Travelers In Texas, 1761-1860

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Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 0292783701
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (927 download)

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Book Synopsis Travelers In Texas, 1761-1860 by : Marilyn Mcadams Sibley

Download or read book Travelers In Texas, 1761-1860 written by Marilyn Mcadams Sibley and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-02-19 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History passed in review along the highways of Texas in the century 1761–1860. This was the century of exploration and settlement for the big new land, and many thousands of people traveled its trails: traders, revolutionaries, missionaries, warriors, government agents, adventurers, refugees, gold seekers, prospective settlers, land speculators, army wives, and filibusters. Their reasons for coming were many and varied, and the travelers viewed the land and its people with a wide variety of reactions. Political and industrial revolution, famine, and depression drove settlers from many of the countries of Europe and many of the states of the United States. Some were displeased with what they found in Texas, but for many it was a haven, a land of renewed hope. So large was the migration of people to Texas that the land that was virtually unoccupied in 1761 numbered its population at 600,000 a century later. Several hundred of these travelers left published accounts of their impressions and adventures. Collectively the accounts tell a panoramic story of the land as its boundaries were drawn and its institutions formed. Spain gave way to Mexico, Mexico to the Republic of Texas, the Republic to statehood in the United States, and statehood in the Union was giving way to statehood in the Confederate states by 1860. The travelers’ accounts reflect these changes; but, more important, they tell the story of the receding frontier. In Travelers in Texas, 1761–1860, the author examines the Texas seen by the traveler-writer. Opening with a chapter about travel conditions in general (roads or trails, accommodations, food), she also presents at some length the travelers’ impressions of the country and its people. She then proceeds to examine particular aspects of Texas life: the Indians, slavery, immigration, law enforcement, and the individualistic character of the people, all as seen through the eyes of the travelers. The discussion concludes with a “Critical Essay on Sources,” containing bibliographic discussions of over two hundred of the more important travel accounts.

Secession and the Union in Texas

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Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 0292739958
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (927 download)

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Book Synopsis Secession and the Union in Texas by : Walter L. Buenger

Download or read book Secession and the Union in Texas written by Walter L. Buenger and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1845 Texans voted overwhelmingly to join the Union. They voted just as overwhelmingly to secede in 1861. The story of why and how that happened is filled with colorful characters, such as the aged Sam Houston, and with the southwestern flavor of raiding Comanches, German opponents of slavery, and a border with Mexico. Texas was unique among the seceding states because of its ambivalence toward secession. Yet for all its uniqueness the story of the secession of Texas has broad implications for the secession movement in general. Despite the local color and the southwestern nature of the state, Texas was more southern than western in 1860. Texans supported the Union or insisted upon secession for reasons common to the South and to the whole nation. Most Texans in 1860 were recent immigrants from southern and border states. They still thought and acted like citizens of their former states. The newness of Texas then makes it a particularly appropriate place from which to draw conclusions about the entire secession movement. Secession and the Union in Texas is both a narrative of secession in Texas and a case study of the causes of secession in a southern state. Politics play a key role in this history, but politics broadly defined to include the influence of culture, partisanship, ideology, and self-interest. As any study of a mass movement carried out in tense circumstances must be, this is social history as well as political history. It is a study of public hysteria, the pressure for consensus, and the vanishing of a political process in which rational debate about secession and the Union could take place. Although relying primarily on traditional sources such as manuscript collections and newspapers, a particularly rich source for this study, the author also uses election returns, population shifts over the course of the 1850s, and the breakdown of population within Texas counties to provide a balanced approach. These sources indicate that Texans were not simply secessionists or unionists. At the end of 1860 Texans ranged from ardent secessionists to equally passionate supporters of the Union. But the majority fell in between these two extremes, creating an atmosphere of ambivalence toward secession which was not erased even by the war.

