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Morgan Labin Veraluz Dissertation Deserts of Plenty, Rivers of Want: Apaches and the Inversion of the Colonial Encounter in the Chihuahuan Borderlands, 1581-1788 by Morgan LaBin Veraluz A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) in the University of Michigan 2014 Doctoral Committee: !Professor Philip J. Deloria, Chair !Associate Professor Anthony P. Mora !Associate Professor Michael J. Witgen !Professor Donald R. Zak © Morgan LaBin Veraluz 2014 For Tom and Lei, my parents & for Claire, my wife ii Table of Contents Dedication........................................................................................................................ii List of Maps.....................................................................................................................iv Abstract............................................................................................................................v Introduction:!The Power of Chihuahuan Borderlands; Faraon and Mescalero !!Apacherías and the Inversion of the Colonial Encounter...........................1 Chapter 1: !Discovery: Riparian Empire in the Chihuahuan Desert; Ecological !!Asymmetries around New Mexico............................................................37 Chapter 2:!Invasion: Faraon Reconquista and Spanish Interregnum !!Reinterpreted..........................................................................................104 Chapter 3:!Experimentation: Faraon Apachería during the Second Era of !!Colonial Encounter..................................................................................168 Chapter 4:!Emergence: Faraones in the Trans-Pecos and La Junta........................233 Chapter 5:!Denouement: the Bolsón de Mapimí and Cracks in the System.............292 Conclusion: !Desertification and Mescalero Counter-Territoriality................................340 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................370 iii List of Maps Map 1: The Progression of Chihuahuan Desert Apacherías, 1581-1788....................1 Map 2: The Chihuahuan Desert.................................................................................19 Map 3: The Area of the Jornada del Muerto, with Surrounding Puebloan Linguistic !Groupings........................................................................................................40 Map 4: The Colonial Borders of New Mexico.............................................................46 Map 5: The Path Down the Rio Conchos to La Junta de los Ríos, and up the !Rio Grande......................................................................................................49 Map 6: The Path of the Pecos River...........................................................................55 Map 7: The Jornada del Muerto and Location of Piro and Tompiro Pueblos............112 Map 8: The Hueco Basin and its Mountain Borders.................................................!122 Map 9: Relative Locations of El Paso, La Junta, and the Jornada del Muerto.........129 Map 10: Casas Grandes and the Sierra Boca Grande, with Llanos Carretas..........140 Map 11: Francisco Alvarez Barreiro, “Plano Corográfico de Las Provincias !Del Nuevo México, 1728”..............................................................................!238 Map 12: Territories within Francisco Alvarez Barreiro, “Plano Corográfico de Las !Provincias Del Nuevo México, 1728”............................................................!240 Map 13: Excerpt from Francisco Alvarez Barreiro, “Plano Corográfico de !Las Provincias Del Nuevo México, 1728”.....................................................!243 Map 14: The Trans-Pecos and the Lands South and West of El Paso....................!254 Map 15: The Area of Vargas’ 1692 Journey to find Salt Flats..................................!254 Map 16: The Area of the Trans-Pecos in the Northern Chihuahuan Desert............!259 Map 17: The Area of Maestre de Campo Juan Dominguez de Mendoza’s !1683 Journey from El Paso del Norte to La Junta de los Ríos.....................!265 Map 18: The Regional Location of La Junta de los Ríos.........................................!272 Map 19: The Area of La Junta de los Ríos...............................................................!272 Map 20: The Area of the Bolsón de Mapimí.............................................................!296 Map 21: The Probable Route of Vidaurre in 1747, and Berroterán in 1729.............!325 Map 22: The Progression of Faraon and Mescalero Apacherías, 1581-1788.........!341 Map 23: Study of the Sierra del Carmen.................................................................!356 Map 24: The Big Bend Region and the Chisos Mountains......................................!361 iv Abstract !