How Indians Shaped the U.S.--Mexican War

For more than 150 years, historians have crafted narratives of the U.S.--Mexican War with virtually no conceptual space for the stateless peoples who actually controlled the territory that the two countries came to blows over. This talk will explore the manifold ways in which Indian peoples and their politics shaped the course and outcome of 19th-century North America's defining international conflict.

Brian DeLay is a professor of History at UC Berkeley. He is the author of War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.--Mexican War, winner of several prizes including the Latin American Studies Association's 2010 Bryce Wood Award for the outstanding book on Latin America in the social sciences and humanities published in English.