In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

448Southwestern Historical QuarterlyApril ing to die ayuntamiento. The glossary of names and places at die end, unlike the calendars of the minutes and die appendices, does not provide page numbers, the authors opting instead for a searchable CD. This may be awkward for those without a computer. John R. McLean, recently retired from IBM, used his expertise to include not only die searchable CD, but an unusual way of printing the historic documents. He uses a variety of fonts to differentiate the stamps on the paper from die printed laws, die title, the manuscript material, modern material, and the signatures. Scholars, long used to the challenge of reading historic documents in print, will be pleased to find that the various fonts, although confusing at first, make the material surprisingly readable. The accompanying CD includes not only his father's translations, which can be searched using key words, but the facsimiles of the documents, which scholars and students can read for themselves and compare to die translations. This book is an ideal source of information for scholars interested in the details of early Texas history. The minutes cover day-to-day activities in die small town as well as complaints about die many problems faced by the underfunded and often ignored community. It is not, however, a history of Goliad. The reader unfamiliar with the topic may be frustrated by the sometimes confusing, often unfinished stories and the uncompleted business of the council. Malcolm McLean states that his purpose is to provide "one more tool to help them understand more fully our cultural heritage" (p. xvii) and he hopes to whet die curiosity of "future generations of Texas historians." (p. xvii) He hopes readers will use this material as a starting point for books and articles about early Texas. There is little doubt that the examples he includes in the introduction and die many fascinating but all too brief stories throughout the minutes will encourage present and future students, teachers, scholars, and laymen to use this book as a launching pad for writing more histories about early Texas. Sam Houston State UniversityCarolina Castillo Crimm Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861. By Raúl Ramos. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. Pp. 310. Illustrations, tables, map, notes, index. ISBN 9780807832073, $35.00 cloth.) In diis work, Raúl Ramos captures a community's survival through the turmoil of changes in sovereignty; from Spanish to Mexican, to Texan, to American, and then to Confederate, he traces the evolution of die Tejano identity, one that is far more complex than the particular "Mexican" categorization attributed to Bexareños (San Antonians) at time of the Texas Revolution, hence the "Beyond the Alamo" in the title. Each of those major transitions—Mexican Independence, the Texas Revolution (which Ramos refers to as "the War of Texas Secession"), the U.S.-Mexico War, and the American Civil War—has an extensive historiography, but the literature overlooks the Bexareños, leaving only the impression of a society battered by larger geopolitical forces when, 20ogBook Reviews44g in fact, the members of that community took active roles to safeguard their interests. As Bexareños sought a role for diemselves amidst swirling developments, they unavoidably began to see diemselves differendy, not in terms of nationalism as traditionally defined as allegiance to the state, but by way of a changed identity that combined local elements, which included family connections, religion, language , and race, and wider bonds such as governmental structures and economic networks. On die periphery of New Spain, Bexareños had grappled with colonial officials from distant metropolises, eidier in Mexico or Spain, while diey bargained widi Indians in Apacheria and Comanchena, die lands of die nomads farther north. From dieir "middle ground," Bexareños learned die skills of negotiating with external worlds long before they seized the opportunities presented to diem by the advancing American population and economy. Adapting to the Texan and American realities would, of course, entail major worldview shifts for the Bexaños. Before 1836, the principal determinant of Tejano society was class. There had been, to be sure, a complex casta (caste) system in which die degree of racial mixture...

pdf

Share