Barbaros – Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment - Hardcover

Weber, David J

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300105010 ISBN 13: 9780300105018

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2005

Synopsis

Two centuries after Cortes and Pizarro seized the Aztec and Inca empires, Spain's conquest of America remained unfinished. Indians retained control over most of the lands in Spain's American empire. Mounted on horseback, savvy about European ways and often possessing firearms, independent Indians continued to find new ways to resist subjugation by Spanish soldiers and conversion by Spanish missionaries. In this panoramic study, David Weber explains how late eighteenth-century Spanish administrators tried to fashion a more enlightened policy toward the people they called barbaros, or 'savages'. Even Spain's most powerful monarchs failed, however, to enforce a consistent, well-reasoned policy toward Indians. At one extreme, powerful independent Indians forced Spaniards to seek peace, acknowledge autonomous tribal governments and recognise the existence of tribal lands, fulfilling the Crown's oft-stated wish to use 'gentle' means in dealing with Indians. At the other extreme the Crown abandoned its principles, authorising bloody wars on Indians when Spanish officers believed they could defeat them. Power, says Weber, more than the power of ideas, determined how Spaniards treated 'savages' in the Age of Enlightenment.

About this title

Review:

"...[Weber's] mastery of both the primary and secondary sources and the more recent secondary literature makes this a fine study." -- History: Journal of the Historical Association, October, 2007

About the Author:

David J. Weber is Dedman Professor of History and director of the William P. Clements Center for Southwestern Studies at Southern Methodist University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0300105010
• ISBN 13: 9780300105018
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 480