The Shattering of Texas Unionism

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Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807122457
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (224 download)

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Book Synopsis The Shattering of Texas Unionism by : Dale Baum

Download or read book The Shattering of Texas Unionism written by Dale Baum and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 1998-12-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a rare departure from the narrow periodization that marks past studies of Texas politics during the Civil War era, this sweeping work tracks the leadership and electoral basis of politics in the Lone Star State from secession all the way through Reconstruction. Employing a combination of traditional historical sources and cutting-edge quantitative analyses of county voting returns, Dale Baum painstakingly explores the double collapse of Texas unionism—first as a bulwark against secession in the winter of 1860–1861 and then in the late 1860s as a foundation upon which to build a truly biracial society. By carefully tracing the shifting alliances of voters from one election to the next, Baum charts the dramatic assemblage and subsequent breakup of Sam Houston’s coalition on the eve of the war, evaluates the social and economic bases of voting in the secession referendum, and appraises the extent to which intimidation of anti-secessionists shaped the state’s decision to leave the Union. He also examines the ensuing voting behavior of Confederate Texans and shows precisely how antebellum alignments and issues carried over into the war years. Finally, he describes the impact on the state’s electoral politics brought about by the policies of President Andrew Johnson and by broad programs of revolutionary change under Congressional Reconstruction. Baum presents the most sophisticated examination yet of white voter disfranchisement and apathy under Congressional Reconstruction and of the social and political origins of the state’s Radical Republican “scalawag” constituency. He also provides a rigorous statistical investigation of one of the most controversial elections ever held in Texas—the 1869 governor’s race, lost by conservative Republican Andrew Jackson Hamilton to Radical Edmund J. Davis, which nonetheless effectively ended Congressional Reconstruction. Through his innovative exploration of unionist sentiment in Texas, Baum illuminates the most turbulent political period in the history of the state, interpreting both the weight of continuity and the force of change that swept over it before, during, and immediately after the American Civil War. Students of the South, the Civil War, and African American history, as well as sociologists and political scientists interested in election fraud, political violence, and racial strife, will benefit from this significant volume.

The Conquest of the Karankawas and the Tonkawas

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Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780890968673
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (686 download)

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Book Synopsis The Conquest of the Karankawas and the Tonkawas by : Kelly F. Himmel

Download or read book The Conquest of the Karankawas and the Tonkawas written by Kelly F. Himmel and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the conquest of the Karankawas and Tonkawas Indians by white settlers in nineteenth-century Texas.

Encyclopedia of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution

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Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 0786491620
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (864 download)

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Book Synopsis Encyclopedia of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution by : Thom Hatch

Download or read book Encyclopedia of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution written by Thom Hatch and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-03-24 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Remember the Alamo!" is a phrase that is woven into the American consciousness, but what do most people really remember about the Alamo? Much of the true story has been shrouded in myth for over 150 years. This comprehensive encyclopedia provides thorough coverage for people, places, events and issues spanning the pre-Revolution period and settlement of Texas by Americans to the forming of the Republic in 1836. When appropriate, a mini-chronology supplements the entry, placing the discussion in context. A day-by-day account details the thirteen day famous siege. Entries cover major players such as Santa Anna, Jim Bowie and David Crockett and provide biographies (from obscure sources, in some cases) of every Alamo defender killed in the battle. American and Mexican resources have been used to assure a well-rounded picture of often misunderstood events. Maps and an extensive bibliography complement the text.

War with Mexico!

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (97 download)

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Book Synopsis War with Mexico! by : Tom Reilly

Download or read book War with Mexico! written by Tom Reilly and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to tell the history of the Mexican war through the eyes of the American reporters--the nation's first war correspondents--who covered it on the ground. Provides an up-close, richly detailed, comprehensive account of the war, as well as insights into the rise of modern commercial journalism, its impact on public perceptions, and its entanglement with national politics.

