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 Angel GonzAlez-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
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