Download or read book Los Brazos de Dios written by Sean M. Kelley and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians have long believed that the "frontier" shaped Texas plantation society, but in this detailed examination of Texas's most important plantation region, Sean M. Kelley asserts that the dominant influence was not the frontier but the Mexican Republic. The Lower Brazos River Valley -- the only slave society to take root under Mexican sovereignty -- made replication of eastern plantation culture extremely difficult and complicated. By tracing the synthesis of cultures, races, and politics in the region, Kelley reveals a distinct variant of southern slavery -- a borderland plantation society. Kelley opens by examining the four migration streams that defined the antebellum Brazos community: Anglo-Americans and their African American slaves who constituted the first two groups to immigrate; Germans who came after the Mexican government barred immigrants from the U.S. while encouraging those from Europe; and African-born slaves brought in through Cuba who ultimately made up the largest concentration of enslaved Africans in the antebellum South. Within this multicultural milieu, Kelley shows, the disparity between Mexican law and German practices complicated southern familial relationships and master-slave interaction. Though the Mexican policy on slavery was ambiguous, alternating between toleration and condemnation, Brazos slaves perceived the Rio Grande River as the boundary between white supremacy and racial egalitarianism. As a result, thousands fled across the border, further destabilizing the Brazos plantation society. In the1850s, nonslaveholding Germans also contributed to the upheaval by expressing a sense of ethnic solidarity in politics. In an attempt to undermine Anglo efforts to draw a sharp boundary between black and white, some Germans hid runaway slaves. Ultimately, Kelley demonstrates how the Civil War brought these issues to the fore, eroding the very foundations of Brazos plantation society. With Los Brazos de Dios, Kelley offers the first examination of Texas slavery as a borderland institution and reveals the difficulty with which southern plantation society was transplanted in the West.

Download or read book On a Mexican Mustang Through Texas from the Gulf to the Rio Grande written by Alexander Edwin Sweet and published by . This book was released on 1883 with total page 756 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Killing Storm written by Kathryn Casey and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2010-10-26 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a quiet afternoon in the park, four-year-old Joey plays in the sandbox, when a stranger approaches looking for his puppy. While Joey's mom, Crystal, talks on her cell phone, the stranger convinces the child to help search. By the time Crystal turns around, her son has disappeared. Yet her reaction is odd, not what one would expect from a distraught mother. Is Crystal somehow involved in her son's abduction? Meanwhile, on a ranch outside Houston, Texas Ranger Sarah Armstrong assesses a symbol left on the hide of a slaughtered longhorn, a figure that dates back to a forgotten era of sugarcane plantations and slavery. Soon other prizewinning bulls are butchered on the outskirts of the city, each bearing a similar drawing. The investigations converge at the same time a catastrophic hurricane looms in the Gulf. Finally, as dangerous winds and torrential rains pummel the city, Sarah is forced to risk her life to save Joey.

Download or read book Counterfeit Justice written by Dale Baum and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many of the forty years of her life as a slave, Azeline Hearne cohabitated with her wealthy, unmarried master, Samuel R. Hearne. She bore him four children, only one of whom survived past early childhood. When Sam died shortly after the Civil War ended, he publicly acknowledged his relationship with Azeline and bequeathed his entire estate to their twenty-year-old mulatto son, with the provision that he take care of his mother. When their son died early in 1868, Azeline inherited one of the most profitable cotton plantations in Texas and became one of the wealthiest ex-slaves in the former Confederacy. In Counterfeit Justice, Dale Baum traces Azeline's remarkable story, detailing her ongoing legal battles to claim and maintain her legacy. As Baum shows, Azeline's inheritance quickly made her a target for predatory whites determined to strip her of her land. A familiar figure at the Robertson County District Court from the late 1860s to the early 1880s, Azeline faced numerous lawsuits -- including one filed against her by her own lawyer. Samuel Hearne's family took steps to dispossess her, and other unscrupulous white men challenged the title to her plantation, using claims based on old Spanish land grants. Azeline's prolonged and courageous defense of her rightful title brought her a certain notoriety: the first freedwoman to be a party to three separate civil lawsuits appealed all the way to the Texas Supreme Court and the first former slave in Robertson County indicted on criminal charges of perjury. Although repeatedly blocked and frustrated by the convolutions of the legal system, she evolved from a bewildered defendant to a determined plaintiff who, in one extraordinary lawsuit, came tantalizingly close to achieving revenge against those who defrauded her for over a decade. Due to gaps in the available historical record and the unreliability of secondary accounts based on local Reconstruction folklore, many of the details of Azeline's story are lost to history. But Baum grounds his speculation about her life in recent scholarship on the Reconstruction era, and he puts his findings in context in the history of Robertson County. Although history has not credited Azeline Hearne with influencing the course of the law, the story of her uniquely difficult position after the Civil War gives an unprecedented view of the era and of one solitary woman's attempt to negotiate its social and legal complexities in her struggle to find justice. Baum's meticulously researched narrative will be of keen interest to legal scholars and to all those interested in the plight of freed slaves during this era.

