Chasing shadows

by Shelley Ann Bowen Hatfield

In both Mexico and the United States, economic development policies required building railroads, promoting commercial agriculture, and in general fostering efforts to ensure a modern, industrial nation emerged. Peace and order were basic to the success of these efforts, which meant that Indians who resisted any changes on their lands would be fought until they either surrendered or were exterminated. Before the Indian campaigns had ended, Mexico and the United States expended millions of dollars and countless thousands died. This book relates military and political efforts on both sides of the United States-Mexico border to deal with native resistance to late nineteenth-century modernization initiatives.