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The Alamo and the Texas War for Independence
In one of very few balanced accounts of Texas's epic struggle for independence from Mexico, Albert Nofi provides a splendid chronicle of the events and personalities of the war. He includes readable and accessible maps of military movements and a strategic and tactical analysis of each battle, addressing the extraordinary number of myths that the Alamo has engendered and exposing the truth about a conflict that has taken on legendary proportions.
Black Soldiers in Jim Crow Texas, 1899-1917
In Jim Crow Texas, black Regular Army units returning victoriously from Cuba and the Philippines collided head-on with local segregation and bigotry. As the soldiers' expectations of dignity and respect met with racial restrictions and indignities from civilian communities, a series of violent episodes erupted. Although confrontations also occurred elsewhere, the most notorious were in Texas, beginning with an 1899 clash between white lawmen in Texarkana and black soldiers riding a troop train west after returning from Cuba. The first truly violent episode came in 1906, when troops were accused of attacking Brownsville after civilian provocations. In 1917 a full-scale battle in Houston resulted in fifteen dead and twenty-one injured. Between 1899 and 1917, a series of other face-offs--some involving the complex relationships of blacks with local Hispanic populations--occurred when black soldiers stood up for their rights or their lives in San Antonio, Laredo, El Paso, Rio Grande City, Del Rio, and Waco. This little-known story, never before told in full, illuminates the collision of racial discrimination with racial pride and reveals once again the petty biases, institutionalized racism, and mutual suspicions that have divided American society. But it is also a story of lofty aspirations too long delayed, of the transformation of a downtrodden race into a self-confident people, and of the noble attempt, however dangerous its means, to realize full citizenship. Clearly written and impressively researched, "Black Soldiers in Jim Crow Texas" traces the relationship of the four black military regiments--the 24th and 25th Infantries and the 9th and 10th Cavalries--with white civilian communities in the period between the Spanish-American War and World War I. Drawn from previously unexploited sources, it fills a void in the increasing body of research on the black military and illuminates the magnitude of racial intolerance in early twentieth-century America. No other work has explored these issues in such depth and with such skill.
Black Texans: A History of African Americans in Texas, 1528-1995
African American have lived in Texas for more than four hundred years--longer than in any other region of the United States. Beginning with the arrival of the first African American in 1528, Alwyn Barr, in Black Texans, examines the African American experience in Texas during the periods of exploration and colonization, slavery, Reconstruction, the struggle to retain the freedoms gained, the twentieth-century urban experience, and the modern civil rights movement. Barr discusses each period of African-American history in terms of politics, violence, and legal status; labor and economic status; education; and social life. Black Texans includes the history of the buffalo soldiers and the cowboys on Texas cattle drives, along with the achievements of notable African-American individuals in Texas history, from the Estevan the explorer through legislator Norris Wright Cuney and boxer Jack Johnson to state senator Barbara Jordan. Barr carries the story up to the present day in this second edition, which includes a new preface a new chapter on the years 1970-95, and a revised index.
Come to Texas: Attracting Immigrants, 1865-1915
"Come to Texas" urged countless advertisements, newspaper articles, and private letters in the late nineteenth century. Expansive acres lay fallow, ready to be turned to agricultural uses. Entrepreneurial Texans knew that drawing immigrants to those lands meant greater prosperity for the state as a whole and for each little community in it. They turned their hands to directing the stream of spatial mobility in American society to Texas. They told the "Texas story" to whoever would read it. In this book, Barbara Rozek documents their efforts, shedding light on the importance of their words in peopling the Lone Star State and on the optimism and hopes of the people who sought to draw others. Rozek traces the efforts first of the state government (until 1876) and then of private organizations, agencies, businesses, and individuals to entice people to Texas. The appeals, in whatever form, were to hope--hope for lower infant mortality rates, business and farming opportunities, education, marriage--and they reflected the hopes of those writing. Rozek states clearly that the number of words cannot be proven to be linked directly to the number of immigrants (Texas experienced a population increase of 672 percent between 1860 and 1920), but she demonstrates that understanding the effort is itself important. Using printed materials and private communications held in numerous archives as well as pictures of promotional materials, she shows the energy and enthusiasm with which Texans promoted their native or adopted home as the perfect home for others. Texas is indeed an immigrant state--perhaps by destiny; certainly, Rozek demonstrates, by design.
Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State
Gone to Texas engagingly tells the story of the Lone Star State, from the arrival of humans in the Panhandle more than 10,000 years ago to the opening of the twenty-first century. Focusing on the state's successive waves of immigrants, the book offers an inclusive view of the vast array ofTexans who, often in conflict with each other and always in a struggle with the land, created a history and an idea of Texas. Striking a balance between revisionist and traditional approaches to history, author Randolph B. Campbell tells the stories of the colorful individuals and events that shaped the history of Texas, giving equal treatment to the lives of men like Sam Houston and to women and minorities in Texas'shistory. He addresses the fact that Texas is widely regarded as a special state-a place with a story that appeals to millions of people, many of whom have never even been there-and examines what created this idea of Texan distinctiveness. Organized chronologically, the text focuses on five mainthemes: Texas as a "forgotten" province of the Spanish empire that was only protected when some other nation threatened to occupy it; the interpretation of the Texas Revolution as a clash between two disparate cultures rather than as a deliberate, pre-conceived plan by the U.S. to steal the provincefrom Mexico; the identification of Texas as a Southern rather than Western state in terms of its demographic, cultural, economic, and political influences and development; Texas's distinction not as a "unique" state but rather as the exaggerated embodiment of traditional American ideals and emotionssuch as individualism, personal liberty, and violence; and the two-hundred-year-old history of Texas as a destination for immigrants seeking new opportunities. Vividly capturing the adventure and conflict of this state's legendary past, Gone to Texas is ideal for undergraduate courses in Texas history.
