Over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, equestrian raiders resisted, adapted, and influenced Spanish colonial policy on the northern frontier of Nueva España. While there is a rich archival record that documents such interethnic interactions, these accounts reflect the priorities and perspectives of Spanish colonial officials. In an effort to create a more complex history of this period, this article brings documentary lines of evidence into dialogue with archaeological data spatial analyses. Drawing on Spanish archival accounts and western histories, I first trace the evolving relationships between equestrian nomads—particularly the Comanche—settlers, and colonial administrators in New Mexico. This history of interaction is followed by a spatial analysis of archaeological sites associated with equestrian nomads within the state. Legacy data on tipi ring sites offers a new line of evidence with which to understand how equestrian groups responded to Spanish settlement patterns and how raiding and trading shaped the material record of the region.
Indios Barbaros: Spanish-Nomad Interactions on the northern Frontier of New Spain