Spanish Bourbons and Wild Indians

These lectures chronicle the Spanish Empire's policies toward the Indians of the Americas in the late eighteenth century. Since Indians independently controlled most of the area that Spain claimed to own, the Spaniards began to make significant political accommodations with some of these "savages" or "wild Indians," whom they could neither defeat nor convert. Weber demonstrates that Spain's ideal mission changed between the Habsburg and Bourbon eras and, more importantly, local circumstances and local people, including Indians, determined how a mission would measure up to the Crown's objectives.

David J. Weber (Ph.D. University of New Mexico) is the Robert and Nancy Dedman Chair in History and directs the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University. Weber is author or editor of over sixty scholarly articles and twenty-one books, including What Caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680? (1999) and On the Edge of Empire: The Taos Hacienda of Los Martínez (1996).