The History of Texas
The History of Texas is fully revised and updated in this fifth edition to reflect the latest scholarship in its coverage of Texas history from the pre-Columbian era to the present. Fully revised to reflect the most recent scholarly findings Offers extensive coverage of twentieth-century Texas history Includes an overview of Texas history up to the Election of 2012 Provides online resources for students and instructors, including a test bank, maps, presentation slides, and more
Land! Irish Pioneers in Mexican and Revolutionary Texas
The only successful European impresarios in mid-nineteenth century Mexican Texas--men authorized to bring immigrants to settle the vast spaces of Mexico's northern territories--were Irish. On their land grants, Irish settlers founded Refugio and San Patricio and went on to take active roles in the economic and political development of Texas. It required a hardy spirit and strong ambition to weather the perils that accompanied these opportunities--the long journey, shipwrecks, hostile Indians, injury and disease--and Irish pioneers proved fit for the task. They were not seeking relief from famine or English oppression in their own country. These were vigorous, strong-willed people who possessed the monetary means to remove themselves from their insular surroundings. What they were seeking, and what they obtained, was land. Graham Davis tells this Irish-Texan story of the search for land by recounting the experiences of the original empresarios John McMullen, James McGloin, James Power, and James Hewetson, and he finishes the book with an impressive description of the ranching empire of Power's nephew, Thomas O'Connor. In between, he examines the marriages, commercial contacts, political alliances, and language ties that "Mexicanized" these successful entrepreneurs. Living in the heart of the war zone, some of the Irish settlers fought for independence while others remained loyal to the Mexican government that had made them citizens and given them land. Davis offers a vivid picture of the hardships of pioneer life and the building of communities, churches, and schools. He describes how Irish ranchers had the opportunity to thrive after the annexation of Texas and emphasizes their willing acceptance of Mexican ranching methods. He makes a convincing case that the Irish came to Texas not as victims but as entrepreneurs and opportunists in search of land.
Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans
The definitive account of the incomparable Lone Star state by the author of Fire & Blood: A History of Mexico. T. R. Fehrenbach is a native Texan, military historian and the author of several important books about the region, but none as significant as this work, arguably the best single volume about Texas ever published. His account of America's most turbulent state offers a view that only an insider could capture. From the native tribes who lived there to the Spanish and French soldiers who wrested the territory for themselves, then to the dramatic ascension of the republic of Texas and the saga of the Civil War years. Fehrenbach describes the changes that disturbed the state as it forged its unique character. Most compelling is the one quality that would remain forever unchanged through centuries of upheaval: the courage of the men and women who struggled to realize their dreams in The Lone Star State.
The Mexican Texans
In The Mexican Texans, author Phyllis McKenzie uses historical narrative and a wealth of photographs to explore how time has shaped the identity of Mexican Texans and their continued contribution in the Lone Star State through more than six generations. With vivid descriptions of the language, music, values, and celebrations that enrich Mexican Texan life, this book will appeal to readers young and old who are interested in Texas and Mexican history. Features include · 58 illustrations · boxed biographical sketches · Spanish poetry with English translation · recipes for traditional Mexican Texan dishes The Mexican Texans is part of a five-volume set from the Institute of Texan Cultures. The entire set, entitled Texans All, explores the social and cultural contributions made by five distinctive cultural groups that already existed in Texas prior to its statehood or that came to Texas in the early twentieth century: The Indian Texans, The Mexican Texans, The European Texans, The African Texans, and The Asian Texans.
Oil in Texas: The Gusher Age, 1895-1945
This volume chronicles the explosive growth of the Texas oil industry from the first commercial production at Corsicana in the 1890s through the vital role of Texas oil in World War II.
The Prehistory of Texas
Paleoindians first arrived in Texas more than eleven thousand years ago, although relatively few sites of such early peoples have been discovered. Texas has a substantial post-Paleoindian record, however, and there are more than fifty thousand prehistoric archaeological sites identified across the state. This comprehensive volume explores in detail the varied experience of native peoples who lived on this land in prehistoric times. Chapters on each of the regions offer cutting-edge research, the culmination of years of work by dozens of the most knowledgeable experts. Based on the archaeological record, the discussion of the earliest inhabitants includes a reclassification of all known Paleoindian projectile point types and establishes a chronology for the various occupations. The archaeological data from across the state of Texas also allow authors to trace technological changes over time, the development of intensive fishing and shellfish collecting, funerary customs and the belief systems they represented, long-term changes in settlement mobility and character, landscape use, and the eventual development of agricultural societies. The studies bring the prehistory of Texas Indians all the way up through the Late Prehistoric period (ca. a.d. 700#150;1600). The extensively illustrated chapters are broadly cultural-historical in nature but stay strongly focused on important current research problems. Taken together, they present careful and exhaustive considerations of the full archaeological (and paleoenvironmental) record of Texas.
Recovering the Hispanic History of Texas
The eight essays included in this volume examine the dominant narrative of Texas history and seek to establish a record that includes both Mexican men and women, groups whose voices have been notably absent from the history books.
Finding documents that reflect the experiences of those outside of the mainstream culture is difficult, since historical archives tend to contain materials produced by the privileged and governing classes of society. The contributing scholars make a case for expanding the notion of archives to include alternative sources. By utilizing oral histories, Spanish-language writings and periodicals, folklore, photographs, and other personal materials, it becomes possible to recreate a history that includes a significant part of the state¿s population, the Mexican community that lived in the area long before its absorption into the United States.
These articles primarily explore themes within the field of Chicano/a Studies. Divided into three sections, Creating Social Landscapes, Racialized Identities, and Unearthing Voices, the pieces cover issues as diverse as the Mexican-American Presbyterian community, the female voice in the history of the Texas borderlands, and Tejano roots on the Louisiana-Texas border in the 18th and 19th centuries.
In their introduction, editors Monica Perales and Raúl A. Ramos write that the scholars, in their exploration of the state¿s history, go beyond the standard categories of immigration, assimilation, and the nation state. Instead, they forge new paths into historical territories by exploring gender and sexuality, migration, transnationalism, and globalization.
