Traders and raiders the indigenous world of the Colorado Basin, 1540–1859

Abstract

The Colorado River region looms large in the history of the American West, vitally important in the designs and dreams of Euro-Americans since the first Spanish journey up the river in the sixteenth century. But as Zappia argues in this expansive study, the Colorado River basin must be understood first as home to a complex Indigenous world. Zappia shows how this world pulsated throughout the centuries before and after Spanish contact, solidifying to create an autonomous, interethnic Indigenous space that expanded and adapted to an ever-encroaching global market economy.