In this thought-provoking work, Sara Ortelli combines social, economic, and ecological history to challenge the traditional historiography on eighteenth-century Nueva Vizcaya, the largest province of northern New Spain, which included the present-day Mexican states of Chihuahua and Durango, as well as parts of southern Coahuila. Drawing on a wide array of archival sources from multiple repositories in Mexico and Spain, Ortelli argues that the “Apache war” that purportedly afflicted this region between 1748 and 1790 was actually a discursive strategy employed by the local elites to maintain their privileges in the face of increasing interference from representatives of the Spanish Crown.
Ortelli does an excellent job at exposing how captains and other characters related to the presidios (frontier military posts and garrisons) profited from the colonial order to become powerful landlords, miners, and merchants. She also points out convincingly the many people who directly or indirectly benefited from the military...
