Dale S Brenneman

Interests

Research

U.S. Southwest/Northwest Mexico Ethnohistory and Archaeology; Spanish Documentary Editing, Transcription, and Translation

Courses

No activities entered.

Scholarly Contributions

Books

• Sheridan, T. E., Koyiyumptewa, S. B., Daughters, A., Brenneman, D. S., Ferguson, T. J., Kuwanwisiwma, L., & Lomayestewa, L. W. (2020). Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History, Volume II. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
• Sheridan, T. E., Koyiyumptewa, S. B., Daughters, A., Brenneman, D. S., Ferguson, T. J., Kuwanwisiwma, L., & Lomayestewa, L. W. (2015). Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History, Volume I, 1540-1679. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Chapters

• Jelinek, L. E., & Brenneman, D. S. (2018). Negotiating Identity in the Wake of European Contact in the Pimería Alta. In Life beyond the Boundaries: Constructing Identity in Edge Regions of the North American Southwest(pp 304-335). Boulder: University Press of Colorado. doi:10.2307/j.ctt2204q09.12
• Jelinek, L. E., & Brenneman, D. S. (2018). Negotiating Identity in the Wake of European Contact in the Pimeria Alta. In Life Beyond the Boundaries: Constructing Identity in Edge Regions of the North American Southwest. University Press of Colorado.
• Jelinek, L. E., & Brenneman, D. S. (2017). Population Dynamics in the Pimería Alta, AD 1650–1750. In Transformations During the Colonial Era: Divergent Histories in the American Southwest(pp 263-287). Boulder: University of Colorado Press. doi:10.5876/9781607325741.c010
• Jelinek, L. E., & Brenneman, D. S. (2017). Population Dynamics in the Pimería Alta, 1650-1750. In Transformations During the Colonial Era: Divergent Histories in the American Southwest(pp 263-287). Boulder: University Press of Colorado.

Journals/Publications

• Brenneman, D. S. (2023). The Jesuit Mission in the Pimería Alta (present-day NW Mexico and SW United States). Routledge Resources Online--The Renaissance World, Americas Section. doi:10.4324/9780367347093-rerw157-1
• Brenneman, D. S. (2023). The Jesuit Mission in the Pimeria Alta (present-day NW Mexico and SW United States). Routledge Resources Online--The Renaissance World, Americas Section.
• Sheridan, T. E., Koyiyumptewa, S. B., Daughters, A., Brenneman, D. S., Ferguson, T. J., & Kuwanwisiwma, L. (2015). Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History, Volume I, 1540–1679. Book.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2014). Bringing O’odham into the “Pimería Alta”: Introduction. Journal of the Southwest, 56(2), 205-218. doi:10.1353/jsw.2014.0006
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  Bringing O’odham into the “Pimería Alta”:Introduction Dale S. Brenneman (bio) Pimería Alta—variously translated as Land of the Northern Pima, Land of the Upper Piman Indians, Land of the Northern Piman Speakers, and Upper Pima Country—is a Spanish term coined by Jesuit missionaries and other colonial officials with reference to the people they found inhabiting the northernmost part of the Sonoran Desert during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. More than simply denoting a geographical region, in colonial usage the term signified what Spaniards thought of as the northern Pima nation—that is, the collective groups of people who spoke dialects of the same language. The Pimería Alta comprised numerous communities of Pimas Altos (Northern Pimas), so designated when missionaries realized they spoke the same language as people to the south whom Spaniards already knew as Pimas, despite the fact that both peoples, north and south, called themselves O’odham (meaning “Person” or “People”). More specific labels were applied by the Jesuit Father Eusebio Francisco Kino and Captain Juan Mateo Manje during their explorations at the end of the seventeenth century, as they further distinguished among several sub-groupings of Pimas Altos occupying a greatly varied terrain. Farming along the perennial river stretches were Pimas, who inhabited the watershed encompassing the upper reaches of the south-flowing Sonora, San Miguel, Cocóspera, Magdalena, and Altar Rivers as well as the north-flowing Santa Cruz and San Pedro Rivers; Sobaipuris, who lived to the north, downstream along the middle Santa Cruz and the San Pedro; and Pimas Gileños, who resided along the middle Gila River. Many Sobas also farmed near the Magdalena-Altar river confluence to the southwest, in the low desert area between Caborca and Oquitoa, whereas others maintained a nomadic way of life in the sparsely vegetated, [End Page 205] open desert to the northwest, west, and southwest of Caborca. Papabotas or Papagos inhabited the arid, interior desert uplands to the west (the Papaguería, in Spanish terms), generally adopting semi-nomadic residential patterns while seasonally cultivating crops in places where conditions allowed. Areneños (“Sand Dwellers”) roamed the driest desert region even farther to the west, relying on isolated springs and natural rock basins for water, with extremely limited opportunities for growing food. Kino and Manje offered no explanations for their classifications, but they undoubtedly perceived differences in environmental adaptations, cultural traditions, and/or dialect, and the names they assigned groups most likely represent Spanish corruptions of terms by which those groups were known to their O’odham or non-O’odham neighbors.1 In modern scholarship, Pimería Alta is more commonly construed to mean the collective land base of the various northern O’odham groups who historically occupied a region far more extensive than what is encompassed by the boundaries of today’s Tohono O’odham, Ak Chin, Gila River, and Salt River reservations and the other, less formally organized descendant communities in northern Sonora. Historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists have adopted the term as an expedient way to reference northern O’odham territory during Spanish colonial times. Pimería Alta in this usage becomes a geographic expanse defined by the explorations of Kino and Manje as well as their eighteenth-century successors, with boundaries fixed in time: the Gila River on the north, the San Pedro River and Río San Miguel on the east, the Río Magdalena–Río Asunción drainage on the south, and the Gulf of California and Colorado River on the west (Figure 1). As such it has come to include the Yuman-speaking Pee Posh communities, known to Spaniards as Cocomaricopas and Opas, who resided near and eventually with O’odham along the Gila River and whose descendants today constitute part of the Gila River Indian Community and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.2 Researchers also find Spanish nomenclature useful for discussing the various O’odham groups of the colonial period, especially those long since integrated into surviving Tohono O’odham (historically Papago) and Akimel O’odham (historically Pima) communities, whereas linguists refer to all peoples speaking dialects of the O’odham language (a member of the Tepiman subfamily of...
• Brenneman, D. S. (2014). Bringing O'odham into the "Pimería Alta": Introduction. Journal of the Southwest, 56(2), 205-218.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2014). Learning the Landscape: The O’odham Acclimation of Father Agustín de Campos. Journal of the Southwest, 56(2), 269-292. doi:10.1353/jsw.2014.0011
  More info

