Lindsay Montgomery – “Persistence: A Comanche History of 18th Century New Mexico”

The way we evaluate the success and failure of a society is deeply influenced by our political position as members of Western Civilization. While this may seem like an obvious statement, the reality is that we as Westerners often forget that our standing in the world today is not natural and the questions we ask about that standing are not obvious. This type of thinking has led to the growth of a very particular genre of scholarship; what one might call “big picture history”. Many of these big picture histories seek to explain how exactly it came to be that the West won and the rest apparently lost. This talk will offer a critique of big picture history using the Comanche as a case study. Drawing on archaeological and historical evidence of the Comanche in New Mexico, I will present an alternative account of the 18th century Southwest. This account shows that the Comanche were not only resisted Spanish colonialism but were in control of a vast economic-political empire of their own. In presenting this alternative history, this talk will argue that Europe’s victory over underdeveloped and unsophisticated Natives was far from inevitable.