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At a time when the U.S.-Mexican border was still not clearly defined and when the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and land hunger impelled the Anglo presence ever deeper and more intrusively into South Texas, Juan Nepomucino Cortina cut a violent swath across the region in a conflict that came to be known as The Cortina War. Did this border caudillo fight to defend the rights, honor, and legal claims of the Mexicans of South Texas, as he claimed? Or was his a quest for personal vengeance against the newcomers who had married into his family, threatened his mother’s land holdings, and insulted his honor? Historian Jerry Thompson mines the archival record and considers it in light of recent rev...
Gregorio Cortez Lira, a ranchhand of Mexican parentage, was virtually unknown until one summer day in 1901 when he and a Texas sheriff, pistols in hand, blazed away at each other after a misunderstanding. The sheriff was killed and Gregorio fled immediately, realizing that in practice there was one law for Anglo-Texans, another for Texas-Mexicans. The chase, capture, and imprisonment of Cortez are high drama that cannot easily be forgotten. Even today, in the cantinas along both sides of the Rio Grande, Mexicans sing the praises of the great "sheriff-killer" in the ballad which they call "El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez." Américo Paredes tells the story of Cortez, the man and the legend, in vivid, fascinating detail in "With His Pistol in His Hand," which also presents a unique study of a ballad in the making. Deftly woven into the story are interpretations of the Border country, its history, its people, and their folkways.
This book reveals the life of R. Clay Crawford, his dreams, his schemes, his successes and his failures, as he launched himself into many of the most turbulent episodes of 19th century United States history. Like everyone, he was born with a family history, not just genetic but also cultural determinants; this book reveals the influences on his behavior inherited from his father and his grandfathers. He likewise passed on to his children a model, not just genetic but cultural. Even so, Clay Crawford's story is not just a family affair. He was a "self-made man" living in an age when such was thought to be a national asset--and thus stands out as a warning that the worship of the "self-made man" may produce more rogues than Rockefellers.
Twenty-two twin border towns from Brownsville to San Diego
The Mexican-American War, 1846–1848, resulted in the largest militaristic land acquisition in American history. It also, as Christopher Menking contends in this book, shaped the distribution of power and wealth in South Texas in profound ways that still resonate throughout the region’s political and economic landscape. The US Army Quartermaster Department oversaw the logistical war effort, which continued to operate a new chain of forts and depots along the southern and western boundary with territories controlled by Native Americans after the war ended. In Quartermasters of Conquest Menking explores the Quartermaster Department’s critical but generally unappreciated functions—its wa...
Dan Showalter was Speaker Pro Tem of the California State Assembly at the outbreak of the Civil War and the exemplar of treason in the Far West among the pro-Union press. He gained notoriety as the survivor of California's last political (and actual, fatal) duel, for his role in the display of a Confederate flag in Sacramento, and for his imprisonment after an armed confrontation with Union troops. Escaping to Texas, he distinguished himself in the Confederate service in naval battles and in pursuit of Comanche raiders. As commander of the 4th Arizona Cavalry, he helped recapture the Rio Grande Valley from the Union and defended Brownsville against a combined Union and Mexican force. Refusing to surrender at war's end, he fled to Mexico, where he died of a wound sustained in a drunken bar fight at age 35.
A gripping narrative about a dramatic episode in the history of the American West--and a major contribution to our understanding of the origins of Mexican American identity In Revolution in Texas Benjamin Johnson tells the little-known story of one of the most intense and protracted episodes of racial violence in United States history. In 1915, against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, the uprising that would become known as the Plan de San Diego began with a series of raids by ethnic Mexicans on ranches and railroads. Local violence quickly erupted into a regional rebellion. In response, vigilante groups and the Texas Rangers staged an even bloodier counterinsurgency, culminating in forcible relocations and mass executions. Faced with the overwhelming forces arrayed against it, the uprising eventually collapsed. But, as Johnson demonstrates, the rebellion resonated for decades in American history. Convinced of the futility of using force to protect themselves against racial discrimination and economic oppression, many Mexican Americans elected to seek protection as American citizens with equal access to rights and protections under the U.S. Constitution.