Comanche Empire – Response #1

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Having known next to nothing about the Comanche Indians and their rise to power against the Euro-American colonists during the eighteenth and nineteenth century, I was intrigued by the possibility of a group of Native Americans who would come to expand their “empire,” dictate, and prosper in the American Southwest while European colonists resisted and struggled to survive against these formidable hunter-gatherers (pg. 1). Throughout the book, Hämäläinen constantly reinforced the idea of the Southwest as a “violent and traumatic place where Natives and newcomers saw one another more as strangers and adversaries than as co-creators of a common world” (pg. 8). I found the intercultural relationship between the Comanche and Euro-Americans to be particularly interesting; for example, although the Comanches cooperated and compromised with them, their relationship remained grounded in conflict and exploitation. In addition to misunderstandings between one another, “Euro-Americans [also] deemed Comanches needy, pushy, oversensitive, and obstinate in their pagan beliefs, and in turn [Euro-Americans] appeared greedy, arrogant, bigoted, and grotesquely boorish to Comanche sensibilities” (pg. 8).

Similar to David’s response, I also grew skeptical about Pekka Hämäläinen’s claim that the Comanche Empire reached unparalleled heights of political and economic influence in the nineteenth century and was able to significantly threaten and challenge the Euro-American conquest of North America. Despite adopting tactics that were innately European into their strategies and using them against their enemies, the Comanche never attempted to build a European-style imperial system. Instead, they simply coexisted, controlled, and exploited others through the use of numerous bands and divisions (pg. 4). Although the use of European technology such as horses, guns, and iron tools played an important role in the Comanches’ strategic advantages and ability to stay in power, I struggled to understand what exactly made the Comanche Empire stand out from other Native groups in the region who also fought against Euro-American expansion and were similarly introduced to the same tools at the time.

While The Comanche Empire reads as a very well written and detailed scholarly work that not only traces the Comanche from its origins among the Shoshones but also to their arrival and rise to power in the Southwest, I found that Hämäläinen never adequately defines the meaning of “empire” in his book, failed to sustain his central argument that the Comanches were an empire in the first place, and nor does he ever go into detail on the vital role the Comanche played in shaping the future of the American Southwest. Instead, they simply came across as one of the many Native American groups in the Southwest who took advantage of the rivalry between Spain and France and exploited it.

Nevertheless, Hämäläinen’s ability captured the fundamental nature of the Comanche Empire from its notable beginnings as a small tribe of hunter-gatherers to its portrayal as a potential threat to Europeans, Americans, and other Native societies alike made for a compelling read. The fact that the Comanches were quick to learn from their allies and adjusted to change made them formidable opponents to both Euro-Americans and other indigenous groups in the nineteenth century.