Spanish Texas, 1519-1821
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Tejano Legacy: Rancheros and Settlers in South Texas, 1734-1900
This is a pathbreaking study of Tejano ranchers and settlers in the Lower Río Grande Valley from their colonial roots to 1900. The first book to delineate and assess the complexity of Mexican-Anglo interaction in south Texas, it also shows how Tejanos continued to play a leading role in the commercialization of ranching after 1848 and how they maintained a sense of community. Despite shifts in jurisdiction, the tradition of Tejano land holding acted as a stabilizing element and formed an important part of Tejano history and identity. The earliest settlers arrived in the 1730s and established numerous ranchos and six towns along the river. Through a careful study of land and tax records, brands and bills of sale of livestock, wills, population and agricultural censuses, and oral histories, Alonzo shows how Tejanos adapted to change and maintained control of their ranchos through the 1880s, when Anglo encroachment and changing social and economic conditions eroded most of the community's land base.
Tejano Proud: Tex-Mex Music in the Twentieth Century
From the dance halls to the main stage, from small town Texas to the big cities, and from treasured local cultural traditions to the national display of Mexican Texas' finest talent, música tejana is rapidly becoming known as a rich and vibrant form of American music. In Tejano Proud: Tex-Mex Music in the Twentieth Century, Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., chronicles the many dimensions of this important musical form. Rooted in Mexican culture and shaped by influences from the United States and the rest of the world, the diversity and complexity of this music give an expression to the people and the borderlands culture from which the music grew. San Miguel provides an engaging history of the evolution of música tejana--its ups and downs and its importance to Mexican Texas culture in the context of Anglo-Mexican relations. He also discusses the more recent development of the Tejano recording industry and the role women have begun to play in an industry long dominated by men. The twentieth century has seen Texas Mexican music balance between the traditional and the modern, remaining rooted in Mexico while taking nourishment from Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States. This music has helped shape the daily experiences of Mexican Texans. Today, the music's biggest stars are seen as affirming representations of Tejano ethnic pride. Readers interested not only in music, but also in ethnic studies and popular culture, will appreciate the broad spectrum covered in Tejano Proud: Tex-Mex Music of the Twentieth Century.
Texas: A Modern History
Revised and updated, this popular history by an award-winning author brings the story of Texas into the twenty-first century. Since its publication in 1989, Texas, A Modern History has established itself as one of the most readable and reliable general histories of Texas. David McComb paints the panorama of Lone Star history from the earliest Indians to the present day with a vigorous brush that uses fact, anecdote, and humor to present a concise narrative. The book is designed to offer an adult reader the savor of Texan culture, an exploration of the ethos of its people, and a sense of the rhythm of its development. Spanish settlement, the Battle of the Alamo, the Civil War, cattle trails, oil discovery, the growth of cities, changes in politics, the Great Depression, World War II, recreation, economic expansion, and recession are each a part of the picture. Photographs and fascinating sidebars punctuate the text. In this revised edition, McComb not only incorporates recent scholarship but also tracks the post-World War II rise of the Republican Party in Texas and the evolution of the state from rural to urban, with 88 percent of the people now living in cities. At the same time, he demonstrates that, despite many changes that have made Texas similar to the rest of the United States, much of its unique past remains. "Contrary to popular belief, there is more to Texas history than the Alamo and oil gushers. This book takes us from the early Indians of the area through to modern times when people began to realize the exploitation of natural resources and pollution were ruining the state's natural beauty. The author offers many stories and an ample helping of anecdotes and folklore to paint an accurate portrait of the state and the people who have made it great." --American West
Texas Bad Girls: Hussies, Harlots, and Horse Thieves
Sometimes humorous, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes deeply sad and moving — such are the biographies of fifteen Texas bad girls. Husband killers, run-of-the-mill murderers, whorehouse madams, prostitutes, gamblers, bank robbers, floozies — each contributes immeasurably to a rowdy, ribald history that dates from the state's earliest settlers to yesterday's biggest news story.
Texas Boundaries: Evolution of the State's Counties
From three poorly defined territories called municipalities that existed in 1836, the state of Texas evolved to its present form of two hundred fifty four organized governmental bodies that we know as Counties. This book explores these events and displays them in the form of maps, creating an atlas of Texas' geographical and political evolution. Each new map not only illustrates the geography of Texas at the time, but also conveys something of its passions and philosophy.
Texas Roots: Agriculture and Rural Life before the Civil War
In today's Texas, with its growing urban populations and big-city lifestyles, it is worth remembering that in 1850 only 10 percent of Texans lived in towns with as many as 100 people. The rest--of many ethnic and racial groups--lived off the land, which was blessedly suited to a profitable variety of crops and livestock and also provided an abundance of wildlife free for the taking. In Texas Roots, C. Allan Jones reminds us that the economic wealth of modern Texas arose from its agricultural heritage, a rich mixture of practices and traditions including: · Caddo hunting, gathering, gardening, and farming · Irrigated agriculture at Spanish missions · Hispanic ranching · Slave-based plantations · Small-scale farmers and ranchers Through time, people adapted the agricultural technologies, laws, and customs of New Spain, Mexico, Europe, and the South to their own practical, institutional, and legal needs. The result was a particularly Texan system that would serve as the foundation for the state's economic strength after the Civil War. Texas Roots shines a bright light on our relationship and connection with the land, bringing alive an aspect of the Texas history that contributed immeasurably to the state's identity and prosperity.
That Terrible Texas Weather: Tales of Storms, Drought, Destruction, and Perseverance
True-life stories of survival against insurmountable odds, especially in natural catastrophes, hold a certain fascination for us all. That Terrible Texas Weather puts the reader in the eye of the storm, at the crest of the flood, and in the heat of the drought through a collection of newspaper reports and eyewitness accounts of victims caught up in some of the most devastating weather Texas has ever produced.