  Learning the Landscape:The O’odham Acclimation of Father Agustín de Campos Dale S. Brenneman (bio) In late April 1736, Father Joseph Agustín de Campos was escorted out of the pueblo of Ímuris, a visita of his mission at San Ignacio de Cabórica, where he had served among the O’odham of the Pimería Alta for 42 years. He was leaving what he had come to regard as home, for in his long isolation from fellow missionaries and other Spaniards he had developed a strong connection with the O’odham and learned to speak their language fluently. He had also grown to be a staunch defender of his “Pima children” against mounting colonial pressures, periodically placing himself at odds with Spanish authorities or his Jesuit superiors, all of whom felt the sting of his sarcasm at one time or another. Most recently, Campos had become embroiled in a dispute between the Jesuits and Governor Manuel Bernal de Huidobro over proposed reforms to Jesuit mission operations. He refused to sign a letter circulated by the Jesuits condemning the governor’s perceived attack on their authority, siding instead with the governor (Dunne 1991; Garate 2003:136–151). Appalled by his obstinacy, disobedience, and insulting behavior, his Jesuit superiors questioned his sanity and made the decision to remove him from San Ignacio. This action proved more difficult than anticipated and almost sparked an O’odham uprising in his defense, but in the end Campos agreed to leave peacefully, defeated and heartbroken, never to see his mission again.1 Whether the old missionary’s “individualistic temperament” had indeed developed into mental disturbance, as believed by the Jesuits and submitted by historian Peter Dunne (1991:481), is debatable. Garate (2003:273–274 n.144) has convincingly argued that personality conflicts at play as well as several other issues—including morality, integrity, [End Page 269] corruption, and power—influenced Campos’s actions and Jesuit reactions. Missing from the discussion, however, is the remarkable transformation in his attitude toward the O’odham, for his relationship with them had not always been so amiable nor that with his fellow missionaries so contentious. By all indications Campos began his career with a characteristic Jesuit worldview that fervently rejected many O’odham lifeways as primitive and dangerous, yet over time he grew more forbearing of those associated with subsistence. It was a significant shift in perspective that notably improved relations between the missionary and his converts, but contributed to setting the priest apart from his brethren. The following pages explore this change in perspective through the framework of a landscape learning process (Rockman 2003). Information drawn from the documentary and paleoclimatic records indicates that Campos became well acquainted with both the physical and cultural environments of the Pimería Alta during his long tenure there. This knowledge gained appears to have modified his understanding of the relationship between the O’odham and their physical world, disposing him toward greater tolerance of traditional subsistence patterns and greater respect for the people who practiced them. The Jesuit Worldview, O’odham Subsistence, and the Landscape Learning Process Jesuit missiologist Eduardo Fernández (2010:27) has suggested that earlier efforts in China, India, Japan, and more southerly parts of Mexico had taught the Jesuits the practical value of learning the inner logic and worldview of the peoples they sought to evangelize, and that missionaries coming to the Pimería Alta presumably would have been schooled in this way of thinking and acting. Already expected to learn and use the Pima language for instructing their O’odham converts, they also would have been encouraged to identify ethical and religious similarities between the O’odham world they encountered and Christianity, and to conserve and integrate whatever lifeways, ceremonies, and traditions they deemed conducive to achieving their evangelistic goal. This ideal was not fully instilled in all who came, however, nor did the field missionary tend to perceive that many O’odham lifeways, ceremonies, and traditions were intricately bound up with their natural environment and reflected a deeply rooted knowledge of life in the Sonoran Desert. For the O’odham, life in the desert meant mobility...
• Brenneman, D. S. (2014). Learning the Landscape: The O'odham Acclimation of Father Agustín de Campos. Journal of the Southwest, 56(2), 269-291.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2014). O'odham and the Pimeria Alta. Journal of the Southwest, 56(2).
• Sheridan, T. E., Koyiyumptewa, S. B., Daughters, A. T., Ferguson, T. J., Kuwanwisiwma, L. J., Brenneman, D. S., & Lomayestewa, L. (2013). Moquis and Kastiilam: Coronado and the Hopis. Journal of the Southwest, 55(4), 377–434.
• Sheridan, T. E., Koyiyumptewa, S. B., Daughters, A., Ferguson, T. J., Kuwanwisiwma, L., Brenneman, D. S., & Lomayestewa, L. W. (2013). Moquis and Kastiilam: Coronado and the Hopis. Journal of the Southwest, 55(4), 377-434. doi:10.1353/jsw.2013.0009
