A month ago I bought the book by Armando C. Alonso titled “Tejano Legacy: Rancheros and Settlers in South Texas, 1734 – 1900”. I bought it in an effort to understand how the way of life for my wife’s family might have had been. Her paternal side of the family can be found arriving in South Texas in the early 1860’s. Now her maternal side, you could say that many of her ancestors were between some of the firs settlers in the settling of Nuevo Santander. One of her ancestors bought three land grants from the original grantees a few years after they received their land. Those three land grants now form parts of Starr and Hidalgo Counties. This book provided great insight.
This book focuses on describing the land and ranching legacy of South Texas Tejanos. Let me quote the book “It examines the creation of frontier communities during the Spanish and early Mexican period and the persistence of those communities following the United States’ occupation of the Lower Valley during the Mexican-American War”.
This book is also packed with historical data and the list of sources is invaluable. If you are a descendant from the early settlers i highly recommend that you read this book. Below is more information about the book.
Cover of Book: Tejano Legacy: Rancheros and Settlers in South Texas, 1734 – 1900
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$11.98 Used and $25.22 New Buy Now
Description of book by Amazon:
This is a pathbreaking study of Tejano ranchers and settlers in the Lower RÃo Grande Valley from their colonial roots to 1900. The first book to delineate and assess the complexity of Mexican-Anglo interaction in south Texas, it also shows how Tejanos continued to play a leading role in the commercialization of ranching after 1848 and how they maintained a sense of community. Despite shifts in jurisdiction, the tradition of Tejano land holding acted as a stabilizing element and formed an important part of Tejano history and identity. The earliest settlers arrived in the 1730s and established numerous ranchos and six towns along the river. Through a careful study of land and tax records, brands and bills of sale of livestock, wills, population and agricultural censuses, and oral histories, Alonzo shows how Tejanos adapted to change and maintained control of their ranchos through the 1880s, when Anglo encroachment and changing social and economic conditions eroded most of the community’s land base.
Table of Contents:
Here is the table of contents of this book so that you may know exactly what it contains.
- Spaniards, Indians, and the Inhospitable Seno Mexicano
2. Hacia la Frontera
  The Origins of Spanish and Mexican Society in Present-Day South Texas, 1730s-1848
3. Early Economic Life in the Lower Rio Grande Frontier, 1730s-1848
4. The Making of a Tejano Homeland in South Texas, 1848-1900
5. Losing Ground
  Anglo Challenges to Mexican Landholders and Land Grant Adjudication in South Texas, 1846-1900
6. A Case Study of Tejano Land Tenure in Hidalgo County, Texas 1848-1900
7. Recovery and Expansion of Tejano Ranching in South Texas, 1848-1885
9. The Decline of Tejano Ranching
  Its Social and Economic Bases, 1885-1900
EPILOGUE
Appendix I. Definition of Terms
Appendix 2. A Note on Sources
Appendix 3. Livestock Transactions Recorded in HidalgoCounty, Texas 1874-1899
Appendix 4. Livestock Transactions in Webb County, Texas 1876-1890
About the Author:
Professor Armando Alonzo is a borderlands scholar in the History department at Texas A&M University.
Get Your Copy of This Book:
At the moment of writing this the only place that I could find it was at Amazon.com and was selling starting at $11.98 used and $25.22 new. If you are interested in buying this book click here BUY NOW to buy from Amazon.
I hope that you find this book useful and informative as I have. Please let me know in the comment area of what you thought about this book.
Great book Moises, read it a few years back.
It is a great book, I loved reading it.