James T DeShields

Border Wars of Texas James T DeShields

Texas has always lived up to its nickname of the Lone Star state; its rough, tough frontier status and its constant wars with Mexicans and American Indians made it the epitome of the Wild West. This classic account of the border wars of white settlers against the Indians was written in 1912, when the conflicts were well within living memory, and its style reflects the triumphalist view of America's Anglo-Saxon manifest destiny, and its God-given right to lord it over 'inferior' savages'. None the less, DeShields supports the conciliatory policies of Texas's favourite son, Sam Houston. DeShields' work, which used Texas' earliest historical sources such as John Henry Brown, John W. Wilbarger, and Henderson King Yoakum, is made invaluable by his extensive use of other primary source material such as his numerous turn-of-the-century interviews and correspondence with early Texas Rangers and frontiersmen who were yet living. Many of his accounts are found nowhere else in publications of Texas history and thus provide fresh insights into the history of Texas' wars against the Indians.