Riding for the Lone Star

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Publisher : University of North Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 1574416359
Total Pages : 455 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (744 download)

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Book Synopsis Riding for the Lone Star by : Nathan A. Jennings

Download or read book Riding for the Lone Star written by Nathan A. Jennings and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2016-02-15 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of Texas was forged in the crucible of frontier warfare between 1822 and 1865, when Anglo-Americans adapted to mounted combat north of the Rio Grande. This cavalry-centric arena, which had long been the domain of Plains Indians and the Spanish Empire, compelled an adaptive martial tradition that shaped early Lone Star society. Beginning with initial tactical innovation in Spanish Tejas and culminating with massive mobilization for the Civil War, Texas society developed a distinctive way of war defined by armed horsemanship, volunteer militancy, and short-term mobilization as it grappled with both tribal and international opponents. Drawing upon military reports, participants' memoirs, and government documents, cavalry officer Nathan A. Jennings analyzes the evolution of Texan militarism from tribal clashes of colonial Tejas, territorial wars of the Texas Republic, the Mexican-American War, border conflicts of antebellum Texas, and the cataclysmic Civil War. In each conflict Texan volunteers answered the call to arms with marked enthusiasm for mounted combat. Riding for the Lone Star explores this societal passion--with emphasis on the historic rise of the Texas Rangers--through unflinching examination of territorial competition with Comanches, Mexicans, and Unionists. Even as statesmen Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston emerged as influential strategic leaders, captains like Edward Burleson, John Coffee Hays, and John Salmon Ford attained fame for tactical success.

Saving San Antonio

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Publisher : Texas Tech University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780896723726
Total Pages : 580 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (237 download)

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Book Synopsis Saving San Antonio by : Lewis F. Fisher

Download or read book Saving San Antonio written by Lewis F. Fisher and published by Texas Tech University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The San Antonio Conservation Society has spearheaded the preservation movement by providing both a fascinating history and a model for other preservation efforts.

We Never Retreat

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Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 1623492572
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (234 download)

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Book Synopsis We Never Retreat by : Edward A. Bradley

Download or read book We Never Retreat written by Edward A. Bradley and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-09 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term “filibuster” often brings to mind a senator giving a long-winded speech in opposition to a bill, but the term had a different connotation in the nineteenth century—invasion of foreign lands by private military forces. Spanish Texas was a target of such invasions. Generally given short shrift in the studies of American-based filibustering, these expeditions were led by colorful men such as Augustus William Magee, Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, John Robinson, and James Long. Previous accounts of their activities are brief, lack the appropriate context to fully understand filibustering, and leave gaps in the historiography. Ed Bradley now offers a thorough recounting of filibustering into Spanish Texas framed through the lens of personal and political motives: why American men participated in them and to what extent the US government was either involved in or tolerated them. “We Never Retreat” makes a major contribution by placing these expeditions within the contexts of the Mexican War of Independence and international relations between the United States and Spain.

Lone Star Nation

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Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 1400030706
Total Pages : 610 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Lone Star Nation by : H. W. Brands

Download or read book Lone Star Nation written by H. W. Brands and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2005-02-08 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War emythologizes Texas’s journey to statehood and restores the genuinely heroic spirit to a pivotal chapter in American history. • “A balanced, unromanticized account [of] America’s great epic.” —The New York Times Book Review 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.

Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend

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Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806149604
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

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Book Synopsis Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend by : Ron J. Jackson

Download or read book Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend written by Ron J. Jackson and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-03-02 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Among the fifty or so Texan survivors of the siege of the Alamo was Joe, the personal slave of Lt. Col. William Barret Travis. First interrogated by Santa Anna, Joe was allowed to depart (along with Susana Dickinson) and eventually made his way to the seat of the revolutionary government at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Joe was then returned to the Travis estate in Columbia, Texas, near the coast. He escaped in 1837 and was never captured. Ron J. Jackson and Lee White have meticulously researched plantation ledgers, journals, memoirs, slave narratives, ship logs, newspapers, personal letters, and court documents to fill in the gaps of Joe's story. "Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend" provides not only a recovered biography of an individual lost to history, but also offers a fresh vantage point from which to view the events of the Texas Revolution"--