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  Moquis and Kastiilam: Coronado and the Hopis Thomas E. Sheridan (bio), Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa (bio), Anton T. Daughters (bio), T. J. Ferguson (bio), Leigh Kuwanwisiwma (bio), Dale S. Brenneman (bio), and Lee Wayne Lomayestewa (bio) The following document and interview constitute the first chapter in Volume I of Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History. When published, the two volumes will tell, from both Hopi and Spanish points of view, the story of Spanish attempts to conquer and missionize the Hopi Indians of northeastern Arizona between 1540, when the Coronado expedition first breached the Pueblo world, to 1821, when Mexico won its independence from Spain.1 For nearly five hundred years, the story has been overwhelmingly one-sided. Historians and anthropologists have relied upon documents written by representatives of the Spanish empire. Hopi voices have been silenced, ignored, or relegated to “myth.” Those of us on the Hopi History Project, a formal collaboration between the University of Arizona and the Hopi Tribe, have attempted to restore a balance to the historical record by presenting not only Spanish documents about the “Moquis,” the Spanish term for Hopis, but also Hopi oral traditions about the “Kastiilam,” the Hopi term for Spaniards. Some of those traditions had made their way into print before our project started (Nequatewa 1967 [1936]; James 1974; Courlander 1971; Yava 1978). Others come from interviews with Hopi elders carried out by Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office (CPO), a three-day meeting with members of the Hopi Tribe’s Cultural Resources Advisory Task Team (CRATT), and discussions between University of Arizona researchers and Hopi CPO staff. We argue that Hopi oral traditions passed down since 1540 are living records of the past that have just as much, if not more, scholarly validity as the letters, court records, and reports of Spanish officials and Franciscan missionaries. Both are lines of evidence—“texts” in the [End Page 377] parlance of literary and cultural criticism—that need to be interrogated. Both have their strengths and limitations that need to be understood. The primary advantage of Spanish colonial documents is their contemporaneity. Most were written soon after the events they describe, some by eyewitnesses. They are usually chronological, including the dates they were written and the dates events occurred. They usually record the names of at least some of the individuals who participated in those events and give the locations where they occurred as well. And they frequently discuss motivations for the Spanish actors in question. In other words, the documents present the “who,” “where,” “when,” “what,” and “why” enshrined in Western narrative tradition, at least when those factual touchstones involved prominent Spaniards. But that does not mean they were “objective” records of encounters between Hopis and Spaniards. All history is highly selective. As ethnohistorian Bernard Fontana observes: What we call “history” is a recitation of events selected from the past, which in its most literal sense is all that has preceded the present: a rock that fell, a dog that barked, an infant who cried, a woman who coughed, a prince who was enthroned king. All historians—and on occasion each of us is a historian—select from this infinity of events those we deem worth telling. The basis of that selection provides the built-in bias of history. History, more than being a debate about the past, is an argument about the present and future. It often tells us less about what was and more about who we are. It is a tool used by all of us either to justify or to condemn the status quo. It is a statement of the world either as we now perceive it to be or as we think it ought to be. The past is immutable, but history, a battleground for the public mind, is ever changing. (Fontana 1994:xi) Some of the documents translated and edited in Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History deliberately and consciously reflected the intentions of their authors. Authors like Fray Padre Alonso de Benavides exaggerated Franciscan missionary successes to win more royal support for Franciscan missions. Both missionaries and Spanish officials gleefully recounted the misdeeds of one...
• Brenneman, D. S. (2004). Climate of rebellion: The relationship between climate variability and indigenous uprisings in mid-eighteenth-century Sonora. Ph.D. dissertation.
• Brenneman, D. S. (1995). Ethnohistoric evidence for the economic role of cotton in the protohistoric Southwest. Master's thesis.
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  This study examines the Spanish ethnohistoric evidence for the economic role of cotton in the Southwest at the time of contact, doing so within an integrated framework for economic behavior. Critical evaluation of the text and the organization of individual references to cotton by production, distribution, and consumption reveal the limited nature of this line of evidence; however, systematic comparison of the information it does yield shows that the Spanish documentary record does not support archaeological inferences of complex economic behavior with regard to cotton. Rather, the text suggests patterns that are more characteristic of a trading partner system. A comparison of this evidence with the archaeological record would shed additional light on this question.

