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Deni J. Seymour. A Fateful Day in 1698: The Remarkable Sobaipuri-O'odham Victory over the Apaches and Their Allies. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2014. 296 pp. Cloth, $50.00.
Ask most archaeologists, historians, ethnologists, tribal historians, and others responsible for writing about an event that occurred over three centuries ago what they would need-what are the ideal conditions for that book-and you would get a long list of desirables. For the archaeologist, a definite site with a center that can provide focus; for the historian, extensive and accurate accounts written by a variety of people at the time; for the ethnologist, a good understanding of the cultural back- ground of the people involved; and for the tribal historian, a scholar sensitive to portraying the People with balanced insight. A Fateful Day by Deni Seymour has the advantage of all of this-a perfect mix that draws on old and new research. Her purpose is twofold: to give a revision of an important event in Southwest history and to share "a new methodological standard for locating and evaluating historically referenced places and discerning historically referenced peoples" (9).
On Easter Sunday, March 30, 1698, five hundred Apache, Jocome, Jano, Manso, and Suma men with some women attacked eighty Sobaipuri-Oodham (Pima) at Santa Cruz de Gaybanipitea in southern Arizona. After hours of fighting and an eventual withdrawal into an adobe structure, the defenders surrendered and awaited their fate. The Apaches and their allies gathered the spoils of battle and prepared a...