In 1988 Gerald Poyo and Gilberto Hinojosa published a landmark article in the Journal of American History titled “Spanish Texas and Borderlands Historiography in Transition: Implications for United States History.” That provocative study postulated reasons for the emergence of provincial elites in colonial Texas. Their book brings together essays that trace the origins and accomplishments of Tejanos (original founders) in eighteenth-century San Antonio de Béxar. The contributors include Jesús F. de la Teja of Southwest Texas State University; John Wheat, chief translator of the Béxar Archives; Elizabeth A. H. John, an independent scholar who resides in Austin; and the editors themselves. The seven essays are tightly organized, each one containing an introduction, a series of subtopics, and a conclusion. And they are of remarkably even quality.
An important contribution of this small book is to dispel the widespread notion that little that was meaningful occurred in the history of San Antonio until the arrival in 1731 of 55 Canary Islanders (Isleños) and the founding of the formal villa of San Fernando de Béxar. In actuality, soldiers and a small civilian population, present from 1718 onward, contributed significantly to the roots of the community at Béxar.
In the 1730s the Isleños proved both fractious and litigious, quarreling with and instituting civil actions against the missionaries, soldiers, and original Bexareños. For a time the prospect of an integrated and viable community at Béxar seemed very remote. As the essays indicate, however, a variety of circumstances soon vitiated the Islanders’ presumption of exclusivity.
Even in the first generation, Isleños generally intermarried with the older settlers. Shared dangers on the remote frontier, especially Apache raids on San Antonio in the 1730s and later Comanche attacks, mandated a spirit of cooperation, not confrontation. Hispanized Indians melded with the white population because less-rigid social arrangements permitted darker-skinned persons to “pass” more easily into the European-born community. The slight differences between the wealthiest and poorest families contributed to greater harmony. Later immigrants, and even some Indians independent of the five missions at San Antonio, were also integrated and accepted into the Béxar community.
This remarkably well edited volume has already won the prestigious Presidio La Bahía Award. The illustrations by noted artist José Cisneros add attractiveness to a book that makes an important contribution to Tejano and Borderlands historiography.
