Almonte's Texas

Almonte's Texas
Author: Juan Nepomuceno Almonte
Publisher:
Total Pages: 528
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN:

In late 1833 Mexico began to have serious fears that its northeastern territory in Texas would be lost to North American colonists. To determine the actual state of affairs, Mexico sent Col. Juan N. Almonte to Texas on an inspection -- the last conducted by a high-ranking Mexican official before revolution separated Texas from Mexico. Upon his return to the Mexican capital in November 1834, Almonte wrote a secret report of the measures necessary to avoid the loss of Texas -- a report that has been unknown to scholars or the general public. Here it is presented in English for the first time, along with more than fifty letters that Almonte wrote during his inspection. This documentation offers crucial new insights on Texas affairs and will change the way historians regard Mexico's attitudes toward the foreign colonists and their revolution of 1835-1836. When Santa Anna marched an army north to crush the Texas rebellion, Almonte was by his side as a special adviser. He kept a journal, lost at the Battle of San Jacinto, which is presented here with full annotation. Almonte's role in the 1836 campaign is examined, as well as his subsequent activities that relate to Texas. Through Almonte's Texas we gain an overdue appreciation of this man who played a leading role in the history of Texas and Mexico. As James E. Crisp said in his review of this work: "This is a fascinating, revelatory, and highly satisfying book for anyone interested in the real meat of the story of the Texas Revolution -- in all its political, military and diplomatic dimensions. The editors have put Almonte in the center of this story of Texas in the 1830s and 40s, and that's exactly where he belongs. Bravo!"

Texas

Texas
Author: Rupert N. Richardson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2016-05-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1315509806

Written in a narrative style, this comprehensive yet accessible survey of Texas history offers a balanced, scholarly presentation of all time periods and topics.From the beginning sections on geography and prehistoric people, to the concluding discussions on the start of the twenty-first century, this text successfully considers each era equally in terms of space and emphasis.

Lone Star Vistas

Lone Star Vistas
Author: Astrid Haas
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2021-03-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1477322620

Every place is a product of the stories we tell about it—stories that do not merely describe but in fact shape geographic, social, and cultural spaces. Lone Star Vistas analyzes travelogues that created the idea of Texas. Focusing on the forty-year period between Mexico’s independence from Spain (1821) and the beginning of the US Civil War, Astrid Haas explores accounts by Anglo-American, Mexican, and German authors—members of the region’s three major settler populations—who recorded their journeys through Texas. They were missionaries, scientists, journalists, emigrants, emigration agents, and military officers and their spouses. They all contributed to the public image of Texas and to debates about the future of the region during a time of political and social transformation. Drawing on sources and scholarship in English, Spanish, and German, Lone Star Vistas is the first comparative study of transnational travel writing on Texas. Haas illuminates continuities and differences across the global encounter with Texas, while also highlighting how individual writers’ particular backgrounds affected their views on nature, white settlement, military engagement, Indigenous resistance, African American slavery, and Christian mission.

Inside the Texas Revolution

Inside the Texas Revolution
Author: James E. Crisp
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 588
Release: 2021-07-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1625110634

Herman Ehrenberg wrote the longest, most complete, and most vivid memoir of any soldier in the Texan revolutionary army. His narrative was published in Germany in 1843, but it was little used by Texas historians until the twentieth century, when the first—and very problematic—attempts at translation into English were made. Inside the Texas Revolution: The Enigmatic Memoir of Herman Ehrenberg is a product of the translation skills of the late Louis E. Brister with the assistance of James C. Kearney, both noted specialists on Germans in Texas. The volume’s editor, James E. Crisp, has spent much of the last 27 years solving many of the mysteries that still surrounded Ehrenberg’s life. It was Crisp who discovered that Ehrenberg lived in the Texas Republic until at least 1840, and spent the spring of that year as ranger on the frontier. Ehrenberg was not a historian, but an ordinary citizen whose narrative of the Texas Revolution contains both spectacular eyewitness accounts of action and almost mythologized versions of major events that he did not witness himself. This volume points out where Ehrenberg is lying or embellishing, explains why he is doing so, and narrates the actual relevant facts as far as they can be determined. Ehrenberg’s book is both a testament by a young Texan “everyman” who presents a laudatory paean to the Texan cause, and a German’s explanation of Texas and its “fight for freedom” against Mexico to his fellow Germans—with a powerful subtext that patriotic Germans should aspire to a similar struggle, and a similar outcome: a free, democratic republic.

