The Lipan Apaches: People of Wind and Lightning

by Thomas A. Britten

Overview

Winner of the 2010 Texas Old Missions and Forts Restoration Association Book Award

Despite the significant role they have played in Texas history for nearly four hundred years, the Lipan Apaches remain among the least studied and least understood tribal groups in the West. Considered by Spaniards of the eighteenth century to be the greatest threat to the development of New Spain's northern frontier, the Lipans were viewed as a similar risk to the interests of nineteenth-century Mexico, Texas, and the United States. Direct attempts to dissolve them as a tribal unit began during the Spanish period and continued with the establishment of the Republic of Texas in 1836. From their homeland in south Texas, Lipan migratory hunter-gatherer bands waged a desperate struggle to maintain their social and cultural traditions amidst numerous Indian and non-Indian enemies. Government officials, meanwhile, perceived them as a potential danger to the settlement and economic development of the Rio Grande frontier. Forced removal from their traditional homelands diminished their ability to defend themselves and, as they attached themselves to the Mescalero Apaches and the Tonkawas, the Lipans faded from written history in 1884.

Thomas Britten has scoured U.S. and Mexican archives in order to piece together the tangled tribal history of these adaptable people, emphasizing the cultural change that coincided with the various migrations and pressures they faced. The result is an interdisciplinary study of the Lipan Apaches that focuses on their history and culture, their relationships with a wide range of Indian and non-Indian peoples, and their responses to the various crises and burdens that seemed to follow them wherever they went.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826345882
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	04/09/2010
Series:	no
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Thomas A. Britten is assistant professor of history at the University of Texas, Brownsville. He is also the author of A Brief History of the Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts. He is a specialist in twentieth-century Indian history.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations And Maps ix

Preface xi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 The Genesis of the Lipan Apaches 33

Chapter 2 The Lipan Apaches in Spanish Texas, 1700-1749 59

Chapter 3 Lipan Apache Missions in Spanish Texas, 1750-1770 95

Chapter 4 A War of Extermination: Lipan Apaches in Spanish Texas, 1770-1800 129

Chapter 5 The Lipan Apaches, Mexico, and Texas, 1800-1845 167

Chapter 6 The Lipan Apaches and the United States, 1845-1905 201

Epilogue 235

Notes 241

Bibliography 295

Index 323