Unsettled Land: From Revolution to Republic, the Struggle for Texas
A bold new history of the origins and aftermath of the Texas Revolution, revealing how Indians, Mexicans, and Americans battled for survival in one of the continent's most diverse regions The Texas Revolution has long been cast as an epic episode in the origins of the American West. As the story goes, larger-than-life figures like Sam Houston, David Crockett, and William Barret Travis fought to free Texas from repressive Mexican rule. In Unsettled Land, historian Sam Haynes reveals the reality beneath this powerful creation myth. He shows how the lives of ordinary people--white Americans, Mexicans, Native Americans, and those of African descent--were upended by extraordinary events over twenty-five years. After the battle of San Jacinto, racial lines snapped taut as a new nation, the Lone Star republic, sought to expel Indians, marginalize Mexicans, and tighten its grip on the enslaved. This is a revelatory and essential new narrative of a major turning point in the history of North America.
Why Texans Fought in the Civil War
In Why Texans Fought in the Civil War, Charles David Grear provides insights into what motivated Texans to fight for the Confederacy. Mining important primary sources--including thousands of letters and unpublished journals--he affords readers the opportunity to hear, often in the combatants' own words, why it was so important to them to engage in tumultuous struggles occurring so far from home. As Grear notes, in the decade prior to the Civil War the population of Texas had tripled. The state was increasingly populated by immigrants from all parts of the South and foreign countries. When the war began, it was not just Texas that many of these soldiers enlisted to protect, but also their native states, where they had family ties.
The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas
The twentieth century brought industrialization to Texas cities. For Mexican workers in the state, this meant worsening economic conditions, widespread discrimination, and an indifferent or at times hostile Anglo labor movement. Faced with such challenges, Mexicans often looked to each other or toward Mexico for support and inspiration in building a largely autonomous, occasionally trans-border labor movement. In this first book-length examination of the earliest organized efforts by Mexican-origin workers in Texas, Emilio Zamora challenges the usual, stereotypical depiction of Mexican workers as passive and hard to organize. Instead, working within the framework of the "new labor history", he looks beyond the conventional focus on trade unionism and collective bargaining to encompass the broader social experiences and culture of Mexicans as a national minority and a repressed segment of the working class. Through extensive use of Spanish-language archives in Mexico and the United States, Zamora examines workers' independent organizations - including mutual aid societies and cooperatives that functioned as unions - as well as spontaneous informal actions, including strikes, by Texas Mexican workers. He portrays the gradual yet increasing integration of those organizations into the mainstream labor movement and examines labor solidarity across ethnic lines. In addition, he discusses the special role Mexican labor played in bridging labor struggles across the international border and in challenging racial exclusion on the job in the predominantly Anglo labor federations and in the broader institutional life of South Texas. Although the early efforts at inter-ethnic unity failed tomaterialize fully, Zamora concludes, they nevertheless provided a legacy that tells much about the minority position of the Mexican community, the impressive organizing activity and bid for incorporation of Mexican workers, and the
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Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas
"Harrigan, surveying thousands of years of history that lead to the banh mi restaurants of Houston and the juke joints of Austin, remembering the forgotten as well as the famous, delivers an exhilarating blend of the base and the ignoble, a very human story indeed. [ Big Wonderful Thing is] as good a state history as has ever been written and a must-read for Texas aficionados."--Kirkus, Starred Review The story of Texas is the story of struggle and triumph in a land of extremes. It is a story of drought and flood, invasion and war, boom and bust, and the myriad peoples who, over centuries of conflict, gave rise to a place that has helped shape the identity of the United States and the destiny of the world. "I couldn't believe Texas was real," the painter Georgia O'Keeffe remembered of her first encounter with the Lone Star State. It was, for her, "the same big wonderful thing that oceans and the highest mountains are." Big Wonderful Thing invites us to walk in the footsteps of ancient as well as modern people along the path of Texas's evolution. Blending action and atmosphere with impeccable research, New York Times best-selling author Stephen Harrigan brings to life with novelistic immediacy the generations of driven men and women who shaped Texas, including Spanish explorers, American filibusters, Comanche warriors, wildcatters, Tejano activists, and spellbinding artists--all of them taking their part in the creation of a place that became not just a nation, not just a state, but an indelible idea. Written in fast-paced prose, rich with personal observation and a passionate sense of place, Big Wonderful Thing calls to mind the literary spirit of Robert Hughes writing about Australia or Shelby Foote about the Civil War. Like those volumes, it is a big book about a big subject, a book that dares to tell the whole glorious, gruesome, epically sprawling story of Texas.
The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875
This is not your grandfather's history of Texas. Portraying nineteenth-century Texas as a cauldron of racist violence, Gary Clayton Anderson shows that the ethnic warfare dominating the Texas frontier can best be described as ethnic cleansing. The Conquest of Texas is the story of the struggle between Anglos and Indians for land. Anderson tells how Scotch-Irish settlers clashed with farming tribes and then challenged the Comanches and Kiowas for their hunting grounds. Next, the decade-long conflict with Mexico merged with war against Indians. For fifty years Texas remained in a virtual state of war. Piercing the very heart of Lone Star mythology, Anderson tells how the Texas government encouraged the Texas Rangers to annihilate Indian villages, including women and children. This policy of terror succeeded: by the 1870s, Indians had been driven from central and western Texas. By confronting head-on the romanticized version of Texas history that made heroes out of Houston, Lamar, and Baylor, Anderson helps us understand that the history of the Lone Star state is darker and more complex than the mythmakers allowed.
Cow Boys and Cattle Men: Class and Masculinities on the Texas Frontier, 1865-1900
Winner of the 2010 T.R. Fehrenbach Book Award Cowboys are an American legend, but despite their ubiquity in history and popular culture, misperceptions abound. Jacqueline M. Moore casts aside romantic and one-dimensional images of cowboys by analyzing the class, gender, and labor histories of ranching in Texas during the second half of the nineteenth century. As working-class men, cowboys showed their masculinity through their skills at work as well as public displays in town. But what cowboys thought was manly behavior did not always match those ideas of the business-minded cattlemen, who largely absorbed middle-class masculine ideals of restraint. Moore explores how, in contrast to the mythic image, from the late 1870s on, as the Texas frontier became more settled and the open range disappeared, the real cowboys faced increasing demands from the people around them to rein in the very traits that Americans considered the most masculine. Published in Cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University.
Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth
Every nation needs a creation myth, and Texas's myths bite deep. In the past forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. The fight over the Alamo's meaning has become more pitched than ever in the past few years, even violent, as Texas's future begins to look more and more different from its past. It's the perfect time for a wise and generous-spirited book that shines the bright light of the truth into a place that's gotten awfully dark.
Forgotten Dead : Mob Violence Against Mexicans in the United States, 1848-1928
Mob violence in the United States is usually associated with the southern lynch mobs who terrorized African Americans during the Jim Crow era. This book uncovers what is by contrast a neglected chapter in the story of American racial violence, the lynching of persons of Mexican origin ordescent. Over eight decades lynch mobs murdered hundreds of Mexicans, mostly in the American Southwest. Racial prejudice, a lack of respect for local courts, and economic competition all fueled the actions of the mob. Sometimes it was ordinary citizens who committed these acts because of the allegedfailure of the criminal justice system; other times the culprits were law enforcement officers themselves. Violence also occurred against the backdrop of continuing tensions along the border between the United States and Mexico aggravated by criminal raids, military escalation, and politicalrevolution. Based on exhaustive research on both sides of the border, the first half of Forgotten Dead explores the characteristics and causes of mob violence against Mexicans across time and place. The second half of the book relates the numerous acts of resistance by Mexicans including armed self-defense,crusading journalism, and lobbying by diplomats who pressured the United States to honor its rhetorical commitment to democracy. In reconstructing these stories, the authors provide detailed case studies and assess how Mexican lynching victims came in the minds of many Americans to be the "forgotten dead." The conclusion of the book also contains the first-ever inventory of Mexican victims of mob violence in the UnitedStates. With Latinos having an increasingly powerful influence on American public life, this book provides a timely account of their historical struggle for recognition of civil and human rights.
Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State
In Gone to Texas, historian Randolph Campbell ranges from the first arrival of humans in the Panhandle some 10,000 years ago to the dawn of the twenty-first century, offering an interpretive account of the land, the successive waves of people who have gone to Texas, and the conflicts thathave made Texas as much a metaphor as a place. Campbell presents the epic tales of Texas history in a new light, offering revisionist history in the best sense--broadening and deepening the traditional story, without ignoring the heroes of the past. The scope of the book is impressive. It ranges from the archeological record of early NativeAmericans to the rise of the oil industry and ultimately the modernization of Texas. Campbell provides swift-moving accounts of the Mexican revolution against Spain, the arrival of settlers from the United States, and the lasting Spanish legacy (from place names to cattle ranching to civil law). Theauthor also paints a rich portrait of the Anglo-Texan revolution, with its larger-than-life leaders and epic battles, the fascinating decade of the Republic of Texas, and annexation by the United States. In his account of the Civil War and Reconstruction, he examines developments both in localpolitics and society and in the nation at large (from the debate over secession to the role of Texas troops in the Confederate army to the impact of postwar civil rights laws). Late nineteenth-century Texas is presented as part of both the Old West and the New South. The story continues with ananalysis of the impact of the Populist and Progressive movements and then looks at the prosperity decade of the 1920s and the economic disaster of the Great Depression. Campbell's last chapters show how World War II brought economic recovery and touched off spectacular growth that, with only a fewdownturns, continues until today. Lucid, engaging, deftly written, Gone to Texas offers a fresh understanding of why Texas continues to be seen as a state unlike any other, a place that distills the essence of what it means to be an American.
A Guide to Hispanic Texas
Hispanic culture is woven into all aspects of Texas life, from mission-style architecture to the highly popular Tex-Mex cuisine, from ranching and rodeo traditions to the Catholic religion. So common are these Hispanic influences, in fact, that they have been widely accepted as a part of everyone's heritage, comfortingly familiar and distinctively Texan. This new edition of Hispanic Texas contains all the guidebook entries of the original volume in a compact format perfect for taking along on trips throughout the state. Entries are arranged by region: San Antonio and South Texas Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley El Paso and Trans-Pecos Texas Austin and Central Texas Houston and Southeast Texas Dallas and North Texas Lubbock and the Plains Within each region, a city-by-city listing details the historic and modern sites and structures that bear Hispanic influence. Descriptions of local festivals and events, public art, museums, natural areas, and scenic drives enhance the entries, which are also profusely illustrated with historic and modern photographs and other illustrations.
The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea
When painter Winslow Homer first sailed into the Gulf of Mexico, he was struck by its "special kind of providence." Indeed, the Gulf presented itself as America's sea--bound by geography, culture, and tradition to the national experience--and yet, there has never been a comprehensive history of the Gulf until now. And so, in this rich and original work that explores the Gulf through our human connection with the sea, environmental historian Jack E. Davis finally places this exceptional region into the American mythos in a sweeping history that extends from the Pleistocene age to the twenty-first century. Significant beyond tragic oil spills and hurricanes, the Gulf has historically been one of the world's most bounteous marine environments, supporting human life for millennia. Davis starts from the premise that nature lies at the center of human existence, and takes readers on a compelling and, at times, wrenching journey from the Florida Keys to the Texas Rio Grande, along marshy shorelines and majestic estuarine bays, profoundly beautiful and life-giving, though fated to exploitation by esurient oil men and real-estate developers. Rich in vivid, previously untold stories, The Gulf tells the larger narrative of the American Sea--from the sportfish that brought the earliest tourists to Gulf shores to Hollywood's engagement with the first offshore oil wells--as it inspired and empowered, sometimes to its own detriment, the ethnically diverse groups of a growing nation. Davis' pageant of historical characters is vast, including: the presidents who directed western expansion toward its shores, the New England fishers who introduced their own distinct skills to the region, and the industries and big agriculture that sent their contamination downstream into the estuarine wonderland. Nor does Davis neglect the colorfully idiosyncratic individuals: the Tabasco king who devoted his life to wildlife conservation, the Texas shrimper who gave hers to clean water and public health, as well as the New York architect who hooked the "big one" that set the sportfishing world on fire. Ultimately, Davis reminds us that amidst the ruin, beauty awaits its return, as the Gulf is, and has always been, an ongoing story. Sensitive to the imminent effects of climate change, and to the difficult task of rectifying grievous assaults of recent centuries, The Gulf suggests how a penetrating examination of a single region's history can inform the country's path ahead.
