Post #3119849

Fuller passage below. This comes after Blackhawk has described the relative failures of North American expeditions by Coronado and de Soto: "North American history originates amid such chaos and failure. Across the continent, Spanish (and later French, Dutch, and English) exploration was often marked by failures. Historians have tended to see these events from the perspective of European national history, narrating the explorers' arrival, departure, and fate as the main features of analysis. Histories of failure are by definition unnationalistic, and for many, de Soto and Coronado are best known as namesakes for American car manufacturers, not for massacring Indian peoples. Borderlands history invites a deeper look at past failures because failures tell stories that unmake national histories."