Download or read book Unruly Waters written by Kenna Lang Archer and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Running more than 1,200 miles from headwaters in eastern New Mexico through the middle of Texas to the Gulf of Mexico, the Brazos River has frustrated developers for nearly two centuries. This environmental history of the Brazos traces the techniques that engineers and politicians have repeatedly used to try to manage its flow. The vast majority of projects proposed or constructed in this watershed were failures, undone by the geology of the river as much as the cost of improvement. When developers erected locks, the river changed course. When they built large-scale dams, floodwaters overflowed the concrete rims. When they constructed levees, the soils collapsed. Yet lawmakers and laypeople, boosters and engineers continued to work toward improving the river and harnessing it for various uses. Through the plight of the Brazos River Archer illuminates the broader commentary on the efforts to tame this nation’s rivers as well as its historical perspectives on development and technology. The struggle to overcome nature, Archer notes, reflects a quintessentially American faith in technology.

Download or read book Texas a World in Itself written by Perry, George Sessions and published by Pelican Publishing. This book was released on 1952 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Bodyguard written by Katherine Center and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Katherine Center's The Bodyguard is “My perfect 10 of a book. As funny and sweet as all the very best nineties rom-coms, but with Center’s signature heart-tugging depth. I wish I could erase it from my mind just to read it again for the first time. A shot of pure joy.”—Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers She’s got his back. Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindergarten teacher than somebody who could kill you with a wine bottle opener. Or a ballpoint pen. Or a dinner napkin. But the truth is, she’s an Executive Protection Agent (aka "bodyguard"), and she just got hired to protect superstar actor Jack Stapleton from his middle-aged, corgi-breeding stalker. He’s got her heart. Jack Stapleton’s a household name—captured by paparazzi on beaches the world over, famous for, among other things, rising out of the waves in all manner of clingy board shorts and glistening like a Roman deity. But a few years back, in the wake of a family tragedy, he dropped from the public eye and went off the grid. They’ve got a secret. When Jack’s mom gets sick, he goes home to the family’s Texas ranch to help out. Only one catch: He doesn’t want his family to know about his stalker. Or the bodyguard thing. And so Hannah—against her will and her better judgment—finds herself pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend as a cover. Even though her ex, says no one will believe it. What could possibly go wrong? Hannah hardly believes it, herself. But the more time she spends with Jack, the more real it all starts to seem. And there lies the heartbreak. Because it’s easy for Hannah to protect Jack. But protecting her own, long-neglected heart? That’s the hardest thing she’s ever done. “Great rollicking fun! Prepare to laugh and swoon and grin your pants off.”—Helen Hoang, New York Times bestselling author of The Heart Principle "Absolutely, unequivocally delightful!"—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here

Download or read book Conquering the Borderlands written by Lorraine Veisz and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2009-06 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In terms of United States history, the Borderlands are the territories, from "Alta California" to "La Florida," that formed the northern frontier of Spain's New World empire. Conquering the Borderlands relates their histories, landscapes, and cultures as they unfolded during the author's Southern Tier bicycle journey from San Diego to St. Augustine. The Southern Tier route intersects the paths of Spanish conquistadors, stagecoach routes, and cattle drives, all of which come alive in the pages of this book. A ferry across the Mississippi evokes Mark Twain's account of life on the river; Louisiana's bayous recall Evangeline, Longfellow's poem about the Acadian exile from Canada. Curious javelinas emerge on West Texas roads, carnivorous plants alongside Deep South highways. On a personal level, the author describes the rigors of the trip and the anxieties that spring from attempting a cross-country ride nearly forty years after the goal first captured her imagination. The author coined the term "chronological borderlands" for that stage in life when professional and family responsibilities have been met, and deferred dreams spring to life with a renewed sense of possibility, coupled with apprehension that physical limits may be closing the door. The books is not intended to replace travel guides and maps, but to serve as a valuable companion piece that can further enrich the experience of Southern Tier travel - by bicycle, car or armchair.

