Land of Many Frontiers: A History of the American Southwest by Odie B. Faulk (review)

68 Western American Literature Below Grass Roots, and The Dust Within the Rock. In addition to fiction Waters has done reputable biographies of the Colorado millionaire Winfield Scott Stratton (Midas of the Rockies), of the painter Leon Gaspard, and of Wyatt and Virgil Earp (The Earp Brothers of Tombstone). The latter bi­ ography is a structurally weak but highly readable attempt to shatter the Wyatt Earp myth perpetuated by Stuart Lake. Devotees of the Southwest will find the four most recent Steck-Vaughn pamphlets interesting, if occasionally loosely put together. T. M. Pearce’s work on Alice Corbin Henderson is the most readable and best unified of the group, although it is the least critical. Carroll Y. R ich, North Texas State University Land of Many Frontiers: A History of the American Southwest. By Odie B. Faulk. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. viii + 358 pages, $7.50.) This is a strange but very interesting book. The author calls it “a history,'' which it clearly becomes from pages 3 through 202, covering the story of the Southwest from the entry of the earliest Spanish explorers to the conclusion of the Civil War in the United States. However Section 5, entitled “Internal Development, 1863-1912” and discussed from page 203 through page 267, focuses attention on the economic resources of the region and how they were used to supply military posts, to provide for Indian Reserva­ tions, build the railroads, bring about mining, and support ranches and farms. The section ends with a discussion of regional politics and the patronal system Chapter 6, “Twentieth Century, 1912-1967,” from page 268 to the end of the text at page 321, also is dominated by the economic and sociological outlook. Thus, the contents are roughly divided into two-thirds of the book which is chiefly narrative and one-third which contains analysis of resources in nature and peoples. Although Professor Faulk shifts the direction of his emphasis, he always writes in a clear, readable style, with a knack for selecting events that are vivid. The only complaint this reviewer would make is that when the reader’s interest is sufficiently awakened to make him want to know the source of some especially important information, he cannot find a reference note. Fur­ thermore, the bibliography is not arranged under the topical headings in the various sections. Thus, if the book were used as a textbook, the instructor would have to annotate it throughout for the curious student who might ask where the seven Christian bishops were described as fleeing from the Moors Reviews 69 in order to establish the Seven Cities of Cibola. I do not think the student should be required to search through all the “Recommended General Readings” to find the source for this or any other exceptional item. Professor Faulk sees the earth and sky as shaping the people in the Southwest, and the people in turn changing the face of the land by storing water, tilling the soil, cutting timber, extracting minerals, destroying as well as conserving resources, some of which were renewable and others were finished. It may be said that human events as well as natural resources are sometimes renewable and sometimes finished. The results of the Pueblo Indian Rebellion were reversed when the Spanish returned in 1692. Those who had been expelled resumed control and the effects of the revolt were minimal. Although the Southern Confederacy became installed at Mesilla, New Mexico, on March 8, 1862, the sway of the Slavery States was ended with the defeat of General Sibley at Glorieta in July of the same year. Silver and gold deposits were practically mined out within the period of thirty years, 1865-1895. Ghost towns dot the landscape since those great mining days, but coal, copper, oil, and now uranium prolong the inevitable end of mineral wealth in the South­ west. As sub-surface water resources disappear, surface water areas expand with the help of storage basins filled with water supplies from outside the region. Land of Many Frontiers indicates by its title that the history of the Southwest was more than just a push of Anglo-Americanism into a trackless waste where newcomers confronted the...