COMPETITION AND EXCLUSION:

Ecology and Historical Ethnic Interactions in New Mexico

William S. Abruzzi

Department of Sociology & Anthropology

Muhlenberg College

Description of the Manuscript:

New Mexico is well known for its unique cultural diversity, containing as it does a distinct variety of Anglo, Hispanic and Native American communities.  This diversity, however, has been inextricably associated with a long and enduring history of interethnic competition, conflict and violence.  Interethnic conflict in New Mexico has taken many forms:  recurring Apache raids on Pueblo villages during the 16th and 17th centuries; Spanish conquest and exploitation of the Pueblo throughout the 17th century; Spanish appropriation of Pueblo land and water during the 18th and 19th centuries; Comanche raids against Spanish, Pueblo and Apache villages during the 18th century; Comanche attacks on Anglo farms and ranches during the 19th century; Anglo defeat and removal of the Comanche from New Mexico in the late 19th century; Anglo appropriation of Hispanic land and water during the 19th and 20th centuries, and eventually Anglo economic and political subordination of the indigenous Hispanic population (Forbes 1960; Spicer, 1971; Meinig 1971; Hall 1989).  Ethnic conflict in New Mexico has also frequently erupted into episodes of intense interethnic violence, including: the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, The Jemez Revolt of 1694; revolts at Taos in 1696, 1837 and 1847, the Mesilla Riots of 1871, the Lincoln and Colfax County Wars of the 1870’s, the Hittston Raid of 1872; the Socorro Vigilantes of 1880 and, more recently, the Tierra Amarilla Courthouse Raid in 1967, to name but a few (see Gardner 1970; Rosenbaum 1972; Keleher, 1982; Duran 1985; Gutiérrez, 1991; Riley 1999; Gonzalles-Berry and Maciel, 2000).

However, the region has also produced two extensive systems of ethnic inter-dependence and cooperation:  the Pueblo-Apache trading system of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the Spanish-Comanche alliance of the 18th and 19th centuries, which themselves appear to have been preceded by a developing Pueblo-Plains interdependence throughout the Protohistoric Period (see Thomas 1940; Kenner 1969; Bronitsky 1982; Wilcox 1984; Spielmann 1991a, 1991b; Vehik, 2002; Abruzzi 2003).  These multi-ethnic trading systems dominated the economic life of New Mexico for several centuries and were critical elements in the overall adaptive strategies of the respective peoples involved.  In addition, both systems served as vehicles through which indigenous peoples resisted the domination of immigrant populations who threatened their economic and political sovereignty.  Apache and Pueblo cooperated in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, which temporarily drove the Spanish from New Mexico (see Forbes 1960), just as the Spanish and Comanche later colluded in opposing Anglo immigration (see Kenner, 1969).  However, even these systems of ethnic interdependence witnessed periods of open conflict and warfare among their constituent members.  Apache raids, especially during the 1660’s and 1670’s, devastated individual Pueblo communities and caused the abandonment of many of the easternmost Pueblo villages (ibid.).  Similarly, Comanche raids during the 18th century imposed a serious drain on Spanish resources and severely threatened the survival of the Spanish colonial system prior to 1796 (see Thomas 1940; Kenner 1969).

This book manuscript examines the history of ethnic interactions in New Mexico from an explicit ecological perspective.  The completed manuscript will apply a synthetic ecological model of ethnic relations to predict and explain:  (1) the outcome of individual bilateral historical ethnic encounters, and (2) the recurring patterns of ethnic interactions that have characterized historical ethnic relations in the region.  Specifically, the manuscript applies the logical implications of the Competitive Exclusion Principle (see Hardin 1960; Abruzzi 1982, 1996) to systematically and parsimoniously account for:  (1) the evolution of Pueblo-Apache and Spanish-Comanche symbiosis, as well as the development of Pueblo-Plains interdependence during the Protohistoric Period; (2) Athapascan expulsion of pre-Athapascan hunter-gatherers in eastern New Mexico and adjacent regions during the 15th and 16th centuries, Comanche expulsion of the Apache from the same territory during the 18th century, and Anglo expulsion of the Comanche from this region during the 19th century; (3) Spanish exclusion of the Pueblo from access to critical resources through their expansion onto Pueblo land and through the incorporation of Pueblo individuals into the expanding Hispanic population; and (4) Anglo domination and subordination of the Hispanic population through the acquisition of the latter’s land and water resources and through the development and maintenance of increasingly impermeable ethnic boundaries separating the two populations. To accomplish this, the completed manuscript will examine successive immigrations into New Mexico as colonizing events involving:  (1) an immigrant population’s entrance into the region and its adaptation to local and regional environmental conditions, and (2) the consequence that each immigrant group’s local adaptive strategy had for its relationship with pre-existing indigenous populations.  The outcome of each ethnic interaction will then be compared with expectations derived from general ecological theory regarding the interaction of potentially competing populations.