One National Family

One National Family
Author: Sarah K. M. Rodríguez
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2024-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1421449455

A fascinating new history of Texas that emphasizes the importance of Mexico's political culture in attracting US settlers and Texas's unique role in the nation-building efforts of both Mexico and the United States. Why did tens of thousands of Anglo settlers renounce their US citizenship and declare their loyalty to another country by migrating to the Mexican Republic of Texas between 1821 and 1836? In One National Family, Sarah K. M. Rodríguez challenges traditional assumptions about early North American history to draw new conclusions about the comparative power, viability, and nation-building of Mexico and the United States. Drawing from archival research in both countries, Rodríguez highlights a profound political irony at the core of US expansion—that it was spurred by US weakness and Mexican viability. Rodríguez argues that Mexican federalism, long blamed for the country's disintegration and instability, was precisely what attracted thousands of US immigrants to Mexican Texas. Mexico's comparatively weak fiscal structure, ample land, and commitment to dual sovereignty made it an appealing alternative to the thousands of US agrarians who were disillusioned with the United States' political and economic centralization. Yet if Mexico's political system was its strength in the 1820s, it would be the source of conflict and secession by the 1830s. Both Mexico and the United States confronted the limitations of federalism in their respective journeys from loosely confederated republics to consolidated, modern nation-states. But precisely because of its traumatic territorial losses in the mid-nineteenth century, Mexico embraced the characteristics of modern liberal democracy—majoritarianism, territorial sovereignty, and racial equality—far sooner than the United States did. Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University.

Texas

Texas
Author: A. Ray Stephens
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2014-10-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 080618647X

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.

Indian Agent

Indian Agent
Author: Jack Jackson
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 442
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 1603446125

Peter Ellis Bean, a fairly minor but fascinating character, cast unexpected light on conflicts, famous characters, and events from the time of Mexican rule through the years of the Texas Republic.

At the Heart of Texas

At the Heart of Texas
Author: Richard B. McCaslin
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 560
Release: 2014-04-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0876112645

"History like that of Texas is rare. . . . Is it not discreditable to the people of Texas, that they should leave the collection of material for the history of the State to the great endowed Northern libraries? . . . Let Texas arouse herself for very shame, and begin at once the discharge of her filial duty." So wrote George Pierce Garrison in the first issue of the Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, published in July 1897, just months after the establishment of the organization on March 2. The state of Texas was just half a century old; the city of Austin, going back to the days of the Republic, was a little older—a few years past its half-century; and the University of Texas, where Garrison was "the history professor," was not yet fourteen. Earlier attempts to organize historical societies in Texas, traced in the opening chapter, illuminate the factors that came ultimately to be decisive in the success of the Association: the wisdom in linking the organization with the University of Texas, the inclusion of lay historians, and the continued insistence on high academic standards. And, from the beginning, the Association has established a tradition for publishing in the Quarterly, in addition to the Anglo story, the stories of the Indians, the Spanish, and the French. According to author Richard B. McCaslin, "It may be that the Association survived where its predecessors had not because Garrison, who was as much a Progressive historian as any of his contemporaries, understood the value of inclusiveness." The text is organized in chronological chapters by the tenures of the seven directors, George Garrison to Ron Tyler, all of whom were professors in the UT history department. Within the larger framework of the directors, the programs, and the publications, McCaslin gives shape to the unique interaction of forces—university, political, and the academic/lay membership—that has accorded the Association a character and suppleness that continues to ensure its long endurance. The book is profusely illustrated, and sidebars culled from past issues of the Quarterly complement the text. Winner of the Award of Merit from the Philosophical Socierty of Texas

Almonte

Almonte
Author: Frank Cosentino
Publisher: GeneralStore PublishingHouse
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2000
Genre: Generals
ISBN: 9780968774601

Seeds of Empire

Seeds of Empire
Author: Andrew J. Torget
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2015-08-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1469624257

By the late 1810s, a global revolution in cotton had remade the U.S.-Mexico border, bringing wealth and waves of Americans to the Gulf Coast while also devastating the lives and villages of Mexicans in Texas. In response, Mexico threw open its northern territories to American farmers in hopes that cotton could bring prosperity to the region. Thousands of Anglo-Americans poured into Texas, but their insistence that slavery accompany them sparked pitched battles across Mexico. An extraordinary alliance of Anglos and Mexicans in Texas came together to defend slavery against abolitionists in the Mexican government, beginning a series of fights that culminated in the Texas Revolution. In the aftermath, Anglo-Americans rebuilt the Texas borderlands into the most unlikely creation: the first fully committed slaveholders' republic in North America. Seeds of Empire tells the remarkable story of how the cotton revolution of the early nineteenth century transformed northeastern Mexico into the western edge of the United States, and how the rise and spectacular collapse of the Republic of Texas as a nation built on cotton and slavery proved to be a blueprint for the Confederacy of the 1860s.