Economic Beginnings of the Far West: How We Won the Land Beyond the Mississippi . By Katharine Coman . (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912. Pp. xix, 418; ix, 450.)
The appearance of this book is significant. It foreshadows the time when the early history of the Trans-Mississippi West will be systematically studied as a whole, and given its due place in the history of the United States. As the first attempt to organize this field on a comprehensive scale, the work is deserving of commendation. The present reviewer by no means agrees with another who maintains that Miss Coman's task was pointless and impossible.
Since the book is new in scope, a brief statement of its contents is due. Volume I, entitled “Explorers and Colonizers,” includes: Part I, “The Spanish Occupation (1542-1846)”—the explorers, the colonizers; Part II, “Exploration and the Fur Trade”—The Northwest Coast, the overland search for the western sea, the fur trade. Volume II, entitled “American Settlers,” includes: Part III, “The Advance of the Settlers”—Louisiana, the Missouri Territory, the Santa Fé Trade, the colonization of Texas; Part IV, “The Transcontinental Migration”—The acquisition of Oregon, the Mormon migration, the conquest of California; Part V; “Free Land and Free Labor”—the curse of slavery, slavery in the territories, the victory in the North. The volume closes with the Homestead Act of 1862.
The problem of organizing this vast field, even from a single viewpoint, is not easy, and Professor Coman has not solved all the difficulties. In its most general aspect, her organization is correct, the reviewer believes. That is, she treats the Spanish, French, British and Russian activities, and the exploration and fur trading activities of the Americans in the Trans-Mississippi region, as the preparation for the American settler, and then goes back and traces the progress of American settlement, as the second stage of the development of the West. The work very properly begins with an extended statement of the Spanish and French occupation. Both of these topics are treated under the head of “the Spanish occupation,” which does injustice to France. However, this is a healthy reaction against the view that the Spaniards did nothing worthy of mention.
A very serious fault in the plan is a too rigid adherence to the topical method, and a failure to reveal the general historical process as a whole by which the West was opened. For example, the Spanish occupation is traced from Cortés to 1846 before British, American, or Russian activities are introduced. In this way concurrent events and forces are so far separated that the reader fails to see their interrelations. It would be better, in the opinion of the reviewer, to have carried the Spanish and French story to the end of the eighteenth century, when the Spanish influence was at its height, turning then to the British, Russian, and American developments, all of which constituted infractions of the Spanish frontiers.
This fault of a too rigid adherence to the topical plan is even more noticeable in the arrangement of the lesser subdivisions. By treating New Mexico, Louisiana, Texas, and California each separately, from beginning to end, the historical evolution of New Spain is completely lost sight of. What we really have, therefore, is a series of separate histories of the individual provinces, without relation to each other or to the general movement of Spanish-American and of Western American history. By placing the treatment of Louisiana under Spain, beginning with the cession of 1762, before the treatment of Texas in the seventeenth century, is completely to miss the point of the intimate relations between Texas and French Louisiana. Again, the sections devoted to “the Pike Expedition,” “the coming of the Americans,” and “commercial restrictions,” inserted in the chapters on New Mexico, Texas, and California, respectively, are more closely related to each other, historically, than to the chapters in which they stand. They should be brought into relations as parts of the whole Anglo-American southwestward movement in the early nineteenth century. This defect of organization extends to other parts of Volume I and to Volume II. In treating the Northwest, for example, “explorers” are separated from “furtraders”—as though Hanna, Meares, Kendrick, and Gray were primarily explorers and not furtraders.
In matters of proportion and emphasis the disparities are grave. Though the book purports to be an economic history, the longest chapters are those merely narrative. Thus forty-eight pages are given to the journey of Lewis and Clark, twenty-five to that of the Astoria expedition, ten to the Coronado expedition, ten to Pike, fifteen to La Salle (as against fourteen to the rest of Louisiana under both France and Spain), and six to Burr.
Nevertheless, the chief shortcomings of the book are not those of general plan, but of detail. This can be illustrated by the treatment given to the Spanish province of Texas. In the first place, and explaining all that follows, it is plain from both the bibliography and the text that the author was oblivious or indifferent to practically the whole product, not inconsiderable, of modern scholarship relating to this portion of her field. Not a reference is given, for example, to any one of the fifteen volumes of the Texas State Historical Quarterly, or to Clark's doctoral dissertation on The Beginnings of Texas. Had these and similar contributions been consulted, a host of inexcusable mistakes would have been avoided.
It will be a surprise to all students of early Texas to learn that in the first half of the seventeenth century “Franciscan friars made several attempts to reach the Tehas” (p. 67). Was a single known attempt made before 1650? If so, the discovery is so important that it should be supported by evidence. The map on p. 78 shows Joutel's route to be from the Cenis to the lower Natchitoches, when as a matter of fact he went to the Cadodacho, nearly two hundred miles to the northwest of the lower Natchitoches (a small matter, but about the same difference as between Boston and Albany). The Cenis visited by Joutel were living on the Neches, not on the Trinity. The Cadodacho were not on the Sabine, as the map shows, but near the great bend of the Red River. On page 80 a most surprising route is given for Tonti in his search for La Salle. Perhaps it makes little difference to state that Texas had its beginnings as a Spanish settlement on the Trinity instead of on the Neches (p. 95), but the error is comparable to confusing the Connecticut with the Merrimac, two streams about the same distance apart as the Trinity and the Neches. And who were the Cenis as distinguished from the Texas? The error in the map on this point on p. 78 is repeated in the text on p. 95, where it is made to appear that the two missions mentioned (San Francisco and Santísimo Nombre de María) were established for two distinct peoples. As a matter of fact, both were in the same sub-tribe of the Hasinai confederacy, the Nabedache, and within a few miles of eac hother. These missions were abandoned in October, 1693, and not in 1694 (p. 96).
