Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez

Professor
Office: TMH-218
Email: jr59@txstate.edu

Research Interests:
Ethnohistory, Borderlands, Captivity, Latin American History, American History

Dr. Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez is a professor of History at Texas State University. He holds a licenciatura in History from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and MA and PhD degrees in Anthropology from UCLA. He is a fellow of SMU’s Clements Center for Southwest Studies. He specializes in the early history of the Indigenous peoples of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and the southern Great Plains. His main lines of inquiry include Spanish-Indigenous relations, captivity, and the presence of U.S.-based independent Natives in nineteenth-century Mexico. His scholarship combines extensive archival research in Mexico, Spain, the United States, and France with the use of ethnographic, archaeological, linguistic, and environmental evidence, as well as personal interviews with contemporary Indigenous consultants. He conducts his research in close contact with members of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma. Various institutions have funded his multidisciplinary research at home and abroad, including The Wenner-Gren Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the Newberry Library, the Spanish Ministry of Culture, and Mexico’s CONACyT. Dr. Rivaya-Martínez is the author of numerous essays and the editor of the volume Indigenous Borderlands: Native Agency, Resilience, and Power in the Americas (University of Oklahoma Press, 2023). He is currently working on a book manuscript provisionally titled Comanche Captivity. He welcomes the opportunity to work with graduate students interested in Indigenous history, captivity, or the US-Mexico Borderlands.

Select Publications

Edited Book
2023 Indigenous Borderlands: Native Agency, Resilience, and Power in the Americas. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Refereed Journal Articles
2023 “The Unsteady Comanchería: A Reexamination of Power in the Indigenous Borderlands of the Eighteenth-Century Greater Southwest.” The William and Mary Quarterly [joint issue with the Hispanic American Historical Review] 80, no. 2 (April 2023): 251-286.

* 2024 Western History Association’s Ray Allen Billington Prize for the best article in the field of western history.

* 2024 American Society for Ethnohistory’s Robert F. Heizer Award honorable mention for the best peer-reviewed work in the field of ethnohistory.

2021 “Territorialidad y territorio entre los nómadas del norte de Nueva España y México. El caso comanche.” Memorias de la Academia Mexicana de la Historia 60 (2021): 125-166.

2014 “A Different Look at Native American Depopulation: Comanche Raiding, Captive Taking, and Population Decline.” Ethnohistory 61, no. 3 (Summer 2014): 391-418.

2014 “The Captivity of Macario Leal: A Tejano among the Comanches, 1847-1854.” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 117, no. 4 (April 2014): 372-402.

2011 “Diplomacia interétnica en la frontera norte de Nueva España. Un análisis de los tratados hispano-comanches de 1785 y 1786 y sus consecuencias desde una perspectiva etnohistórica.” Nuevo Mundo, Mundos Nuevos, Debates, 2011 [published online on November 30, 2011].

2011 “San Carlos de los Jupes. Une tentative avortée de sédentarisation des bárbaros dans les territoires frontaliers du nord de la Nouvelle-Espagne en 1787-1788.” Recherches amérindiennes au Québec 41, no. 2-3 (2011): 29-42.

Refereed Book Sections
2024 “Problematizing the Peoples and Places Without Historiography.” In Overlooked Places and Peoples: Indigenous and African Resistance in Colonial Spanish America, edited by Dana Velasco Murillo and Robert C. Schwaller, 208-226. New York: Routledge.

2023 “La quiebra de las relaciones hispano-comanches durante la insurgencia.” In Procesos históricos del noreste ante la colonización hispana y la independencia de México (Siglos XVI al XIX), edited by Gustavo González Flores, 229-271. Saltillo: Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila.

2023 “Indigenous Borderlands in Colonial and 19th-Century Latin America.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Latin American Studies. Ed. Ben Vinson. New York: Oxford University Press, October 26, 2023.

2023 “El informe de campaña de Isampampi. Una fuente pictográfica comanche sobre la violencia interétnica en el septentrión novohispano a finales del siglo XVIII.” In Naciones entre fronteras. Hacia una historia de la violencia en la región fronteriza México-Estados Unidos (siglos XVIII-XXI), edited by Marcela Terrazas y Basante and Cynthia Radding, 87-134. Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

2023 “Introduction: Problematizing Indigenous Borderlands.” In Indigenous Borderlands: Native Agency, Resilience, and Power in the Americas, edited by Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez, 1-12. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2023.

2023 “Indigenous Borderlands: State of the Field and Prospects.” In Indigenous Borderlands: Native Agency, Resilience, and Power in the Americas, edited by Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez, 15-34. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2023.

2023 “Epilogue: Ongoing Indigenous Struggles.” In Indigenous Borderlands: Native Agency, Resilience, and Power in the Americas, edited by Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez, 272-274. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2023.

2022 “Trespassers in the Land of Plenty: Comanche Raiding across the U.S.-Mexican Border, 1846-1853.” In These Ragged Edges: Histories of Violence along the U.S.-Mexico Border, edited by Andrew J. Torget and Gerardo Gurza-Lavalle, 48-73. Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press.