Download or read book A Woman of Fortune written by Kellie Coates Gilbert and published by Amnos Media Group. This book was released on 2020-01-02 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You never know what you’re really made of until you lose everything. Texas socialite Claire Massey is living the dream—designer clothes, luxury cars, stunning homes. But everything comes crashing down when her charming cattle broker husband is arrested for fraud. Suddenly she finds herself facing attorneys, a media frenzy, and a trail of broken hearts. Betrayed and humiliated, Claire must maneuver incredible odds to save her family—and discover a life worth living. Author Kellie Coates Gilbert delivers a story both poignant and emotionally gripping that celebrates the kind of fortune that lasts.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Texas written by Nancy Capace and published by North American Book Dist LLC. This book was released on 2001-02-01 with total page 1101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Freeport Harbor Channel Improvement Project Brazoria County written by and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Brief History of Texas from Its Earliest Settlement written by De Witt Clinton Baker and published by . This book was released on 1873 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Texas Scrap book written by De Witt Clinton Baker and published by . This book was released on 1875 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Shinnery written by Kate Anger and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2022-09 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reading the West Longlist for Debut Fiction Seventeen-year-old Jessa Campbell thrives on the Shinnery, her family's homestead in 1890s Texas, bordered by acres of shin oaks on the rolling plains. Without explanation her father sends her away to settle a family debt. A better judge of cattle than of men, Jessa becomes entangled with a bad one. Everything unravels after she puts her trust in Will Keyes. When Jessa returns home to the Shinnery, pregnant and alone, her father goes on a mission of frontier justice, with devastating consequences. In the aftermath Jessa fights for her claim to the family farm and for a life of independence for herself and her sisters. A story of coming-of-age, betrayal, and revenge, The Shinnery is inspired by the author's family history and a trial that shook the region.

Download or read book Mosaic written by Amy Grant and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2008-10-07 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of America's most popular music artists bares her heart and soul in her first autobiographical work. With honesty and depth, Grant offers poignant and often startling insights on motherhood, marriage, forgiveness, and faith--revealing a life blessed with jagged edges as well as vivid colors.

Download or read book The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike written by Zebulon Montgomery Pike and published by . This book was released on 1895 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sabine Crossing written by Jacquelyn Thompson and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2009-07 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eleven members of the Bradley family are clannishly close and solidly unified. At least they are until the oldest son, Thomas, breathes the name of Texas. When the family, in 1822, leaves the mountains of Kentucky for the wildness of what is northern Mexico, the matriarch, Elizabeth, climbs aboard the wagon nurturing a seething anger toward her son and her husband, Edward. In stonefaced silence, she feeds her bitterness mile after plodding mile. It takes her sister-in-law, Polly Boone Bradley, to make Elizabeth appreciate what she has rather than grieve for what she is losing. In time, as she sees her nine children thrive, Elizabeth comes to accept the raw new country, but it will be tragedy that finally gives her the heart of a Texan. When Letty, the headstrong seventh Bradley child, falls in love with her brother's partner, Brax Hall, and marries him, it seems a perfect union. And so it is in spite of Brax's older brother, Warren. Rich, educated and politically influential, Warren is also narcissistically self-absorbed. He allows nothing, nor anyone, to stand in the way of what he wants. A chain of events, triggered by Warren, forces Letty to leave her beloved family, and Texas, in order to protect her son. For seven years, she must call the Louisiana bayou country home, but, just as trouble forced her out of Texas, trouble gives her no choice but to return. Her fear begins as soon as she crosses the Sabine River, and it grows with each mile the wagon bumps east along the La Bahia Road.