Contested Ground: Comparative
Frontiers on the Northern and Southern Edges of the Spanish Empire
Donna Guy and Thomas Sheridan, editors. 1998. Tucson: University of
Arizona Press [ISBN 0-8165-1860-2].
Last update: May 10, 1998
Abstract
The Spanish Empire in the Americas spanned two continents and a vast diversity of peoples
and landscapes. yet intriguing parallels characterized conquest, colonization, and
indigenous resistance along its northern and southern frontiers, from the role played by
Jesuit missions in the subjugation of native peoples to the emergence of livestock
industries with their attendant cowboys and gauchos and threats of Indian raids.
In this book, nine historians, three anthropologists, and one sociologist compare and
contrast these fringes of New Spain between 1500 and 1880, showing that in each region the
frontier represented contested ground where different cultures and polities clashed in
ways heretofore little understood. The contributors reveal similarities in Indian-white
relations, military policy, economic development, and social structure; and they show
differences in instances such as the emergence of a major urban center in the south and
the activities of rival powers.
By exploring issues of ethnicity and gender as well as different facets of indigenous
resistance, both violent and nonviolent, these essays point up the vitality and volatility
of the frontier as a place where power was continually contested and negotiated.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Maps viii
1. On Frontiers: The Northern and Southern edges of the Spanish Empire in the Americas.
Donna J. Guy and Thomas E. Sheridan 3
2. The Jesuit Mission Frontier in Comparative Perspective: The Reductions of the Rio de la
Plata and the Missions of Northwestern Mexico, 1599-1700.
Daniel T. Reff 16
3. Indigenous Rebellions on the Northern Mexican Mission Frontier: From First-Generation
to Later Colonial Responses
Susan M. Deeds 32
4. The Colonial Pact and Changing Ethnic Frontiers in Highland Sonora, 1740-1840.
Cynthia Radding 52
5. Women of the Buenos Aires Frontier, 1740-1810 (or the Gaucho Turned Upside Down).
Susan Migden Socolow 67
6. Spanish Colonial Military Strategy and Ideology.
Richard W. Slatta 83
7. Comparative Raiding Economies: North and South
Kristine L. Jones 97
8. Interethnic Conlflict and Resistance on the Brazilian Frontier of Goias, 1750-1890.
Mary Karasch 115
9. North to the Yerbales: The Exploitation of the Paraguayan Frontier, 1776-1810.
Jerry W. Cooney 135
10. Rio de La Plata and The Greater Southwest: A View From A World-Systems Perspective.
Thomas D. Hall 150
11. The Frontier as an Arena of Social and Economic Change: Wealth Distribution in
Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires Province.
Lyman L. Johnson 167
12. Two, Three, Many Barbarisms? The Chihuahua Frontier in Transition for Society to
Politics.
Daniel Nugent 182
Notes 201
Bibliography 221
About the Contributor 261
About the Editors 263
Index 265