Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands. By James F. Brooks.

In his work, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands, multiple award winning author James F. Brooks has provided the historical community with a concise and easy to access chronological narrative of the often overlooked Native American slave trade that occurred in the Southwest Borderland. While the slave trade of the Borderlands has traditionally been overshadowed by the infamous Atlantic Slave trade, it is an important aspect of American History that highlights the fluidity and evolution of Native, Spanish, and American societies in the early days of Spanish colonialism through the early Post-Bellum period. This convergence of societies set the stage for Captives and Cousins which according to Brooks examines “how people of markedly different cultural heritage found solutions to the crises of the colonial encounter. In the Southwest Borderlands, two powerful social impulses, inclusion, and exclusion, met on the historical terrain of colonialism and resolved themselves in forms of slavery that were at once particular and mutual” (Brooks, 31).

Unlike the Atlantic Slave trade that was based upon racial driven chattel slavery, Brooks argues that the exchange of individuals in the Southwest Borderlands created kinship and community ties not dissimilar to Reconquista era Spain. Based in honor, shame, and patriarchal tradition, the slave trade of the Southwest Borderlands allowed for greater upward mobility of those who were captured when compared to its Atlantic cousin. While technically enslaved, many individuals were able to weave themselves into their new surrogate societies and in the process create ties between either various tribes or international powers. According to Brooks, this quilt of relations, based in the exchange of individuals, established a political economy that would continue to shape the Southwest Borderlands for centuries.

In order that substantiate his argument, Brooks has chosen to organize Captives and Cousins as a chronological narrative. Beginning in the early days of Spanish Colonialism in New Mexico, the book weaves its way to the eventual abolition of slavery by the United States in the late 19th century. Organizing the book this way is an appropriate strategy to accomplish highlighting the importance of the political economy of the borderlands, and its eventual decline during the United States imposition of power over the region. During its peak, sources such as Segesser I  provide evidence of a rich exchange of culture in the form of Native Americans wielding Spanish lances and swords while riding on armored horses. This source in particular speaks to a high level of cultural exchange and a strong political economy. As the United States began to penetrate, and eventually dominate, the Southwest Borderlands the traditional political economy was replaced by a capitalist economy. In the short term this was beneficial to Native Americans who were disadvantaged within American society, but Brooks argues that “as commercialization of the system expanded during the 19th century, market forces eroded its institutions of kinship” (Brooks, 367).

Although this is an excellently organized and argued book, it can be criticized on multiple fronts. The most obvious criticism is that Brooks tends to romanticize the slave based economy of the Southwest Borderlands. While it is true that the slavery imposed by these Borderland society allowed for some upward mobility of the enslaved, helped implement important kinship networks, and was considerably less harsh that the racially driven slave trade of the Atlantic Exchange system it was still slavery. The act of being captured, removed from one’s family and society, and forced to work in an alien society would have caused considerable trauma for those who suffered this indignity. Even though Brooks does give occasional nods to the plight of the enslaved, they are few and far between. While Brooks does prove that the capture and exchange of individuals was important from societies on a macro level, he seems to either ignore or simply not acknowledge the suffering incurred at an individual level. As a result of this aggrandizement of the capture and exchange economy practiced in the Southwest Borderlands, Brooks may unwittingly lead some readers to mourn the downfall of the slave driven political economy in the face of capitalism and United States abolitionists.

Another criticism that can be levied against this work targets its writing style. While style is highly subjective and doesn’t necessarily detract from the scholarship of an academic work, it is still an important facet of the overall experience of reading and therefore must be taken into consideration when evaluating a book. Even though this book is a narrative and is supposed to connect events, nearly every chapter begins with a story, a flashback to what Brooks imagines what could have been occurring at the time. These illusions are obvious meant to cater to a casual reader, but are distracting for those reading the book critically. Instead of getting to what the point of the chapter is studying, readers are instead greeted with a story that veers from the main focus and can easily lead to disorientation.

Even though this book can be criticized for its romanticism of Borderlands slavery as well as its clumsy chapter introductions, it is still an important and well researched work. Through careful research and excellent scholarship, Brooks has illuminated a complex and often overlooked aspect of Colonial American history that not only includes the Natives, Spanish and the Americans, but also shows how they interacted with one another through the framework of a political economy based on the exchange of individuals. This book will be a welcome addition to anyone interested in studying this fascinating period of history, as well as in graduate level classes interested in examining ideas of colonial international cultural exchange.