Sam Houston's Wife

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Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 9780806124360
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (243 download)

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Book Synopsis Sam Houston's Wife by : William Seale

Download or read book Sam Houston's Wife written by William Seale and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Sam Houston has been the subject 6f several biographies and· many historical articles, little attention has been paid to his third wife, whose enormous influence on the Liberator of Texas has never before been examined closely. In this first biography of Margaret Lea Houston, a remarkable woman is finally awakened from the historical sleep which has enveloped her for over a century. Alabama-born Margaret Lea was just a schoolgirl when she first saw Sam Houston arrive at New Orleans after the Battle of San Jacinto to have his wounds tended. "She later described having a premonition that she would some day meet Sam Houston," says· William Seale. "But she told that story many years later, after she had become his wife." For marry Sam Houston she did–in the face of strong opposition of family and friends and of Houston's friends and advisers. Twenty-six years younger than her husband, this protected child of a Baptist minister set out to change the life of the frontier hero. Aware that alcoholism and the sorrows of personal misfortune weighed upon him, she battled the former and sought to alleviate the latter. Her abiding faith in him, coupled with his unceasing devotion to her and to their children, is a central theme of this book. The author explores the personality of Margaret, the idealist whose absorption in religion often led her to melancholia, the reader of romances who was never able to come to terms with the Texas wilderness, the wife who strummed her guitar and wrote love poems during her husband's absences on affairs of state. This account of Sam Houston's wife, which presents details of the general's life not hitherto explored, is in addition a colorful picture of the time in which she lived. It is a realistic appraisal of Sam and Margaret Houston, to which the author has brought a fresh and sympathetic understanding. In writing the richly human story, he has made extensive use of unpublished manuscripts and original documents in private hands and public archives.

German Pioneers on the American Frontier

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Publisher : University of North Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 9781574411348
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (113 download)

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Book Synopsis German Pioneers on the American Frontier by : Andreas Reichstein

Download or read book German Pioneers on the American Frontier written by Andreas Reichstein and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wilhelm Wagner (1803-1877), son of Peter Wagner, was born in Dürkheim, Germany. He married Friedericke Odenwald (1812-1893). They had nine children. They emigrated and settled in Illinois. His brother, Julius Wagner (1816-1903) married Emilie M. Schneider (1820-1896). They had seven children. They emigrated and settled in Texas.

Spying on the South

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101980303
Total Pages : 514 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis Spying on the South by : Tony Horwitz

Download or read book Spying on the South written by Tony Horwitz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times-bestselling final book by the beloved, Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Tony Horwitz. With Spying on the South, the best-selling author of Confederates in the Attic returns to the South and the Civil War era for an epic adventure on the trail of America's greatest landscape architect. In the 1850s, the young Frederick Law Olmsted was adrift, a restless farmer and dreamer in search of a mission. He found it during an extraordinary journey, as an undercover correspondent in the South for the up-and-coming New York Times. For the Connecticut Yankee, pen name "Yeoman," the South was alien, often hostile territory. Yet Olmsted traveled for 14 months, by horseback, steamboat, and stagecoach, seeking dialogue and common ground. His vivid dispatches about the lives and beliefs of Southerners were revelatory for readers of his day, and Yeoman's remarkable trek also reshaped the American landscape, as Olmsted sought to reform his own society by creating democratic spaces for the uplift of all. The result: Central Park and Olmsted's career as America's first and foremost landscape architect. Tony Horwitz rediscovers Yeoman Olmsted amidst the discord and polarization of our own time. Is America still one country? In search of answers, and his own adventures, Horwitz follows Olmsted's tracks and often his mode of transport (including muleback): through Appalachia, down the Mississippi River, into bayou Louisiana, and across Texas to the contested Mexican borderland. Venturing far off beaten paths, Horwitz uncovers bracing vestiges and strange new mutations of the Cotton Kingdom. Horwitz's intrepid and often hilarious journey through an outsized American landscape is a masterpiece in the tradition of Great Plains, Bad Land, and the author's own classic, Confederates in the Attic.

