The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 105, July 2001 - April, 2002 Page: 540
741 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
the Spanish settlers, imperial officials, and Franciscan missionaries described in
this book. During the eighteenth century, Frank argues, the tribute and labor
vecinos and missionaries extracted from Pueblo communities was not very bur-
densome, the men who set the economic policies of the northern Borderlands
were sympathetic to the settlers' needs, and missionaries rarely meddled in the
Pueblo Indians' affairs. Only ardent believers in the Black Legend, however, will
remain unpersuaded by Frank's exhaustive and painstaking research. Historians
of Texas, Alta California, and Sonora would do well to reconsider their provinces
in the wake of this nuanced study of the interrelatedness of economic and cultur-
al change. For, as Ross Frank has shown, economic history can tell us not only
how people of the past sought to make a living but how these pursuits were relat-
ed to the making of culture and the creation of identity.
Oregon State University STEVEN W. HACKEL
Santana: War Chief of the Mescalero Apache. By Almer N. Blazer. (Ranchos de Taos,
N.M.: Dog Soldier Press, 1999. Pp. xx+ 297. Preface, acknowledgments,
introduction, index. ISBN 0-94o666-70-7. $15.oo, paper.)
Publication of Almer N. Blazer's seventy-year-old manuscript accomplishes two
major objectives that will please Southwestern scholars. It brings to light the
greatness of Santana, a heretofore little-known Apache leader, and it provides
considerable insight into Mescalero culture. Blazer's father was Dr. Joseph H.
Blazer (1828-1898), the Iowa-born dentist and frontier jack-of-all-trades who
became an advocate of the Mescaleros from his seat of authority at The Mill, or
Blazer's Mill, on the Tularosa River in the mountains of east-central New
Mexico. The Mill has perhaps been best known as the scene of a shootout dur-
ing the Lincoln County War. Now, however, because of the efforts of A. R. Pruit,
a close Blazer family friend, its importance as a crucial part of Mescalero history
is clear.
Blazer's manuscript, based on his observations and the memory of his father
and Apaches who had known Santana, portrays the Mescalero from 1862 to
about 188o, a period when, as Pruit emphasizes, "the entire tribe was threatened
with extinction" (p. xvii). It also establishes Santana's importance to his people,
both as a military leader and as a realist. He believed that the Mescalero must
live in harmony with whites or face extermination. Gone were the days of fight-
ing the Mexicans and the newly arrived Anglos and their blue-coat protectors;
no more could they hide in the mountains, as they did during Gen. James
Charleton's uncompromising campaign during the early 186os. By 1873, when
the government created the Mescalero reservation, the time had come to sub-
mit, to change. For Santana it was, as Blazer maintains, a matter of "preservation
of the species" (p. 239). In confronting the inevitable, Santana often sought the
counsel of Dr. Blazer. Although the two lacked a common language, "a perfect
confidence and . . . friendly cooperation," as well as "a conglomeration of
English, Spanish, Mescalero, and gestures ... permitted them to understand
each other" (p. 174).January
540
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 105, July 2001 - April, 2002, periodical, 2002; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101222/m1/584/?rotate=270: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.