The Comanche Empire

by Pekka Hämäläinen

Yet in the end, the Comanches’ avalanche-like expansion below the Río Grande mirrored Mexico’s weakness. For all their creative countermeasures, the Mexicans were often powerless against Comanche guerrilla tactics. Most farms, ranches, and villages in northern Mexico were small, isolated, and poorly manned—sitting ducks for highly mobile, well-organized mounted raiders. The large haciendas, too, were vulnerable, their sheer size making them difficult to defend against fast hit-and-run assaults. The Hacienda de la Encarnación in southern Coahuila lost six hundred horses and mules between 1840 and 1845, and the heavily fortified La Zarca rancho in northern Durango lost six hundred horses in March 1844 alone. Frontier defenses across northern Mexico were in pitiable condition. Volunteer militia units were ill-fed, ill-trained, and often undisciplined, and provincial troops suffered from chronic shortages of quality horses, guns, and munitions. The antiquated presidio system, a leftover from the Spanish era, was decaying, undermined by Mexico City’s preference to reinforce the nation’s core at the expense of its perimeters. The popularity of army service collapsed in the far north, forcing the presidios to fill their ranks with convicts and vagabonds. Local officials pleaded with Mexico City to revive the presidial system and send more soldiers, horses, and weapons to the north, but the chronically bankrupt federal government was slow to react. The result of this federal negle...