Invisible Texans: Women and Minorities in Texas History
1: Coastal People of Texas: The Karankawas Earl H. Elam 2: Faint Voices: The Rhetoric of Exploration John L. Davis 3: French Texas: The Age of La Salle Robert S. Weddle 4: A Brief History of Tejano Rancheros in South Texas, 1730-1900 Armando Alonzo 5: Slavery and the Texas Revolution: A Comparison with the American Civil War Paul Lack 6: Trials, Tribulations, and Good Times: Westering Women in Frontier Texas, 1821-1870 Paula Mitchell Marks 7: Black Texans during the Civil War Alwyn Barr 8: The First African-American Public Officials in Texas: Voter Registrars in 1867 Randolph "Mike" Campbell 9: A Prairie Story: How the Plains Indians Lost Their Empire (and Their Homes) in Texas Dan Flores 10: Tomás González of Mexico: A Forgotten Founder of Texas’s Cotton Industry and Hero of the Battle of Galveston Edward Simmen 11: A Texan Who Made a Difference: Dorothy Scarborough–Teacher, Novelist, Folklorist Sylvia Grider 12: Women and Work during the Great Depression in Texas Rebecca Sharpless 13: When the Afrika Korp Came to Texas Arnold Krammer 14: The Hollywood Dream for Texas: Linda Darnell Ronald L. Davis 15: Lulu B. White and the Civil Rights Movement in Houston, Texas: 1939-1957 Merline Pitre 16: Dr. Hector P. García: Twentieth Century Mexican-American Leader Thomas H. Kreneck 17: Racial Integration of College Football in Texas Richard Pennington 18: María Cárdenas: San Angelo Chicano-Era Activist Arnoldo De Leon
Land of the Tejas: Native American Identity and Interaction in Texas, A.D. 1300 to 1700
Combining archaeological, historical, ethnographic, and environmental data, Land of the Tejas represents a sweeping, interdisciplinary look at Texas during the late prehistoric and early historic periods. Through this revolutionary approach, John Wesley Arnn reconstructs Native identity and social structures among both mobile foragers and sedentary agriculturalists. Providing a new methodology for studying such populations, Arnn describes a complex, vast, exotic region marked by sociocultural and geographical complexity, tracing numerous distinct peoples over multiple centuries. Drawing heavily on a detailed analysis of Toyah (a Late Prehistoric II material culture), as well as early European documentary records, an investigation of the regional environment, and comparisons of these data with similar regions around the world, Land of the Tejas examines a full scope of previously overlooked details. From the enigmatic Jumano Indian leader Juan Sabata to Spanish friar Casanas's 1691 account of the vast Native American Tejas alliance, Arnn's study shines new light on Texas's poorly understood past and debunks long-held misconceptions of prehistory and history while proposing a provocative new approach to the process by which we attempt to reconstruct the history of humanity.
Lone Star Nation: The Epic Story of the Battle for Texas Independence
In Lone Star Nation, Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands demythologizes Texas’s journey to statehood and restores the genuinely heroic spirit to a pivotal chapter in American history. From Stephen Austin, Texas’s reluctant founder, to the alcoholic Sam Houston, who came to lead the Texas army in its hour of crisis and glory, to President Andrew Jackson, whose expansionist aspirations loomed large in the background, here is the story of Texas and the outsize figures who shaped its turbulent history. Beginning with its early colonization in the 1820s and taking in the shocking massacres of Texas loyalists at the Alamo and Goliad, its rough-and-tumble years as a land overrun by the Comanches, and its day of liberation as an upstart republic, Brands’ lively history draws on contemporary accounts, diaries, and letters to animate a diverse cast of characters whose adventures, exploits, and ambitions live on in the very fabric of our nation.
Lone Star Navy: Texas, The Fight for the Gulf of Mexico, and the Shaping of the American West
**WINNER OF THE 2007 UNITED STATES MARITIME LITERATURE AWARD** In the 1830s, Mexico endured a tragic era of internal political instability. Meanwhile, bold American frontiersmen sought their fortunes beyond the borders of the United States, with many settling in the Mexican territory of Texas. In 1835, these transplanted Americans led a revolt against Texas's embattled rulers in Mexico City. Lone Star Navy chronicles the little fleet of wooden warships, bought on credit by an impoverished band of revolutionaries and sent to sea on a singular mission: to win Texas's independence from Mexico. Beginning with four small sailing vessels, the upstart flotilla became a vital counterpart to Texan armies fighting for an independent republic. Indeed, Capt. Jeremiah Brown's naval battle off Matamoros in April 1836 helped save the fledgling republic from a premature end. But even as it battled for independence on the Gulf of Mexico, the Texas navy came under attack from unexpected enemies. The same fierce individuality that led Texans to shake off their Mexican rulers also stymied their efforts to govern themselves with any consensus. Lauded by its advocates as strategically vital and ridiculed by its detractors as a farcical waste of money, the navy became a flashpoint in a clash of visions. Denied adequate funding, sailors and officers suffered long periods without pay, and their vessels fell into chronic disrepair, but they still defended their small nation's fortunes. The decrepit remains of the battle-scarred fleet finally fell into American hands when Texas, in need of a strong ally, was annexed by the United States in 1845. The Mexican government prophesied that relinquishing Texas would lead to the loss of its other northern territories. And, indeed, the Mexican War and the U.S. acquisition of New Mexico, Arizona, California, and parts of Utah, Colorado, and Nevada soon followed.
