These People Have Always Been a Republic - (The David J. Weber the New Borderlands History) by Maurice S Crandall (Paperback)

About the Book

"By focusing on this long history, Maurice Crandall demonstrates how Indigenous peoples absorbed, adapted, or eschewed colonially imposed forms of electoral politics and exercised political sovereignty based on local needs. In doing so, this study compares and contrasts not only Spanish, Mexican, and American conceptions of Indian citizenship, but also the differences among indigenous groups that populated what became the states of Arizona and New Mexico. Crandall's work represents a significant contribution to the fields of indigenous political rights and legal status in the American Southwest, as well as Indian-Hispano and Indian-Anglo relations in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands"--

Book Synopsis

Spanning three hundred years and the colonial regimes of Spain, Mexico, and the United States, Maurice S. Crandall's sweeping history of Native American political rights in what is now New Mexico, Arizona, and Sonora demonstrates how Indigenous communities implemented, subverted, rejected, and indigenized colonial ideologies of democracy, both to accommodate and to oppose colonial power.

Focusing on four groups -- Pueblos in New Mexico, Hopis in northern Arizona, and Tohono O'odhams and Yaquis in Arizona/Sonora -- Crandall reveals the ways Indigenous peoples absorbed and adapted colonially imposed forms of politics to exercise sovereignty based on localized political, economic, and social needs. Using sources that include oral histories and multinational archives, this book allows us to compare Spanish, Mexican, and American conceptions of Indian citizenship, and adds to our understanding of the centuries-long struggle of Indigenous groups to assert their sovereignty in the face of settler colonial rule.

Review Quotes

"A sweeping and imaginative work spanning four centuries. . . . Crandall not only sheds light on the past and enduring nature of Indigenous republics, consensus democracy, and community-based political authority but argues that these structures can perhaps serve as effective templates to stave off the climate of political cynicism and paralysis shaking democracies throughout the Americas today."--Hispanic American Historical Review

"A vital contribution. . . . In an account both sweeping and granular, Crandall succeeds in offering a nuanced account of power in the borderlands, one that challenges scholars and students alike to reconsider the deeper, tangled roots of postcolonial Native polities that simple narratives of 'progress' too often gloss over. . . . This book fiercely reminds us that the contingency of Native civil rights, and how they are exercised and denied across the continent, is ongoing."--The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

"Ambitious. . . . Crandall's book is manifestly relevant to scholars of the Southwest borderlands and the specific Indigenous peoples he studies, but it also holds value for a wider audience of historians, legal scholars, and those in Native and Indigenous studies more broadly."--American Indian Culture and Research Journal

"Ambitious, wide-ranging, and original. . . . The work explores more than three hundred years of political thought and action among four Indigenous peoples--Rio Grande Pueblos, Hopis, Tohono O'odhams, and Yaquis--and their determination to limit the intrusion of external power, politics, and authority on community bodies, literally and figuratively."--New Mexico Historical Review

"An ambitious, comprehensive account of the long history of Pueblo, Hopi, Yaqui, and O'odham electorates in what is now northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. The book is also a bold argument advocating that historians use a different frame to understand democracy."--Southwestern Historical Quarterly

"An exceptional new work of Indigenous political history. . . . Balancing geographic and temporal breadth with a detailed reading of the changing structures of governance for Indigenous electorates, Crandall offers what is sure to become a foundational work in the historiography of border studies and Native political history."--Journal of American Ethnic History

"Crandall has provided an innovative long history of strategic Indigenous engagement with one empire and two nation-states. . . . He offers a capacious, diverse, and truly inclusive understanding of what polities and political identities are, of how they develop historically, and of why people elect to participate in some polities but not others."--The Journal of Arizona History

"Deeply researched and engaging. . . . Crandall offers a nuanced narrative that privileges Indigenous accounts and centers his analysis in Indigenous political ideologies deeply rooted in sacred stories."--Ethnohistory

"Focusing on four major Native American groups--Pueblos, Hopis, Yaquis, and Tohono O'odham--in New Mexico and Arizona/Sonora, Crandall . . . examines the ways in which indigenous peoples historically interacted with colonial politics in the American Southwest. . . . A welcome addition to borderlands history and the study of indigenous groups under colonization."--CHOICE

"In a broad study spanning centuries, borders, and nations, Maurice Crandall focuses on the constant political sovereignty expressed by Native Nations during colonization. . . . His argument reimagines how we define Native American politics and power, not through the lens of a colonial government but through their own political practices."--Western Historical Quarterly

About the Author

Maurice S. Crandall (Yavapai-Apache Nation) is associate professor of history at Arizona State University.