“The first to die was Father Terreros. He was followed by a soldier guard. Some were shot. Some were hacked. The Comanche set fire to the mission….
What happened next might have been one of the greatest slaughters in the history of the American West, except that Parilla’s forces turned tail and ran….
It was a stunning defeat, the worst inflicted on the Spanish in the new world. The Spanish had thrown everything they had at the Commanche and their allies and been humiliated. No expeditions would ever be sent against the Comanches in Texas; no missions were ever again established. … Within a few years (of 1759) Comanche power in Texas would become absolute.
…
To understand their dilemma, look at a map of modern Texas. Draw a line from San Antonio through Austin and Waco, ending in Dallas at the forks of Trinity River. That is the Western Comanche hemisphere in the late 1830s.
- pgs. 62-79. Empire of The Summer Moon.”
Green dilemma line of core Comanche national territory drawn from text
Some of the worst Anglo on Native American massacres took place in The Empty Quarter. Most are probably unknown and lost to history. There were not East Coast news media anywhere near much of the hinter country. The situation is similar to Vietnam - only a small fraction of the atrocities are recognized by history’s lens. Many cases a bunch of people were executed and no one knows about it anymore than the results of deer hunting activities. Wounded Knee being is a My Lai like exception. True to form, as a representative example one has to understand this was possible in the post Civil War America. This marked shift in the American approach to native Americans followed a general hardening of America as a consequence of the Civil War’s change on American perspective. That is to say - after Americans treated the problems of slavery and Dixie’s unconstitutional declaration of independence as a military problem rather than political economic or social, so they tried that approach to other issues - like conflict with Native Peoples. The point in understanding the context of this conflict and the Empty Quarter is that unlike the Eastern tribes, the Comanche were not slowly salted away over time by the inexorable decline of playing winning and losing parts in taking sides of inter Anglo-conflicts - the Comanche were unassailable right up until they wasn’t.
What turned the tide for Comanche, Apache, Sioux and the other major tribes of the Empty Quarter - were two things. First was advancement in military technology. The six-shooter pistol changed the game. Second was the Civil War. There followed the formation of the Texas Rangers, a special forces guerrilla squad - often battle-hardened Civil War veterans, who trained to fight in the conditions and terrain as the Comanche with their new multi-shot weapons. Prior to these developments - European long rifles were ineffectual in prairie grass - and represented a long shot proposition for any Anglos. The Comanche were feared and unchallenged. But once this happened, the Comanche and Empty Quarter tribes collapse was immediate. The other tribes of the Empty Quarter all the way to the Pacific Northwest were treated as military problems and with the advances in technology and war fighting skill, the stone age armaments and home field advantages were not enough to make much of a difference. It is also from this era that many modern conceptions of how the Europeans treated the Native Americans are mostly drawn. To the south, this was true. Spain took a war like approach from the first Arawak. The French and English were looking for economic zones of trade and integration. Prior to this and for most of the history and eastern tribes, the dilemma the native nations faced was one of economic and cooperative integration in conflict. They were worn down by conflict and history. The tribes that sided with the French were marginalized after the French finally lost to the English. Then the English backed tribes were ascendant, rewarded for choosing the right side. That is until the English lost to the Americans. By backing the correct horse in the present, the tribes eventually ended tied to a losing party in a future conflict - at which time the victors would marginalize the tribe into oblivion. The effect of this conflict is perhaps put best by a Native American quote -
“When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.”
With that context in mind, the Empty Quarter almost seems cruelly named - its Empty now in the way a graveyard is empty. Having said that, the Empty Quarter is not a climate nor landscape that support the same density as the East coast with its lush green and water.
Today The Empty Quarter represents significant mineral and energy wealth and is a hot bed for tensions. Within the United States polity, the people living here want to exploit those resources. They see regulatory decision makers as clueless, out of touch people who live thousands of miles away in Washington D.C. making economic decisions about ground they never set foot on. Yes - that is part of the same dynamic that helped make the Anglo-Indian wars in this region genocidal. Orders to “go make peace with those people” from Washington decision makers that did not understand much about the people, the land, or what was going on translated to genocide when handed over the Civil War generals to accomplish.
The American nation was built on expansion. It was founded upon a growing sphere of economic integration across a diverse range of ways of life and zones. This pattern continued until WWII - the last state of Hawaii added thereafter. NAFTA was a first step toward continuing this pattern of integration - and unfortunately it seems the mood in America is no longer built on integration. But, that aside - consider what integration looks like to both sides. To the north, the Empty Quarter integration to the Union would build a land bridge to Alaska. It would align interests in these vast regions - adding more representatives and Senators to represent. To the south - straight away one could see that if the objective is to protect a border then it may be easier to make the border smaller by moving it south - where the continent bridge narrows. (One imagines in this scenario of integrating the United States of America with Canadian and Mexican states - Quebec quietly going their own way - which has been their history.)
References
Garreau, Joel. The Nine Nations of North America. 1st ed., Avon Books, 1981.
Gwynne, S C. Empire of the Summer Moon. 1st ed., Scribner, 2010