But contrary to the conventional view, New Mexico’s separation from the rest of Mexico did not begin in 1821, when it opened its borders to American merchandise and markets; it had begun three and a half decades earlier, in 1786, when New Spain formed a broad diplomatic and commercial alliance with the Comanches. That alliance wedded New Mexico to Comanchería through intimate political, economic, and cultural ties and increasingly set it apart from other Spanish colonies. While Texas languished during the late Spanish period as a virtual tributary state of the Comanche empire, New Mexico’s
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