As already indicated, interethnic competition and conflict have been pervasive features of New Mexican history.  However, despite the fact that New Mexico’s cultural diversity has been universally recognized as a critical element in its unique history, no synthesis yet exists which offers a systematic, theoretically integrated explanation of historical developments in the region based on general principles of interethnic competition.  With the exception of Hall’s (1989) application of World Systems Theory to explain historical developments in the region, most general histories of New Mexico present descriptive narratives which do not attempt a general theoretical synthesis (cf. Horgan 1954; Beck 1962; Meinig 1971; Fergusson, 1973; Lavender 1980; Simmons 1989).  At the same time, most studies of indigenous ethnic relations in the region offer explanations of ethnic conflict based on cultural incompatibility rather than on the deductive application of a set of general theoretical principles (cf. Spicer 1962; Vogt and Albert 1970; Spicer and Thompson 1972; Rodriquez, 1987; Gutiérrez 1991; Gonzales-Berry and Maciel 2000).  Consequently, the region lacks a coherent account of its historical development that attempts to explain the evolution of its ethnic diversity through the application of an integrated model of ethnic relations.  The manuscript described here is directed towards that specific goal.  It will, therefore, provide the first theoretically integrated account of historical ethnic interactions in the region.

The manuscript not only offers a more systematic understanding of historical ethnic relations in New Mexico than is currently available; it also provides a broader understanding of the role that ecological processes (most notably competition) play in regulating ethnic relations.  Ethnic conflict is a pervasive element in human society.  For this reason, the study of ethnic relations has long been a central concern of anthropological research.  Following the seminal work of Edmund Leach (1954) and Frederik Barth (1956, 1964a, 1964b, 1969), anthropologists have increasingly recognized the malleability of ethnic identity and the consequent fluidity of local ethnic boundaries (cf. Cohen and Middleton 1970; LeVine and Campbell 1972; Eller and Coughlan 1993; Gil-White 1999; Rao 1999; Sanders 2002).  This has resulted in a profound shift in the study of ethnic relations in anthropology.  Traditional static typologies of ethnic interactions have largely been replaced by processual models of ethnic relations that attempt to explain the origin, maintenance, rearrangement and disappearance of ethnic boundaries within local multiethnic communities.  Among the more fruitful of the new approaches have been those which employ an ecological/materialist orientation and which emphasize the role that resource competition and the labor requirements of efficient resource exploitation play in determining the configuration of ethnic boundaries within local multiethnic communities (cf. Barth 1956, 1969; Harris 1964; Haaland, 1969; Cohen 1969; Gelfand and Lee (1973); Despres 1975;  Hechter 1976; Peterson 1978; Hannan 1979; Beer 1980; Olzak 1986, 1989; Pinard 1987; Rodriguez 1987; Belanger 1988; Boyd 1998; Slack and Doyen 2001; Cashdan 2001; Turner et.al. 2003).

I have previously proposed an ecological model of ethnic interactions based on the role that competition plays in the partitioning of resources within complex ecological communities (see Abruzzi 1982).  I have argued that competition influences the evolution of ethnic relations within human communities in much the same way that it determines the interaction of populations within nonhuman ecological systems.  In addition, the model I have developed specifies the conditions under which interethnic competition results in either: (1) the complete exclusion of one or more ethnic populations within a community; or (2) the coexistence of two or more potentially competing ethnic populations within the same territory.  The model also outlines specific developments accompanying the evolution of ethnic relations, most notably the role that institutionalized cultural differences play in restricting the frequency of interethnic marriages and, therefore, in maintaining socially discrete, territorially contiguous ethnic populations.  This manuscript will use this model to explain the outcome of historical ethnic interactions in New Mexico.

New Mexico provides an ideal arena for applying an ecological model of ethnic relations.  The region’s relative isolation, its natural diversity, the discrete distribution of its resources, and the territorial definition of its diverse peoples provide ideal conditions for evaluating the propositions set forth in an ecological model of ethnic relations.  In addition, the region has experienced a recurring immigration of new peoples whose adaptation to local resources and whose interaction with preexisting populations can be examined utilizing the same analytical framework that has been used to explore the impact of populations colonizing isolated island ecosystems (cf. Elton 1958).

A systematic ecological approach to the study of ethnic relations in New Mexico will substantially enhance our general understanding of the processes influencing ethnic interactions outside New Mexico as well.  Indeed, the analysis of ethnic interactions in New Mexico may well serve as a paradigm for understanding ethnic relations throughout the Southwest.  Furthermore, inasmuch as competition over scarce resources lies at the heart of most, if not all, interethnic conflict, the model’s application in this case will provide a fuller understanding of the processes underlying ethnic relations generally.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, by explicitly incorporating our understanding of New Mexican ethnic relations within the broader theoretical perspective of general ecology, the manuscript will enhance our understanding of the role that ecological factors plays in shaping the human condition.  It will, therefore, promote a central goal of anthropology as a generalizing science.  

