Description
Book Synopsis 2022 WHA W. Turrentine Jackson Award for best first book on the history of the American West
2022 WHA David J. Weber Prize for the best book on Southwestern History
In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Texas—a hotly contested land where states wielded little to no real power—local alliances and controversies, face-to-face relationships, and kin ties structured personal dynamics and cross-communal concerns alike. Country of the Cursed and the Driven brings readers into this world through a sweeping analysis of Hispanic, Comanche, and Anglo-American slaving regimes, illuminating how slaving violence, in its capacity to bolster and shatter families and entire communities, became both the foundation and the scourge, the panacea and the curse, of life in the borderlands.
As scholars have begun to assert more forcefully over the past two decades, slavery was much more diverse and widespread in North America than previously recognized, e
Trade Review
“Paul Barba’s new book engages [conversations about the history of slavery and violence in Texas with] deep research, analytical precision, and an impassioned argument. . . . Unflinching.”—Paul Conrad, Journal of Southern History
"Country of the Cursed and the Driven is a welcome addition to the scholarship on the subject and a must-read for everyone interested in the history of the US borderlands."—Jorge E. Delgadillo Núñez, H-LatAm
"A thought-provoking book."—Alice Baumgartner, Hispanic American Historical Review
"Barba makes a forceful argument that challenges existing scholarship to not excuse kinship slavery as less inhumane than chattel slavery nor to divide them into different histories."—Noelle Buffo, Chronicles of Oklahoma
“Deeply researched and covering a vast chronology, Country of the Cursed and the Driven offers a powerful new interpretation of Texas history through a narrative centered on the enslavement of both Natives and peoples of African descent.”—Karl Jacoby, author of Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History
“Texas history is too often broken into Spanish, Comanche, Mexican, and Anglo eras. Paul Barba demonstrates that the trauma of slavery sewed all of these ragged pieces together like a suture. A dark, deep, compelling book.”—Brian DeLay, author of War of a Thousand Deserts
“This is a detailed, unrelenting history of how violence, especially slaving and slaveholding violence, shaped Texas. Paul Barba’s work provides excellent environmental and geopolitical contexts, especially in explaining the dynamics of Native intergroup relations within Texas and on the periphery.”—Alan Gallay, author of The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670–1717
“By focusing on the overlapping slaving practices of Anglo Americans, Comanches, and Hispanic society from the colonial to national periods, Country of the Cursed and the Driven provides a new lens for viewing the transformation of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. . . . It effectively brings together ethnic history through a borderlands framework while providing a comprehensive history of Texas.”—Todd W. Wahlstrom, author of The Southern Exodus to Mexico: Migration across the Borderlands after the American Civil War
“[In addition to] meticulous research, Barba shows that all too often historians separate Anglo, Hispanic, and Comanche histories when, in fact, the only way to truly understand any of these borderlands cultures is through their interconnectedness. His specificity regarding semantics is quite helpful, as is his knack for making readers think outside the box.”—Whitney Snow, Kansas History
Table of Contents
List of Maps and Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction. "Cursed and Driven, Traded, as Slaves . . . O, What a Country"
Part I: Slave Raiders and Their Cycles of Violence, 1500s–1760s
1. "Obliged to Punish and Conquer These Indians": Slavery and the Hispanic Path to Colonization in Texas, pre-1717
2. "Blinded by the Craving for Slaves": Slavery and the Quest for Spanish Dominion in Native Country, 1718–1760
3. "Reduced to Peace . . . by the Attacks of the Comanches": Slavery and the Comanche Emergence in the Texas Borderlands, 1706–1767
Part II: Strange and Violent Bedfellows, 1760s–1836
4. "Companions on Campaign": The Spanish-Comanche Battle for Texas, 1760s–1820
5. "Honest People . . . from Hell Itself:" Anglo-American Colonization and the Rise of Chattel Slavery in Texas, 1800–1836
Part III: Violent Confluences in the Age of Anglo-Slaving Supremacy, 1836-1860
6. "De Overseer Shakes a Blacksnake Whip over Me": Consolidating an Anti-Black Colonial Regime, 1836–1860
7. "They Should Have Been Entirely Destroyed": Comanche Raiding, Slaving, and Trading in the Age of Anglo Colonial Ascendance, 1836–1860
Epilogue. "A Malady without Cure"
Bibliography
Notes
Index
