Frontier Naturalist: Jean Louis Berlandier and the Exploration of Northern Mexico and Texas by Russell M. Lawson (review)

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In 2000, Jack Jackson published an edited volume of General Manuel Mier y Terán’s diary that he kept during his inspection tour of Texas in 1828. More than a decade later, Russell M. Lawson has produced a biography focusing on the naturalist Jean Louis Berlandier, who was an integral part of Terán’s expedition. Frontier Naturalist: Jean Louis Berlandier and the Exploration of Northern Mexico and Texas provides detailed insight into the life of a minor historical character whose works and contributions inject color and new perspectives into one of the most turbulent periods in Texas history.

Lawson begins his study with Darius Couch. The future Civil War general visited Matamoros in 1853 with the intention of engaging upon a protracted mission of scientific discovery. What he found and came to possess were the documents and scientific specimens left by the recently deceased Berlandier. Born in Switzerland, Berlandier had been mentored by the renowned Swiss naturalist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. It was Candolle who arranged for his pupil to travel to Mexico in 1828 and bring back botanical samples for the University of Geneva. Soon after arriving in Mexico, Berlandier became attached to the Mexican Boundary Commission expedition led by General Mier y Terán. After concluding his work with the Boundary Commission, Berlandier stayed on in the region, settling in Matamoros and exploring the surrounding lands. In time he became a respected local figure, using his knowledge to attend to the medical needs of the local community. He would never return to his country of origin, dying in 1851 while trying to cross the swollen Rio San Fernando.

About three-fifths of the book is dedicated to the inspection tour with the Boundary Commission, and it is here that the reader is provided a leisurely description of the land, the people and the biota that inhabited the space between the Rio Grande and the Brazos River. To readers who are familiar with this landscape, Lawson’s descriptions provide significant insight into a place that yielded a plethora of scientific and anthropological riches. His analysis of the intersection of European and Native American cultures in the region speaks of a time when accommodation rather than outright domination defined relationships between the two groups. Lawson provides considerable detail concerning Berlandier’s impressions of native tribes like the Kickapoo, Lipan Apache, and the Comanche. In addition, the reader is given Berlandier’s perspective on such important personalities as Manuel Mier y Terán and Stephen F. Austin. The beauty of this volume is the details, and that is why I would recommend that a potential reader become fully acquainted with the geography and relevant history of the time and region to enjoy the full richness of this volume.

The book contains a certain number of period maps and illustrations. Unfortunately, while Lawson alludes continuously to the multiple and well detailed cultural and biological illustrations that Berlandier produced in his diary, none of these images are reproduced in this volume. I am curious to know...