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.

Six scholars consider important aspects of American antebellum expansion in this collection of studies newly available in paperback.Robert W. Johannsen of the University of Illinois at Urbana offers fresh insight into the meaning of the term ""manifest destiny,"" arguing for a broader definition.John M. Belohlavek of the University of South Florida takes a close look at the expansionist attitudes of Caleb Cushing, a Massachusetts politician, diplomat, reformer, and intellectual.Thomas R. Hietala of Grinnell College examines the complicated clash of cultures (the result of Manifest Destiny) and how it was viewed by observant individuals such as George Catlin, a painter who traveled and lived among Native Americans just prior to the expansionist surge of the 1840s.Winner of the Webb essay competition for 1996, Samuel J. Watson of Rice University studies U.S. Army officers' responses to territorial expansionism between 1815 and 1846. Sam W. Haynes uncovers the social and political complexities, including a widespread fear of Great Britain, that made Texas' annexation the most divisive issue of its day. Finally, Robert E. May of Purdue University offers a compelling examination of American filibustering during the Manifest Destiny era.

The Somervell and Mier Expeditions of 1842, culminating in the famous "black bean episode" in which Texas prisoners drew white or black beans to determine who would be executed by their Mexican captors, still capture the public imagination in Texas. But were the Texans really martyrs in a glorious cause, or undisciplined soldiers defying their own government? How did the Mier Expedition affect the border disputes between the Texas Republic and Mexico? What role did Texas President Sam Houston play? These are the questions that Sam Haynes addresses in this very readable book, which includes many dramatic excerpts from the diaries and letters of expedition participants.