Presentations

• Brenneman, D. S., & Siquieros, B. (2023, March). The O'odham, Father Kino & the Jesuit Mission. Border Community Alliance monthly meetingBorder Community Alliance.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2021, July). Truths Overlooked: Indigenous Voices from the 'Pima' Revolt of 1751-1752. Association for Documentary Editing 42nd Annual Meeting. On-line: Association for Documentary Editing.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2019, June). Indigenous Oral Traditions as Evidence. Association for Documentary Editing 41st Annual Meeting. Princeton, New Jersey: Association for Documentary Editing.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2018, June). Translating Spanish Colonial Documents for a 21st-Century Indigenous Audience. Association for Documentary Editing 40th Annual Meeting. Olympia, Washington.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2016, August). Aha! Moments in Chasing the Footnote: An Almost Overlooked Actor in the 1751 O'odham Revolt. Association for Documentary Editing 38th Annual Meeting. New Orleans.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2014, December). The Southwestern Mission Research Center and the Kino MissionsTour. San Xavier del Bac Docents Meeting. Tucson: San Xavier del Bac Patronato.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2014, Summer). Breaking with Convention to Explore the Eastern Edge of the Pimería Alta. Association for Documentary Editing 36th Annual Meeting. Louisville, Kentucky: Association for Documentary Editing.
• Brenneman, D. S., Siquieros, B., Geronimo, R., & Chana, A. (2014, March). Uncovering O'odham History from the Spanish Documentary Record. 3rd Tri-National Sonoran Symposium. Ajo, Arizona.

Others

• Brenneman, D. S. (2023, September). SMRC Revista 55-57(177). Southwestern Mission Research Center.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2020, Winter). SMRC Revista 53-54(176). Southwestern Mission Research Center.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2018, Winter). SMRC Revista 50-52(175). Southwestern Mission Research Center.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2015, November). SMRC Revista 47-49(174). Southwestern Mission Research Center.
• Brenneman, D. S. (2012, November). SMRC Revista 46(170-173). Southwestern Mission Research Center.