The Men Who Wear the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers
In 1935, Walter Prescott Webb first told about them in his classicThe Texas Rangers, but not until now do we have a modern retelling of this storied organization, based on new material and written with the encouragement of the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. Most narratives of this colorful story, even Webb's, leave out several important eras in the history of the Rangers--the Civil War years, for instance, simply don't exist, and there is little acknowledgment of the Reconstruction period, from 1866 to 1874. In addition, though these previous chronicles concerned themselves primarily with the Rangers since their formal organization in 1835, the earlier years, when the "Ranging" defense force was established by Stephen Austin, are significant and exciting. And while most stories about the Texas Rangers treat them uncritically and uniformly as heroes, this was not always the case, to say the least. The Texas Ranger captured the imagination of the American public like no other individual. Here is his colorful story, told anew, by the highly praised author ofA Good Year to Die.
Oil in Texas: The Gusher Age, 1895-1945
This volume chronicles the explosive growth of the Texas oil industry from the first commercial production at Corsicana in the 1890s through the vital role of Texas oil in World War II.
Passionate Nation: The Epic History of Texas
Texas has become the most American of all the states. Texas's politics has taken over in Washington, and Texas's passionate sense of itself as a nation is echoed by the fervent patriotism of tens of millions of Americans. Texas is also our most outsized hodgepodge -- of Latino, black, white, Asian; of characters who transcend any category. In so many ways, America today is Texas writ large. In Passionate Nation James L. Haley offers a comprehensive and definitive history of this singular and singularly American state, a history that explains how Texas became Texas, even before it became such a central national symbol for America. Haley peers through the lens of the extraordinary "ordinary" men and women who have streamed to Texas from its beginnings, and created it in their own contradictory, uncontrollable image. He recovers elements bowdlerized by previous and more prudish generations, such as the discovery, by sixteenth-century explorer Cabeza de Vaca, of Indian warriors living in conjugal relationships with male eunuchs. He presents documents never before published, such as a rare appeal for aid from the town of Gonzales on the eve of the Texas Revolution. He restores to the history important figures who have been allowed to drop from the usual recitation, such as Benjamin Lundy, who almost single-handedly prevented the Texas Republic from being annexed to the United States for nearly a decade. He corrects the record at every turn, starting with the fact that Jane Lundy was not the "mother of Texas." Throughout, he uses great stories to present the passion of people who lived and worried and suffered and laughed. The first Indians settled in Texas in about 10,000 B.C.; the first Europeans arrived in the early sixteenth century. Since then, the land that is now Texas has belonged to six powers at eight different times: Spain (1519-1685), France (to 1690), Spain again (to 1821), Mexico (to 1836), the Republic of Texas (to 1845), the U.S.A. (to 1861), the Confederacy (to 1865), and the U.S.A. to stay. From Jim Bowie's and Davy Crockett's myth-enshrouded stand at the Alamo to the Mexican-American War to Sam Houston's heroic failed effort to keep Texas in the Union during the Civil War, the transitions in Texas history have often been as painful and tense as the "normal" periods in between. Here, in all of its epic grandeur, is the story of Texas as its own passionate nation, a history that shows that circumstances can radically change, yet culture and character can last for centuries.
Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers: The Texas Victory That Changed American History
In March 1836, the Mexican army led by General Santa Anna massacred about 200-250 Texans who had been trapped in a church in San Antonio for thirteen days. The devastating loss galvanised the surviving Texans. Under General Sam Houston, a maverick with a rocky past, the tiny army of settlers rallied. Just one month after the massacre, the underdog Texans soundly defeated the 'Napoleon of the West' (as Santa Anna styled himself) at the Battle of San Jacinto. Thanks to Kilmeade's storytelling, a new generation of readers will remember the Alamo.
Texas: A Historical Atlas
For twenty years the Historical Atlas of Texas stood as a trusted resource for students and aficionados of the state. Now this key reference has been thoroughly updated and expanded--and even rechristened. Texas: A Historical Atlas more accurately reflects the Lone Star State at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Its 86 entries feature 175 newly designed maps--more than twice the number in the original volume--illustrating the most significant aspects of the state's history, geography, and current affairs. The heart of the book is its wealth of historical information. Sections devoted to indigenous peoples of Texas and its exploration and settlement offer more than 45 entries with visual depictions of everything from the routes of Spanish explorers to empresario grants to cattle trails. In another 31 articles, coverage of modern and contemporary Texas takes in hurricanes and highways, power plants and population trends. Practically everything about this atlas is new. All of the essays have been updated to reflect recent scholarship, while more than 30 appear for the first time, addressing such subjects as the Texas Declaration of Independence, early roads, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Texas-Oklahoma boundary disputes, and the tideland oil controversy. A dozen new entries for "Contemporary Texas" alone chart aspects of industry, agriculture, and minority demographics. Nearly all of the expanded essays are accompanied by multiple maps--everyone in full color. The most comprehensive, state-of-the-art work of its kind, Texas: A Historical Atlas is more than just a reference. It is a striking visual introduction to the Lone Star State.
Texas After the Civil War: The Struggle of Reconstruction
As the Civil War ended, the South--and especially Texas, which had escaped the military ravages of the war--stood poised on the brink of a new social, economic, and political order. Congressional Reconstruction, the Freedmen's Bureau, the U.S. Army, and a Republican state administration all presaged change. Nonetheless, Texas in 1874 more closely resembled the Texas of 1861 than anyone might have predicted at war's end. Reconstruction had remade little. In Texas after the Civil War, Carl H. Moneyhon reconsiders the reasons Reconstruction failed to live up to its promise. He shows that the period was not one of corruption and irresponsible government, as earlier studies had argued; nor was the Republican regime of Edmund J. Davis devoid of accomplishments. Rather, the fact that the Civil War had shaken but not destroyed the antebellum community made the resistance to changes in government and society even greater than elsewhere in the South. Moneyhon vividly examines the character of violence in the state, as well as the social and economic forces that shaped the response to Reconstruction. Clearly and engagingly written, masterful in its survey of the last fifty years of research on the era, this book will stand as the definitive synthesis and interpretation of Reconstruction in Texas for years to come.
