The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 105, July 2001 - April, 2002 Page: 533

Book Reviews

updated much of the secondary literature regarding the period, but also present
engaging and thoroughly readable details of each subject's personal and profes-
sional life.
Beginning with Cabeza de Vaca the narrative winds its way through three cen-
turies of Spanish rule in Texas, providing not only pertinent biographical infor-
mation such as birthplace, education, family ties, and career development, but
also assessing the role of each person in the development of Texas. Chapter Two
addresses perhaps the most successful pathfinder in Spanish Texas, Alfonso de
Le6n, and the tragic ruin of his career after discovering the infamous French set-
tlement on the Texas coast. The authors also discuss the role of perhaps the two
most important religious figures in eighteenth-century Texas, Father Francisco
Hidalgo and Father Antonio Margil de Jesus. Particularly interesting is a chapter
detailing the efforts of the Marqu6s de San Miguel de Aguayo to re-occupy Texas,
and the reversal of Aguayo's work by the Inspector Pedro de Rivera.
The book then turns to look at other well-known persons on the northern fron-
tier, and then to one that never set foot in the New World at all. Chapter Six
examines the misdeeds of one of Spain's least impressive frontier administrators
in Felipe de Rbago de Terin, commander of Presidio San Francisco Xavier de
Gigedo and Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas. Others covered in the book that
are certainly familiar to students of the period are the Marqu6s de Rubi,
Athanase de Mezieres, Gov. Domingo Cabello, and Bernardo Gtuidrrez de Lara.
While these sections are not altogether filled with new information, the biograph-
ical data presented for each individual alone is a valuable tool for researchers.
In what is perhaps the book's most significant section, Chipman and Joseph
examine the role of women in Spanish Texas. Though admittedly short on sub-
ject matter and sources, the narrative examines the legal, social, and political sta-
tus of women on the frontier using specific examples to support their notion
that women in Spanish Texas enjoyed greater protection under the law than
many of their Anglo counterparts. Also of interest is the detailed description of
Maria de Agreda, a Franciscan nun who was perhaps responsible for carrying
Christianity to the pagans of Texas through supernatural methods. Through
hers and many other stories the authors have added considerably to our under-
standing of some of the most important characters in Spanish Texas.
Southwest Texas State University SCOTT NELSON
The Indian Southwest, 158o-183o: Ethnogenesis and Reinvention. By Gary Clayton
Anderson. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Pp. viii+376.
Illustrations, abbreviations, introduction, epilogue, notes, bibliography,
index. ISBN o-8o61-3111-x. $39.95, cloth.)
Gary Clayton Anderson's important new book should help change the way
scholars look at the history of native peoples of the southern plains and its
periphery--northern Mexico, New Mexico, and Texas. In this unique area,
Spanish, French, and American interlopers interacted with many different
Indian groups over a period of three centuries. Most previous scholars, the

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