Author: Hubert G. H. WilhelmPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Germans
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
Organized German Settlement and Its Effects on the Frontier of South-central Texas
Author: Hubert G. H. WilhelmPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Germans
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
Organized German Bettlement and its effects on the frontier of south-central Texas
Author: Hubert G. H. WilhelmThe Effect of the American Frontier Upon the German Immigrants of South-Central Texas, 1845-1848
Author: Bruce D. SaundersPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Frontier thesis
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
Immigrant Settlers and Frontier Citizens: German Texas in the American Empire, 1835--1890
Author: Julia Akinyi BrookinsPublisher:
ISBN: 9781303422416
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 435
Book Description
Beginning in the 1840s, large-scale German migration to Texas created a sizable and distinctive ethnic community in a region essential to U.S. territorial expansion at Mexico's expense. The United States was a young republic whose unity was strained by the scale of its land claims and by the cultural divisions that mass foreign migrations brought with them. It was an open question whether European immigrants would integrate into the American nation. What role would a large foreign population play at the edges of an unproven empire? This dissertation uses press, private, and government sources, as well as secondary literature, about Germans in Central Texas from the 1840s to the 1880s to explore ideas and practices of race and nationalism in the U.S. Southwest. It traces how immigrants' concepts of citizenship and nation from the German states of Central Europe interacted with local social structures and political opportunities on the Southwestern frontier to cement immigrants' affinity for the U.S. nation, including its federal institutions. German immigrants were diverse in background, aspirations, and political beliefs, but as a whole, I argue, the migration had certain discernible effects on society in Central Texas. Germans in Texas tended to emphasize the importance of cultural diversity against Anglo-American hegemony. At the same time, however, they advocated for U.S. territorial conquest in spite of its deleterious consequences for other minority groups--particularly native Tejanos, Mexican immigrants, and indigenous Indians. In the case of German-Texans, this combination of assertively maintaining ethnic culture while actively supporting U.S. nation-building allowed them to operate successfully within Anglo-American legal and political structures. I argue that their conceptualization of citizenship, while it was not unique to Germans in Texas, is important to our understanding of what it meant for the United States to become a nation of immigrants.
The German Texas Frontier in 1853
Author: Daniel J. GeloPublisher: University of North Texas Press
ISBN: 1574419382
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Ferdinand Lindheimer was already renowned as the father of Texas botany when, in late 1852, he became the founding editor of the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung, a German-language weekly newspaper for the German settler community on the Central Texas frontier. His first year of publication was a pivotal time for the settlers and the American Indians whose territories they occupied. Based on an analysis of the paper’s first year—and drawing on methods from documentary and narrative history, ethnohistory, and literary analysis—Daniel J. Gelo and Christopher J. Wickham deliver a new chronicle of the frontier in 1853. In keeping with Lindheimer’s background as a naturalist, the natural resources available are a constant subject for reporting. One special concern is the availability and ownership of wood, so essential for building lumber, fencing, and fuel. Most dramatically, the discovery of trace amounts of gold encouraged prospecting by German and Anglo settlers, which later influenced decisions to remove Indians to reservations. The activities of the area’s Indian peoples emerge in weekly details not found in other sources. Some Lipan Apaches are killed when the army does not learn of their peaceful intentions; restitution is made at Fredericksburg. A settler named Gadt is murdered, and Tonkawas are suspected. A horse raid southeast of San Antonio is blamed on the Lipans but turns out to be the work of non-Indians in disguise. The Delawares are driven temporarily to Indian Territory. Comanche men leave their families at Fort Chadbourne to embark on a raid against the Lipans. The Penateka band of Comanches honors the peace agreement they signed with the Germans six years earlier, but their days in the region are numbered. Lindheimer enhances the reportage with lengthy features on related subjects and exerts a strong editorial voice as he seeks to influence the development of a distinctive Texas German identity. His work, explained in this new study, will appeal not only to students of Texas history and ecology, Indigenous populations, immigration, intercultural encounters, and nineteenth-century Americana, but also to general readers who enjoy the rediscovery of hidden history.
