For centuries, the nomadic hunter-gatherers of the North American Southwest were dismissed as "primitive" remnants of a vanishing past. In The People of the Mesquite, Carlos Manuel Valdes meticulously dismantles this colonial myth. Drawing on exhaustive archival research from the missions, presidios, and government offices of New Spain, Valdes reconstructs the complex social, political, and ecological worlds of the groups often collectively and erroneously labeled as "Coahuiltecans." By centering the mesquite-a biological and cultural anchor for these societies-Valdes reveals a sophisticated system of survival, trade, and resistance that persisted in the face of Spanish colonial expansion. This first English edition of Valdes's seminal work provides a necessary corrective to the historiography of the "Great North." It moves beyond the narrative of extinction to showcase the agency of Indigenous peoples who navigated the arrival of Europeans with strategic mobility and cultural resilience. A vital text for scholars of borderlands history, anthropology, and Indigenous studies, The People of the Mesquite restores a missing chapter to the story of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico.
