David J. Weber

Who was David J. Weber?

David Joseph Weber was an American historian whose research focused on the history of the Southwestern U.S. and its transition from Spanish and Mexican control to becoming part of the United States, a field of study that had largely been ignored, as “United States historians saw the field as part of Latin American history and ignored it", while "Latin American historians regarded it as belonging to the history of the United States, and likewise gave it short shrift."

Weber was born in Buffalo, New York and raised in nearby Cheektowaga. He attended the State University of New York at Fredonia. Though he had initially planned to major in music, a course in the History of Latin America led him to change his mind, and he graduated in 1962 with a bachelor's degree in social sciences. He majored in Latin American history at the University of New Mexico, earning a master's degree in 1964 and a doctorate in 1967 with the dissertation The Taos Trappers: The Fur Trade in the Far Southwest, 1540-1846.

Weber joined the faculty of San Diego State University in 1967 and taught at the Universidad de Costa Rica in 1970, lecturing in Spanish, as part of the Fulbright Program.