War and Peace on the Rio Grande Frontier, 1830–1880

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Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806167025
Total Pages : 509 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

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Book Synopsis War and Peace on the Rio Grande Frontier, 1830–1880 by : Miguel Ángel González-Quiroga

Download or read book War and Peace on the Rio Grande Frontier, 1830–1880 written by Miguel Ángel González-Quiroga and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historical record of the Rio Grande valley through much of the nineteenth century reveals well-documented violence fueled by racial hatred, national rivalries, lack of governmental authority, competition for resources, and an international border that offered refuge to lawless men. Less noted is the region’s other everyday reality, one based on coexistence and cooperation among Mexicans, Anglo-Americans, and the Native Americans, African Americans, and Europeans who also inhabited the borderlands. War and Peace on the Rio Grande Frontier, 1830–1880 is a history of these parallel worlds focusing on a border that gave rise not only to violent conflict but also cooperation and economic and social advancement. Meeting here are the Anglo-Americans who came to the border region to trade, spread Christianity, and settle; Mexicans seeking opportunity in el norte; Native Americans who raided American and Mexican settlements alike for plunder and captives; and Europeans who crisscrossed the borderlands seeking new futures in a fluid frontier space. Historian Miguel Ángel González-Quiroga draws on national archives, letters, consular records, periodicals, and a host of other sources to give voice to borderlanders’ perspectives as he weaves their many, varied stories into one sweeping narrative. The tale he tells is one of economic connections and territorial disputes, of refugees and bounty hunters, speculation and stakeholding, smuggling and theft and other activities in which economic considerations often carried more weight than racial prejudice. Spanning the Anglo settlement of Texas in the 1830s, the Texas Revolution, the Republic of Texas , the US-Mexican War, various Indian wars, the US Civil War, the French intervention into Mexico, and the final subjugation of borderlands Indians by the combined forces of the US and Mexican armies, this is a magisterial work that forever alters, complicates, and enriches borderlands history. Published in association with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas

New Towns in the New World

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Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780231066204
Total Pages : 404 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (662 download)

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Book Synopsis New Towns in the New World by : David Allan Hamer

Download or read book New Towns in the New World written by David Allan Hamer and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hamer has written a broad, comparative overview of the evolution of British-derived urban traditions in four former colonies: the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Sanctioning Matrimony

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Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 0816533768
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (165 download)

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Book Synopsis Sanctioning Matrimony by : Sal Acosta

Download or read book Sanctioning Matrimony written by Sal Acosta and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2016-05-12 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marriage, divorce, birth, baptism, and census records are the essential records of a community. Through them we see who marries, who divorces, and how many children are born. Sal Acosta has studied a broad base of these vital records to produce the largest quantitative study of intermarriage of any group in the West. Sanctioning Matrimony examines intermarriage in the Tucson area between 1860 and 1930. Unlike previous studies on intermarriage, this book examines not only intermarriages of Mexicans with whites but also their unions with blacks and Chinese. Following the Treaty of Mesilla (1853), interethnic relationships played a significant part in the Southwest. Acosta provides previously unseen archival research on the scope and tenor of interracial marriages in Arizona. Contending that scholarship on intermarriage has focused on the upper classes, Acosta takes us into the world of the working and lower classes and illuminates how church and state shaped the behavior of participants in interracial unions. Marriage practices in Tucson reveal that Mexican women were pivotal in shaping family and social life between 1854 and 1930. Virtually all intermarriages before 1900 were, according to Acosta, between Mexican women and white men, or between Mexican women and blacks or Chinese until the 1920s, illustrating the importance of these women during the transformation of Tucson from a Mexican pueblo to an American town. Acosta’s deep analysis of vital records, census data, and miscegenation laws in Arizona demonstrates how interethnic relationships benefited from and extended the racial fluidity of the Arizona borderlands.