About the Author:
F. Todd Smith is an associate professor of history at the
University of North Texas. He is the author of several
books on Texas Indians, including The Caddo Indians:
Tribes on the Convergence of Empires, 1542-1854, The Wichita
Indians: Traders of Texas and the Southern Plains,
1540-1845, and The Caddos, the Wichitas, and the United
States, 1846-1901.
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Description: From
Dominance to Disappearance is the first detailed history of the
Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest from the late eighteenth
to the middle nineteenth century, a period that began with Native
peoples dominating the region and ended with their
disappearance, after settlers forced the Indians in Texas to
take refuge in Indian Territory.
Drawing on a variety of published and unpublished sources in
Spanish, French, and English, F. Todd Smith traces the differing
histories of Texas's Native peoples. He begins in 1786,
when the Spaniards concluded treaties with the Comanches and
Wichitas, among others, and traces the relations between the
Native peoples and the various Euroamerican groups in Texas and
the Near Southwest, an area encompassing parts of Texas,
Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. For the first half of
this period, the Native peoples--including the Caddos, the
Karankawas, the Tonkawas, the Lipan Apaches, and the Atakapas as
well as emigrant groups such as the Cheorkees and the Alabama-Coushattas--maintained
a numerical superiority over the Euroamericans that allowed them
to influence the region's economic, military, and diplomatic
affairs. After Texas declared its independence, however,
the power of Native peoples in Texas declined dramatically, and
along with it, their ability to survive in the face of
overwhelming hostility. From Dominance to Disappearance
illuminates a poorly understood chapter in the history of Texas
and its indigenous people.
Available from Amazon
ISBN# 0-8032-4313-8 |
