Indigenous Autonomy at La Junta de los Rios: Traders, Allies, and Migrants on New Spain's Northern Frontier by Robert Wright (review)

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• Indigenous Autonomy at La Junta de los Rios: Traders, Allies, and Migrants on New Spain's Northern Frontier by Robert Wright
• Matthew S. Taylor

Indigenous Autonomy at La Junta de los Rios: Traders, Allies, and Migrants on New Spain's Northern Frontier. By Robert Wright. ( Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2023. Pp. 334. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index.)

Indigenous Autonomy at La Junta de los Rios is a history of Native American and Spanish colonial relationships in an understudied area of the Spanish Borderlands. The geographic area of study is the area around the confluence of the Rio Grande with the Rio Conchos (today occupied by the cities of Presidio, Texas, and Ojinaga, Chihuahua). The book's eleven chapters trace the events between initial Spanish contact to dissolution and abandonment of the region by Native American groups in the latter half of the eighteenth century.

Prehistorically, the La Junta area was home to desert farmers and hunters, who occupied a cultural crossroads between the Rio Conchos Valley, the Rio Grande, and the arid interior to the northeast. It is likely that Cabeza de Vaca visited La Junta in 1535, but only a few entradas came before the establishment of missions in the 1680s. Local revolts led to temporary abandonment of the missions in 1689 and 1716, but Spanish authority successfully returned. A common theme of the book is the relative isolation of the La Junta area. Even with the establishment of missions, local peoples continued their religious and civil traditions. The Juntans had a degree of autonomy that was lacking in other portions of the Spanish Borderlands.

Of particular interest were the long-running attempts by Spanish officials, both secular and Catholic, to establish a presidio at La Junta. Franciscan missionaries requested a military presence as early as 1715, and government officials were cognizant of the strategic position of the Rio Conchos valley and Rio Grande. In the early eighteenth century. there were no Spanish military outposts along the Rio Grande between El Paso and San Juan de Batista de Rio Grande (near modern day Guerrero, Coahuila). Concern for the security of La Junta developed from two points: possible French intrusion and the appearance of hostile Native American groups like the Apache. The author details the political intrigues that surrounded the establishment of a presidio, including strong opposition by native Juntans and some local priests.

The best aspect of the book is its thorough descriptions of what happened, to whom, and what changes it caused. The work tries to focus upon the facts [End Page 100] and is remarkably free of personal commentary or attempts to fit the data into a theoretical model. Perhaps this is also its greatest weakness. The information presented in this book is useful for reconstructing political dynamics in the Spanish Borderlands, but it works better as a reference work than as a narrative history.

The story of La Junta, however, stands as an interesting anomaly in Spanish relations with Native Americans. The La Junta area was close enough to house missions, but far enough away that it remained at arm's length from Spanish civil administration. For seventy-five years, the Juntans practiced religious and secular autonomy by serving as military allies, economic middlemen, and migrant labor. Only when secular military authorities arrived were the native peoples compelled to migrate or assimilate into the general population of the northern frontier.

Matthew S. Taylor Augusta University Copyright © 2024 The Texas State Historical Association ...