Sam Houston
Author: John Hoyt WilliamsPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0671880713
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 456
Book Description
Against the tumultuous backdrop of early Texas history, Williams sketches a vivid portrait of a truly American legend. Map.
The German Settlement of the Texas Hill Country
Author: Jefferson MorgenthalerPublisher: Mockingbird Books
ISBN: 9781932801262
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
This is the story of the founding of New Braunfels, Fredericksburg, Boerne, Comfort and the other German settlements of the Texas Hill Country. Refugees from economic and social strife in Germany, followed by idealistic communalists and liberal political refugees, came to the Hill Country looking for freedom and opportunity. Landing on the windswept shores of Matagorda Bay, they traced a path across the plains, seeking a future in the hills beyond. There they found a raw, untamed realm where few but Comanches dared go. Reaching for a promised land beyond the Llano River, the earliest immigrants soon realized that their dream was beyond their grasp, and had no choice but to adapt to the realities of the Texas frontier. Some fared well. Others succumbed to disease, injury, hunger and violence. Most stayed, but some retreated to less challenging locales. A remarkable few established outposts of intellectual fervor in pioneer settlements, debating the great ideas of the day in drafty log cabins. Bringing with them traditions and perspectives rooted in the feudal and despotic European past, the Germans learned to adjust to Texan and American notions, only to find themselves divided by the great controversy over slavery and secession. This is a story of hardy, industrious people transplanted into the most challenging of circumstances. It is a story of Texan pioneers.
Roots of Home
Author: Russell VersaciPublisher: Taunton Press
ISBN: 1627107185
Category : House & Home
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
Both an architectural feast and field guide for creating new old houses, "Roots of Home "traces the development of today's traditional homes from the earliest colonial styles in a visually stunning journey. Russell Versaci takes you back to the beginning, when our ancestors built homes that reflected their Old World pasts tempered with the New World realities. As they settled new territories, they carried the homes of their forefathers with them like a touchstone. They sowed farms and towns with houses similar to the ones they left behind, but suited to the new climates and materials surrounding them. Each old-house style showcased, though always decidedly American--New England Colonial, Pennsylvania Dutch, French Creole, Spanish Mission--represents the cumulative history of generations adapting to new places. With Russell Versaci as your guide, you will see how yesterday's houses evolved into the classic homes we love today and you will learn how to create a new old house that evokes ageless character.
The History of the German Settlements in Texas
Author: Rudolph Leopold BieselePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
Secession and the Union in Texas
Author: Walter L. BuengerPublisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292739958
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
In 1845 Texans voted overwhelmingly to join the Union. They voted just as overwhelmingly to secede in 1861. The story of why and how that happened is filled with colorful characters, such as the aged Sam Houston, and with the southwestern flavor of raiding Comanches, German opponents of slavery, and a border with Mexico. Texas was unique among the seceding states because of its ambivalence toward secession. Yet for all its uniqueness the story of the secession of Texas has broad implications for the secession movement in general. Despite the local color and the southwestern nature of the state, Texas was more southern than western in 1860. Texans supported the Union or insisted upon secession for reasons common to the South and to the whole nation. Most Texans in 1860 were recent immigrants from southern and border states. They still thought and acted like citizens of their former states. The newness of Texas then makes it a particularly appropriate place from which to draw conclusions about the entire secession movement. Secession and the Union in Texas is both a narrative of secession in Texas and a case study of the causes of secession in a southern state. Politics play a key role in this history, but politics broadly defined to include the influence of culture, partisanship, ideology, and self-interest. As any study of a mass movement carried out in tense circumstances must be, this is social history as well as political history. It is a study of public hysteria, the pressure for consensus, and the vanishing of a political process in which rational debate about secession and the Union could take place. Although relying primarily on traditional sources such as manuscript collections and newspapers, a particularly rich source for this study, the author also uses election returns, population shifts over the course of the 1850s, and the breakdown of population within Texas counties to provide a balanced approach. These sources indicate that Texans were not simply secessionists or unionists. At the end of 1860 Texans ranged from ardent secessionists to equally passionate supporters of the Union. But the majority fell in between these two extremes, creating an atmosphere of ambivalence toward secession which was not erased even by the war.