas–Louisiana component of Storms Brewed.

Smith's title reflects the declension theme at the book's heart. According to Smith, the Indian population of the region in the late seventeenth century stood at 100,000; by the middle of the nineteenth century, it numbered in the hundreds. This decline took place in distinct stages, each reflecting a different set of demographic and economic conditions as Europeans and their descendants traded claims to the region amongst themselves. At the outset, the Indians of Texas defied the efforts of the Spanish to control them, particularly at missions. Smith sees this as the period of Indian "dominance," but the most important goods the Indians obtained from Europeans were arms. These weapons were primarily for use against other tribes, and natives had no choice but to participate in an arms race with one another. Some tribes, in particular the Comanches, secured an advantage over others, like the Lipan Apaches. Smith makes it very clear that the Spanish did not dominate the area they claimed, but his careful delineation of tribal rivalries also exposes the anachronistic quality of the term Indian in this time and place. The idea of collective Indian "dominance" seems somewhat illusory given the extent and intertribal character of conflict in the region, and the fact that the Spanish never actually coughed up the quantity of goods the Indians needed or wanted.

The flow of goods improved only after the United States purchased Louisiana. Hoping to strengthen its hand in a boundary dispute with Spain, the United States used trade to win friends in the region. The Caddos and Wichitas were particularly receptive, as were many Comanches, leaving Spain with the support only of the Coushattas, Alabamas, and other small groups that had fled the southeast's settlers...