The Spanish Borderlands

The classic history of the Spanish frontier from Florida to California.

In the early years of the twentieth century, Herbert Eugene Bolton opened up a new area of study in American history: the Spanish Borderlands. His research took him to the archives of Mexico, where he found a wealth of unpublished, even unknown, material that shed new light on the early history of North America, particularly the American Southwest. The seventeen essays in this book, edited by John Francis Bannon, illustrate the importance of his contributions to American historiography and provide a solid foundation for students of Borderlands history.

First published in 1921, this classic monograph is the cornerstone of Spanish Borderlands historical research. Bolton argues that Anglophilic American history should give equal weight to Spain, which occupied North America longer than any other European colonial power and whose social and cultural legacy was firmly imprinted on the continent. In beautiful narrative prose, Bolton recounts the Spanish exploration and the permanent settlement of Old Florida, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and California. Albert L. Hurtado tells the fascinating story of the writing and editing of The Spanish Borderlands and places the volume in historiographical context.

Winner of the 1993 Western Heritage Award given by the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, here is a definitive history of the Spanish colonial period in North America. Authoritative and colorful, the volume focuses on both the Spaniards' impact on Native Americans and the effect of North Americans on Spanish settlers. "Splendid".--New York Times Book Review.

Herbert E. Bolton (1870-1953) was a distinguished historian who received a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1899. He was a Harrison Fellow while at Pennsylvania. Bolton quickly became an expert on Spanish colonies in the New World. Professor Bolton began his pioneering work on the Spanish Borderlands-an area that begins in Florida and extends along a "crescent shaped" land mass between Georgia and California-as a professor at UT Austin. Starting in 1902, he undertook several research trips to Mexico to examine archival materials relating to the United States. His first significant publication was a textbook coauthored with Eugene C. Barker, With the Makers of Texas: A Source Reader in Texas History (1904). After studying the history of native peoples in Texas for the United States Bureau of Ethnology, he wrote more than 100 articles for the Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. He continued to publish works about Texas after he left the region for California. Among these were Athanase de Mézières and the Louisiana-Texas Frontier, 1768-1780 (1914) and Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century: Studies in Spanish Colonial History and Administration (1915). Professor Bolton's research resulted in nearly 100 works, including approximately 24 books he either wrote or edited. In 1920, Bolton published The Spanish Borderlands, a comprehensive overview of the young United States' border with colonies still held by Spain at the beginning of the 19th century.

Riders across the centuries is a celebration of the several decades Jose Cisneros has decorated, with grace and consummate artistry, so many of the titles published by Texas Western Press.