2020 “Los establecimientos de ‘bárbaros’ en el norte de Nueva España. Una revisión historiográfica.” In El gran norte novohispano-mexicano. Ensayos historiográficos, edited by José Refugio de la Torre Curiel, 57-101. Zapopan: El Colegio de Jalisco.

2020 “‘Bárbaros’ en la cartografía de Nueva España. El caso comanche.” In El gran norte novohispano y mexicano en la cartografía de los siglos XVI-XIX, edited by José Refugio de la Torre Curiel and Salvador Álvarez, 104-134. Hermosillo - Zapopan: El Colegio de Sonora - El Colegio de Jalisco.

2018 "Progresarán infinitamente en civilización: el efímero asentamiento comanche de San Carlos de los Jupes, 1787-1788.” In Fronteras étnicas en la América colonial, edited by Patricia Gallardo Arias and Cuauhtémoc Velasco Ávila, 63-93. Mexico City: INAH.

2016 “Tras la huella de los bárbaros: Itinerarios comanches a través de México, 1821-1875.” In Los caminos transversales. La geografía histórica olvidada de México, edited by Chantal Cramaussel, 189-216. Zamora, Michoacán: El Colegio de Michoacán, Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango.

2016 “De ‘salvajes’ a ‘imperialistas’. Una revisión crítica de la historiografía sobre los comanches durante el período anterior a la reserva (1700-1875).” In Visiones del pasado. Reflexiones para escribir la historia de los pueblos indígenas de América, edited by Ana Luisa Izquierdo, 153-192. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

2014 "La expansión comanche en la frontera norte de Nueva España durante el siglo XVIII.” In La frontera en el mundo hispánico: Tierras de convivencia y espacios de confrontación (siglos XV-XVIII), edited by Porfirio Sanz Camañes and David Rex Galindo, pp. 339-369. Quito: Abya Yala.

2014 “Reflexión historiográfica sobre los genízaros de Nuevo México, una comunidad pluriétnica del septentrión novohispano.” In Familias pluriétnicas y mestizaje en la Nueva España y el Río de la Plata, edited by David Carbajal López, pp. 271-308. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara.

2013 “De la civilización a la barbarie. La indianización de cautivos euroamericanos entre los indios comanches, 1820-1875.” In La indianización. Cautivos, renegados, «hommes libres» y misioneros en los confines de las Américas, s. XVI-XIX, edited by Salvador Berbnabéu Albert, Chritophe Giudicelli, and Gilles Havard, pp. 107-136. Seville: Doce Calles and École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

2012 “Becoming Comanches: Patterns of Captive Incorporation into Comanche Kinship Networks, 1820-1875.” In On the Borders of Love and Power: Families and Kinship in the Intercultural American West, edited by David Wallace Adams and Crista DeLuzio, pp. 47-70. Berkeley: University of California Press.

2010 “Incidencia de la viruela y otras enfermedades epidémicas en la trayectoria histórico-demográfica de los indios comanches, 1706-1875.” In El impacto demográfico de la viruela en México de la época colonial al siglo XX, edited by Chantal Cramaussel, vol. 3, pp. 63-80. Zamora, Michoacán: El Colegio de Michoacán.

Courses Taught

Graduate Seminars

Undergraduate Courses

Selected Awards

Selected International Funding, Awards, and Honors
2022-2025 | Grant by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and European Union's Regional Development Fund for the collective research project Hispanofilia V. Las Formas de interacción con el mundo: cautiverio, violencia y representación [PI: José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, Universidad de Murcia]

2017 | Medalla de Acero al Mérito Histórico "Capitán Alonso de León," Sociedad Nuevoleonesa de Historia, Geografía y Estadística.

2016-2019 | CONACyT Grant for the collective research project El gran norte novohispano-mexicano en el tiempo y el espacio: estudios sobre poblaciones y territorios en perspectiva comparada [PI: Jose R. de la Torre Curiel, Colegio de Jalisco]

2004-2005 | UC MEXUS Dissertation Research Grant

Selected National Funding, Awards, and Honors
2024 | Western History Association’s Ray Allen Billington Prize for the best article in the field of western history.

2024 | American Society for Ethnohistory’s Robert F. Heizer Award honorable mention for the best peer-reviewed work in the field of ethnohistory.

2024 | Presidential Distinction Award in Scholarly/Creative Activities, Texas State University

2023-2024 | Research Enhancement Grant, Texas State University

2015-2018 | Jesse H. and Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Southwestern Studies, Texas State University

2008-2009 | Research Enhancement Grant, Texas State University

2007-2008 | Bill and Rita Clements Research Fellowship for the Study of Southwestern America, Clements Center for Southwest Studies at SMU

2005-2006 |
UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship
UCLA Institute of American Cultures Research Grant

2004-2005 |
Wenner-Gren Foundation Research Grant
American Philosophical Society - Philips Fund Grant
American Philosophical Society Library Research Fellowship
Newberry Library Research Fellowship

2003-2004 |
American Philosophical Society - Philips Fund Grant
UCLA Institute of American Cultures Research Grant

2002-2003 |
UCLA Institute of American Cultures Predoctoral Fellowship
UCLA Institute of American Cultures Research Grant

2000-2001 | Smithsonian Institution Visiting Student at the National Museum of Natural History Award