“Deserts of Plenty, Rivers of Want” is an environmental history of the Chihuahuan Desert as reflected through Faraon, Natage, and Mescalero Apache mobility, enviro- economy, and inter-ethnic competition, from 1581-1788. It is the story of Apaches who constructed powerful and elastic indigenous landscapes at the same time that they deconstructed sclerotic European landscapes. Methodologically, this dissertation combines critical assessment of Spanish archival documentation, environmental research concerning xeric ecologies, and economic and biological game theory. The two principal questions that direct analysis are: How did Apaches of the southern Great Plains and northern Chihuahuan Desert invert the vectors of imperial domination and directionality? How–when most indigenes experienced European empire through displacement, destruction, and exploitation–did these Apaches counter-invade the northern frontier of New Spain, and thrive within an indigenous territoriality–Apacheria– that was, geopolitically and eco-economically, often more expansive and successful than Spanish provinces? !Apaches inverted the colonial encounter almost as soon as it began, and initiated a two century long project of counter-expansion and counter-colonization. Within a decade of the establishment of New Mexico in the Middle Rio Grande Valley in 1598, Apaches learned to exploit the structural deficiencies of the Spanish riparian colony and had plundered horses, guns, and grains. Control over these tools of empire empowered Apaches to experiment with expanded mobilities and with emergent environmental economies. In the course of their experimentation, Apaches discovered and exploited ecoregions of the Chihuahuan Desert, such as the Trans-Pecos, La Junta de los Rios, and the Bolson de Mapimi. The Spanish had believed these areas to be wastelands and had shunned them, but Apaches found oases and mesopotamias that nourished and grew their transhumant, nomadic societies. From these landscapes Faraones, Natages and Mescaleros developed complex modalities of competition that empowered them to bend imperial economies towards their own indigenous territoriality, and to counter- colonize lands held by regions’ previous indigenous inhabitants. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, Apacheria and the Chihuahuan Desert were fast becoming coterminous, and together the two represented the powerful function that space and place played within borderlands encounters. v Introduction: The Power of Chihuahuan Borderlands; Faraon and Mescalero Apacherías and the Inversion of the Colonial Encounter Map 1: The Progression of Chihuahuan Desert Apacherías, 1581-1788. First panel: Middle Rio Grande Valley and southern Great Plains, 1581-1680; second panel: Trans- Pecos, 1681-1748; third panel: Bolsón de Mapimí, 1749-1788. Edited Excerpt from A.K. Lobeck, Physiographic Diagram of North America (New York: Columbia University, The Geographical Press, 1948). !It happened quickly, and not in the way it was supposed to. Spanish missionaries, militia, and colonists began a series of invasions of what is today New Mexico, Texas, and northern Chihuahua in 1581. These agents of empire and colony came from the province of Nueva Vizcaya, a relatively young place (established only 19 years earlier). Soon they had a new colony to call home, and they named it Nuevo Mexico (New Mexico). In addition to horses, mules, cattle, bibles, and guns, they 1 brought with them the expectation that Spanish culture and Spanish institutions would soon crowd the landscape as a testament to the irresistible power of New Spain. Their expectations, however, were soon dashed, and many of them could only look on in horror as the colonial encounter–as they had come to expect it from their conquests over Aztecs and Incas–became inverted. These Spanish colonists had succeeded in extending European empire in 1598, but within a decade a new, dangerous, and seemingly unassailable indigenous counter-territory began to take shape around them. !In the beginning there was hardly a warning; just a quotidian report delivered to a bureaucrat in Mexico City. Viceroy Zúñiga y Acevedo was curious to know more about the new colony of New Mexico, founded three years earlier by don Juan de Oñate, in 1598. He tasked a member of his court, don Francisco de Valverde y Mercado, with questioning two people who had just arrived from New Mexico, Ginés de Herrera Horta and Juan de Ortega. Horta and Ortega spoke similarly about the estimated population of Puebloans, and about the agricultural potential of the river valley into which the Spanish had settled, the Middle Rio Grande Valley. Other than the fact that many colonists were disappointed in the climate,
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