This one-volume treatment of the Spanish period in Texas history does not purport to break new substantive or interpretative ground; it is intended instead to synthesize a wide range of published sources and random archival data. It takes the form of a chronological narrative, emphasizing political history as it was played out through exploration, conquest, administration, and institutions. Economic, social, and cultural history, while not completely ignored, are ancillary to the political story. The chronology (offered in ten chapters) adheres to traditional periodization in highlighting the early sixteenth-century explorations; the interval of neglect for the next century-and-a-half; the French challenges; the erratic eighteenth-century occupation of Texas by settlers, soldiers, and missionaries; and threats from an expanding United States in the nineteenth century. Framing these chapters are the first chapter, on land and people, and the last, on legacies.
One of the strengths of the book is that Donald Chipman provides not only an imperial, but also a Mexican context for Texas colonial history. In this sense, the volume aptly reflects his training with France V. Scholes more than a generation ago at the University of New Mexico. That historiographic tradition nurtured a number of well-researched monographs on early colonial Mexico, including Chipman’s earlier book on Nuño de Guzmán [Nuño de Guzmán and the Province of Pánuco in New Spain, 1518–1533 (1967)], and it continues to inform the present work. Thus this book does not address some of the concerns of the present generation of scholars preoccupied with a more complex cultural understanding of relations between Indians and Spaniards. This is apparent in the first chapter, an overview of geographical features and indigenous groups present at contact. Descriptions of the latter here and throughout the book tend to echo contemporary European assessments. Although these are not the author’s views, he does not counter them with analyses of indigenous practices that might make them seem less exotic or aberrant. Telling the story through Spanish eyes leaves the reader with a limited appreciation of Texas’ original inhabitants, who are deemed to have been inevitably doomed by the Europeans’ “superior organization and technology” (p. 249).
The author is on more familiar ground when he describes the exploits of explorers, military commanders, administrators, and Franciscans, whose loyalty to king and cross are judged as admirable. Much of the Texas colonial story is told through the biographies of “great men,” beginning with the author’s “favorite Spaniard in Texas, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (p. xiii). Here Chipman contributes to the ongoing debate over the exact route of Cabeza de Vaca’s eight-year journey. In the end, the efforts of individuals could not overcome the effects of a less-than-vigorous, defensive Spanish imperial policy for Texas.
The chronological narrative ends in 1821 with Mexican independence; the subsequent story of Anglo Americans’ racial prejudice toward their Spanish and Mexican predecessors is only alluded to. The last chapter, on legacies, includes discussions of Spanish colonial precedents in Texas law, ranching, architecture, music, language, and religion. This section could be enhanced if it were elaborated in the context of the demographic history of Texas since 1821, and especially in terms of recent trends that highlight the rapidly growing Hispanic population. With its extensive notes and bibliography, Chipman’s book comprises an exhaustive compilation. It is the best single reference on Texas colonial history from the perspective of European explorers, missionaries, and policymakers.