The proposed chapter descriptions are as follows:

INTRODUCTION: Chapter One discusses changes that have occurred in the anthropological study of ethnic relations in recent years, with special attention given to the increasing application of ecological/materialist approaches.  The chapter also outlines the limitations of existing ecological approaches to the study of ethnic relations within anthropology and argues for a more explicit use of general ecological theory in explaining certain aspects of ethnic relations on the grounds that ecological theory concerns the interaction of all living populations, human and non-human alike.  It argues that general ecological theory provides a precise and testable framework for explaining ethnic interactions at the same time that its application places the study of ethnic relations within a broader theoretical framework.

ECOLOGICAL THEORY AND ETHNIC RELATIONS: Chapter Two discusses several ecological concepts used to explain the interaction of potentially competing populations within ecological communities and develops a model for the evolution of multi-ethnic communities based on the general model that has been developed to explain the evolution of complex multi-species communities.  The application of ecological theory to ethnic relations is based on the following propositions:  (1) both human and non-human communities constitute ecological systems; and (2) the selective processes which operate to create and maintain discrete adaptive units (i.e., reproductively isolated populations) are the same for multi-species and multi-ethnic communities alike, despite the obvious differences in the selective mechanisms involved (see Abruzzi 1982 for an earlier discussion of the basic ideas underlying this chapter).

THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT: Chapter Three describes the physical environment of New Mexico as it relates to conditions specified by the ecological model presented in Chapter Two.  Special attention is given to local differences in climate and other environmental variables related to the viability of agriculture and to the potential for local agricultural intensification.  The chapter stresses the pervasive regional distinction between widely-scattered river valleys surrounded by expansive arid hinterland and emphasizes the impact that ecological theory suggests this coarse-grained distribution of resources should have on the interaction of potentially competing populations.  In the same vein, the chapter also discusses the region’s characteristic climatic variability and the implications that such instability had for resource competition among local populations.

THE PROTOHISTORIC PERIOD: 1300 – 1600: Chapter Four examines the ecology of social relations in New Mexico prior to Spanish colonization in the late 16^th century in order to determine if developments during this time period conform to expectations derived from ecological theory.  This chapter articulates the ecological basis for the extensive Pueblo-Plains Trading System which had developed prior to the arrival of the Spanish.  While the chapter primarily concentrates on the period from A.D. 1300-1600, extensive use is made of archaeological evidence dating to A.D. 900-1000 in order:  (1) to fully describe the evolution of that system; and (2) to contrast the outcome of earlier and later immigrations on Pueblo-Plains relations.

THE SPANISH / MEXICAN PERIOD: 1600-1848: Chapter Five examines inter-ethnic relations during the years when New Mexico was under Spanish (and later Mexican) administration.  It focuses on the outcome that the arrival and expansion of two peoples --the Spanish and the Comanche-- had on ethnic relations in the region.  It emphasizes that while a sharp contrast existed between the mechanisms by which the Spanish expanded into Pueblo territory and the Comanche expanded against the apache, both achieved the same result:  excluding a less dominant population from access to and control of scarce resources.  The chapter also focuses on the evolution of the Spanish-Comanche Alliance and presents it as the historical successor to the Pueblo-Plains Trading System.  It argues that the successive evolution of these nearly identical ethnically-based, multi-habitat resource-redistribution systems in the very same territory underscores the ecological basis of ethnic interactions in this region.

ANGLO DOMINATION: 1848-1920: Chapter Six discusses the inter-ethnic relations that followed American conquest of New Mexico.  Tens of thousands of Anglo farmers and ranchers entered the territory during the 19th century.  This chapter focuses on three distinct aspects of that massive immigration: (1) Texas ranchers expanding westward across the Llano Estacado, (2) Mid-Western dry-farmers migrating from the northeast, and (3) Mormon irrigation farmers entering from the northwest.  Primary attention is given to the resource competition that arose between immigrant Anglo groups and the existing peoples of the region.  The chapter concentrates on two general outcomes:  (1) the complete elimination of the Comanche, and (2) the economic and political disenfranchisement of the indigenous Hispanic population.  In discussing Hispanic disenfranchisement, careful attention is given to the numerous sociopolitical mechanisms that ultimately contributed to Anglo domination, including the role that marriage played in maintaining relatively discrete Anglo and Hispanic populations.

CONCLUSION: Chapter Seven presents a summation of the findings of the previous chapters.  It also discusses the broader theoretical implications of the preceding research for: (1) developing a cross-cultural understanding of the processes underlying ethnic relations; and (2) applying ecological theory to explain the organization and evolution of human communities.

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