Texas Blood: Seven Generations Among the Outlaws, Ranchers, Indians, Missionaries, Soldiers, and Smugglers of the Borderlands
In the tradition of Ian Frazier's Great Plains, and as vivid as the work of Cormac McCarthy, an intoxicating, singularly illuminating history of the Texas borderlands from their settlement through seven generations of Roger D. Hodge's ranching family. What brought the author's family to Texas? What is it about Texas that for centuries has exerted a powerful allure for adventurers and scoundrels, dreamers and desperate souls, outlaws and outliers? In search of answers, Hodge travels across his home state--which he loves and hates in shifting measure--tracing the wanderings of his ancestors into forgotten histories along vanished roads. Here is an unsentimental, keenly insightful attempt to grapple with all that makes Texas so magical, punishing, and polarizing. Here is a spellbindingly evocative portrait of the borderlands--with its brutal history of colonization, conquest, and genocide; where stories of death and drugs and desperation play out daily. And here is a contemplation of what it means that the ranching industry that has sustained families like Hodge's for almost two centuries is quickly fading away, taking with it a part of our larger, deep-rooted cultural inheritance. A wholly original fusion of memoir and history--as piercing as it is elegiac--Texas Blood is a triumph.
Texas Devils: Rangers and Regulars on the Lower Rio Grande, 1846-1861
Reconsidering the myth of "good guys in white hats" The Texas Rangers have been the source of tall tales and the stuff of legend as well as a growing darker reputation. But the story of the Rangers along the Mexican border between Texas statehood and the onset of the Civil War has been largely overlooked--until now. This engaging history pulls readers back to a chaotic time along the lower Rio Grande in the mid-nineteenth century. Texas Devils challenges the time-honored image of "good guys in white hats" to reveal the more complicated and sobering reality behind the Ranger Myth. Michael L. Collins demonstrates that, rather than bringing peace to the region, the Texas Rangers contributed to the violence and were often brutal in their injustices against Spanish-speaking inhabitants, who dubbed them los diablos Tejanos--the Texas devils. Collins goes beyond other, more laudatory Ranger histories to focus on the origins of the legend, casting Ranger immortals such as John Coffee "Jack" Hays, Ben McCulloch, and John S. "Rip" Ford in a new and not always flattering light. In revealing a barbaric code of conduct on the Rio Grande frontier, Collins shows that much of the Ranger Myth doesn't hold up to close historical scrutiny. Texas Devils offers exciting true stories of the Rangers for anyone captivated by their legend, even as it provides a corrective to that legend.
Texas Rising: The Epic True Story of the Lone Star Republic and the Rise of the Texas Rangers, 1836-1846
The official nonfiction companion to HISTORY's dramatic series Texas Rising (created by the same team that made the ratings record-breaker Hatfields & McCoys): a thrilling new narrative history of the Texas Revolution and the rise of the legendary Texas Rangers who patrolled the violent western frontier March 1836: The Republic of Texas, just weeks old, is already near collapse. William Barret Travis and his brave defenders of the Alamo in San Antonio have been slaughtered. Hundreds more Texan soldiers have surrendered at Goliad, only to be marched outside the fortress and executed by order of the ruthless Mexican general Santa Anna, a dictator denying Texans their freedom and liberty. General Sam Houston--a hard-drinking, hot-tempered opportunist--remains in command of a small band of volunteer colonists, mercenaries, and the newly organized Texas Rangers. They are the last hope for Texas to challenge the relentless advance of Santa Anna's much larger Mexican Army--yet many of them curse Houston, enraged by his decision to retreat across Texas before the advancing enemy. The exhausted, outnumbered rebels will meet their destiny on an empty plain near the Gulf Coast next to the San Jacinto River--and make a stand that determines the fate of the young nation. "Remember the Alamo!" and "Remember Goliad!" will be the battle cries, and the order of the day will echo Travis's at the Alamo: Victory or death. Acclaimed Texas historian Stephen L. Moore's new narrative history tells the full, thrilling story of the Texas Revolution from its humble beginnings to its dramatic conclusion, and reveals the contributions of the fabled Texas Rangers--both during the revolution and in the frontier Indian wars that followed.
Twentieth-Century Texas: A Social and Cultural History
Texas changed enormously in the twentieth century, and much of that transformation was a direct product of social and cultural events. Standard histories of Texas traditionally focus on political, military, and economic topics, with emphasis on the nineteenth century. In Twentieth-Century Texas: A Social and Cultural History editors John W. Storey and Mary L. Kelley offer a much-needed corrective. Written with both general and academic audiences in mind, the fourteen essays herein cover Indians, Mexican Americans, African Americans, women, religion, war on the homefront, music, literature, film, art, sports, philanthropy, education, the environment, and science and technology in twentieth-century Texas. Each essay is able to stand alone, supplemented with appropriate photographs, notes, and a selected bibliography. In spite of its ongoing mythic image of rugged ranchers, cowboys, and longhorns, Texas today is a major urban, industrial society with all that brings, both good and bad. For example, first-rate medical centers and academic institutions exist alongside pollution and environment degradation. These topics, and more, are carefully explored in this anthology. It will appeal to anyone interested in the social and cultural development of the state. It will also prove useful in the college classroom, especially for Texas history courses.
Women and Texas History: Selected Essays
Women have long made significant contributions to Texas history. Only in recent years, however, has their part in that history begun to be told. The great strides made in Texas women's studies are reflected in this important new book of essays about women and their many roles in the history of our state. In October 1990, the Texas State Historical Association sponsored a conference, "Women and Texas History," which brought together some of the leading scholars in the field of women's studies. This highly successful conference -- attended by hundreds and awarded recognition for its excellence by the AASLH -- produced a raft of exciting presentations which demonstrated the vigorous quality and growth of women's studies in and about Texas. Women and Texas History includes thirteen of the best presentations at the conference. This "milestone" publication, notes Fane Downs in her introduction to Women and Texas History, represents "the emerging maturity of the field of Texas women's history; moreover, these essays add significantly to our knowledge of the complex and diverse history of Texas." This ground-breaking volume will be of interest to students, scholars, and general readers, and is well adapted to classroom use. Publication of this book was made possible in part by grants from the RGK Foundation of Austin and the Texas Committee for the Humanities, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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