Why some Indian groups were assimiliated into Mexican culture while others remained distinct.

These seven original essays offer the first ethnohistorical interpretation of Spanish-Indian interaction from Florida to California. The indigenous peoples in the borderlands were hunter-gatherers or agriculturalists whose lives differed substantially from the lives of Indians in large-scale hierarchical societies of central Mexico. As a result, Spain's entry and expansion varied throughout the borderlands. How did indigenous peoples fare under Spanish rule from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries? The contributors to this book discuss the social, demographic, and economic impacts...