In Peace Came in the Form of a Woman, Juliana Barr describes in fine detail the emergence of the “diplomacy of gender” that shaped Indian and Spanish relations in the Texas borderlands (2). Barr finds in her thorough analysis of colonial records, as well as careful attention to social and cultural patterns in Native communities, that women became key figures and actors in sensitive diplomatic rituals in a region marked by fierce economic competition and military conflict. The celebrated Spanish missions of Texas and the presidios, or Spanish garrisons, that guarded them became prominent sites for negotiation and compromise. Christian institutions contributed modestly, however, to diplomatic arrangements in eighteenth-century Texas.

At the beginning of her book, Barr reconstructs an episode in which a woman carrying a white flag and a cross led a small group of Comanche into the town of San Antonio de Béxar to pursue difficult peace negotiations in the 1770s. The Comanche and Spaniards had become bitter enemies after decades of conflict. Only a woman, Barr explains, could adequately demonstrate peaceful intentions in such a tense environment. In this case, the woman had been a Spanish captive, returned to the Comanche as part of the effort to reduce hostilities and open the way to productive negotiations. She arrived with Spanish symbols of peace and reconciliation and acted as a critical mediator in the typically male world of diplomacy.

Barr argues that a primary reason that women like this former captive became so important in the conduct of diplomatic ritual is that circumstances forced the Spanish “to play by native rules” (2). The Spanish empire did not conquer and absorb this distant northern frontier. The small, widely separated communities of Spanish traders, soldiers, and missionaries perched lightly on a land dominated by the Caddo, Comanche, Apache, and Wichita. Indian partners were essential to survival.

Barr organizes the book into three chronological sections covering a century of Indian-Spanish diplomacy. The establishment of political kinship defined early encounters. Spaniards entered Caddo communities in the river valleys of northeastern Texas in the late seventeenth century hoping to create conditions for trade and conversion and for effective competition with French colonial rivals along the Mississippi. Diplomatic ritual took on distinctly Caddoan forms. Spaniards participated in ceremonies of purification and exchange that provided the outsiders with the status and social position they needed to operate in Caddo communities. The Franciscan missions founded in the 1690s failed quickly, according to Barr, not primarily because of religious conflict but rather because Spanish men desecrated Caddo women. Spaniards did not understand the status of women in Caddo society, and the absence of Spanish women limited the development of communities that could function well over the long term from Caddoan perspectives. Eventually, the Spanish adopted patterns of settlement and exchange that recognized Caddo power and the French presence in the region. Meanwhile, missionaries in the early eighteenth century struggled to attract converts and acted primarily as healers.

At mid-century a number of Indian nations aligned themselves with the Spanish to defend themselves against Apache aggressions. Barr contends that Indians rapidly assimilated mission-presidio complexes like San Antonio de Béxar into networks of exchange that had existed for generations. Franciscan missionaries hoped to use the new opportunity to proselytize more effectively. Accepted practices dictated that Franciscans not only offer instruction in Christian doctrine and access to the sacraments, but that they also complete a radical reorganization of Indian society. Like missionaries throughout North America, Spanish missionaries showed particular concern for what they believed to be disordered gender relations and family structures. Their efforts were generally ineffective, however, for Native communities used the colonial institutions as seasonal bases and the Spanish relied on their Native allies for defense. Once again, an imbalance of power that tilted toward the region's Native peoples prevented the kind of transformations the missionaries desired so much.

Even late in the century, with the French threat gone from the continent, Native standards of diplomacy ruled. In the last decades of the eighteenth century, the Spanish made a strong effort to consolidate their position in Texas through a series of alliances with the Caddo, Comanche, and Wichita. Women emerged as important mediators in negotiations since they could pass between communities when armed men could not. While Indian men could be treated as prisoners of war, women and children were captives and could be exchanged in strategic deliberations to smooth the path toward peace. Female captives circulated widely in Native networks of exchange, and Spanish officials recognized their potential influence in delicate negotiations. Restoring women to their communities created connections that both sides could exploit.

Although missions remained a visible part of this colonial landscape, it becomes clear through Barr's study that their influence on Native culture was limited. The missions gathered relatively few converts, and the survival of Spanish settlements depended on Native communities that continued to function as independent communities. Missionaries and colonial officials were in no position to force Indians into missions as they did later in Alta California.

Barr's work is an excellent companion to James F. Brooks's Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands, also published by the University of North Carolina Press (2002). Brooks examines patterns of captivity, kinship, and exchange in New Mexico. Together the two books provide an important analysis of Spanish-Indian relations in a borderlands region where Indian power stayed remarkably strong. Through her recovery of the stories of women, Barr shows that, at least until the nineteenth century, gender remained a stronger influence than race on those always volatile relationships.