Juan Seguin - Robert Hollmann

Juan Seguin.

By Robert Hollmann.

Durban House, 2007. Frontier Legends Series. Paperback, 112 pages. ISBN 1-9300754-95-7 www.durbanhouse.com

This Hollmann, http://www.lonestarlegends.org/., volume follows his Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. Seguin was indeed one of the essential people in his time. Unlike his previous time-trunk and friendly dog companion, Hollmann uses a more direct device – a life-long friend of Seguin to provide the framework of the biography. And as a childish extra, Hollmannn injects the juvenile competitiveness for racing as a recurring option. The reader is introduced to Seguin’s family, long established in Texas, and within pages finds Seguin meeting Stephen Austin and a line of colonial notables important to the Texas Revolution.

Seguin and his associates are concerned about Santa Anna’s aggressive manner and throw in with the developing stronger democratic tradition of the times, unlike the Seguin family’s support of the counter-revolution against Las Casas in 1811. Bowie becomes one of the favorites because of his ties to San Antonio and his marriage into the Veramendi family. Seguin commands the scouts looking for Santa Anna’s arrival.

Eventually, his men become a part of the Alamo garrison, but he is detailed specifically as messenger to Sam Houston and is ultimately spared from the Alamo soldiery’s bloodbath. But Seguin continues on to become an officer at the Battle of San Jacinto after convincing Houston that his Tejano troops have earned the right to battle. After the battle, Houston asks Seguin to superintend the burial of the Alamo defenders.

The volume ends there without reference to his government service thereafter or the later tragedy of Seguin’s demise partly due to prejudice. Seguin died in 1890.

Tejano Roots - Dan Arellano

Tejano Roots: A Family Legend.

By Dan Arellano. Austin: the author (POB 43012, zip 78704), 2005. Paperback with colored cover, 1 map, photos, bibliography and index, 8 ½ x 11, 194 pages ISBN 0-615-12994-3 $22.95
http://www.tejanoroots.org/ darellano@austin.rr.com

Arellano, a native of San Antonio, used Tejano legends as fuel to study history and to open another part of the American adventure for you - stories often unknown to modern Texans. It is presented in two parts.
Part I covers the “First Texas Revolution” that was sparked by Father Hidalgo’s 1810 Mexican Revolution. The 1811 San Antonio Las Casas overthrow of the Spanish monarchy spread to many sections of the land and held sway for a brief time. The Gutierrez – Magee Expedition followed, being described by Arellano’s accounts of the Battle of Alazan, the establishment of a Republic, and its folding after the August 13, 1813 Battle of Medina, near San Antonio and still without a major historical marker at the site.

Part II begins with covering the “The Pecking Order or The Caste System” of the time – the Conquistador Spaniard, the peninsulares, the criollos, the mestizos, the indios, and the negroes. The subsequent chapters cover life for the Coahuiltecan Indians and the Tlaxcallan Indians (who often are simply counted of Spanish descendent) and the famous 15 Canary Islander (Los Islenos) immigrant families usually considered San Antonio’s 1730s founders, despite folks (mostly mestizos and soldiers) already having been there.

The next chapters recount the author’s efforts to re-capture his legacy. Subsequent tables population figures and lists of Canary Islanders, the Compania Precidial de Bejar, the muster list of the Alamo de Parras Company, and the Arellano family tree.

Search for Texas - Bobby McKinney

A Search for Texas:

The Revolution - the Republic – the Relics, 1836-1846.

By Bobby J. McKinney. Rosenberg: Mouth of Caney, (2314 Jones, 77471), 2006. Revised edition. Photos (some color), map, bibliography, 129 pages. $21.95 hardback with color, pictorial cover ISBN 978-0-9789308-0-6 dugatmc@sbcglobal.net http://brazosrelics.com/

Bobby McKinney has dug up the dirt on Texas, especially the dirt in and around the counties neighboring the lowest Brazos River but as far away as Saltillo, and his book shows you what he and others have found. This includes over 200 photographs of buttons, plates, insignia, ordnance, weapons, and personal effects from both armies and navies and occasional personal and religious relics. Most of the relics, in sharp photos, date from the 1790s to the 1840s with a little oozing on both ends. The earliest seems to be a Jesuit ring of the 1730s found near Victoria. They are intriguing so get a chair when you pick up the volume.

The author has spent years following the army trails of the revolting Texans and the forces of president-dictator Santa Anna. McKinney divides the book into chapters: Dinero (yes, that’s money); Buttons; Buckles-Plates-Insignia; and the like. The photo commentary is usually a date, type of relic with occasional gestures of detail, and location of discovery, but occasionally the inveterate digger breaks into full paragraphs of explanation. The coins’ artwork is wonderfully diverse and alluring. The buttons show fine detail and domestic simplicity – stars abound – and some are clearly U.S. military issue. Many of the photos focus on weaponry – blades, barrels, balls, lock plates, flints and such. The final chapter surveys historical markers in the bottomland and elsewhere.

McKinney traces himself to a signer of the Declaration of Independence and looks comfortable under the trees.