The mission of “St. Francis de los Neches” was not the same as that of Nacogdoches (p. 97); one was on the Neches and the other forty miles or more eastward, beyond the Angelina, while they were founded by different missionary colleges. Ramón had twenty-four soldiers and ten religious, not “some fifty soldiers and twelve friars” (p. 96). It is implied that the Ramón expedition founded seven instead of six missions in eastern Texas (p. 97). The impression is given on page 97 that only one mission was founded on the San Antonio, instead of eight. The statement regarding the French invasion of Texas in 1719 is greatly overdrawn, to say the least (pp. 97-98). Not thirty, but fifteen, Canary Island families were taken to Texas to found the villa of San Fernando (p. 98). The colony on the Trinity described with some vividness on p. 99 never existed, hence the description is somewhat gratuitous.
The most fundamental misapprehension regarding early Texas is revealed in the description on pp. 99-100 of the mission régime among the “Tejas and the Cenis.” The description given would fit the situation on the San Antonio, three hundred miles away, fairly well, but it is a patent fact that the Tejas (Cenis) never consented to live in pueblos or to submit to mission discipline. Hence, so far as eastern Texas is concerned, the whole passage is incorrect and beside the point. This misapplication of an interesting passage is due in part to an inadequate study of the Indian situation. It is implied (p. 101) that secularization of the Texas missions was generally effected in 1794, but, as a matter of fact, only one mission, Valero, was then secularized, the process not being completed for all Texas till after the end of the Spanish régime.
It was not in 1777, but several years earlier, that the northern garrisons mentioned on p. 102 were withdrawn. It is a strange confusion of the Indian situation to state that the Comanche were incited by “their hereditary foes,” the Apache, to turn their arms against the Spaniards. What is meant is that the Spanish-Apache alliance made the comanche hostile to the Spaniards (102). It would probably be difficult to find facts to justify the graphic picture of contraband trade between Texas and Louisiana given on p. 105, and it is far from the truth to state that “when Natchitoches became a Spanish town this trade was no longer illicit.” As a matter of fact, for several years after 1770 it was unlawful for even the governor of Texas to so much as correspond with the lieutenant-governor at Natchitoches. Proposals for establishing free commerce between the provinces were discussed for years, and finally negatived, while frequent arrests were made of persons who attempted the trade. These facts have a bearing on the statement regarding contraband on p. 108.
It would be easy to present a vast body of evidence to refute the assertion that there was no attempt to restrict the sale of weapons and liquors among the Indians (p. 105). On the other hand, the statement regarding the suggestion of the governor of Louisiana relative to the distribution of “ardiente” (aguardiente) and cheap firearms suggests unfamiliarity with the lengthy “Instrucción” on this point issued by the viceroy in 1786.
If the statement on p. 106 is intended to mean that “many Americans crossed the Texas border” before 1800, it should be supported by evidence, for it is not well established. The Red River was not generally “held by the Spanish government to be both the natural and historic boundary” of Texas (p. 110). The Mexican rebellion broke out in 1810, not 1812 (p. 114). It is not true that the viceroy had no troops for the defence of Texas at the outbreak of the War of Independence. The defence by Arredondo was quite efficient and sufficient (p. 114). Magee's expedition was begun in 1812, not 1813 (p. 115). Magee died at La Bahía, and did not succeed “in getting possession of San Antonio,” nor did the declaration for the republic await that event (p. 115). Is the “1830” on p. 117 a misprint for “1820?” If so, the “Meantime” following is incorrect. If not, the statement is incorrect.
All of the foregoing citations of inaccuracies have been taken from the few pages devoted to the Spanish province of Texas. Similar misstatements are about as numerous in the pages devoted to Texas in the later period. But there is neither need of nor space for citing them. Perhaps few of the points cited are vital. But if they were worth mentioning at all, they were worth an attempt to state them correctly, which would have been possible in most of the cases. Moreover, one cannot fail to see that the effect of these inaccuracies is cumulative, and that incorrect general notions must accompany such inaccuracy of detail.
A more casual reading of other portions of the work reveals the same newness to the field on the part of the author. Perhaps the most suggestive comment left for the reviewer to make is that, clearly, four years are not enough to master so large and so new a field as that covered by Professor Coman's book.
Herbert E. Bolton .
How to cite:
Bolton, Herbert E., "Economic Beginnings of the Far West: How We Won the Land Beyond the Mississippi", Volume 017, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 207 - 212. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v017/n2/review_19.html
[Accessed Sun Nov 23 2:52:04 CST 2008]
