Figure 1.4 Early Spanish exploration.

Figure 2.1 Frontier Institutions in Texas.

Figure 2.4 Indian Tribes of Colonial Texas.

Figure 3.2 Empresario Contracts.

Figure 3.5 Ethnic Settlements, 1836.

Figure 3.7 The Battle of San Jacinto.

Figure 4.1 The Republic of Texas and boundary claims.

Figure 4.3 Towns of the Republic of Texas, 1836–1845.

Figure 5.1 Land Forms of Texas.

Figure 5.2 Ethnic settlements, 1850.

Figure 5.4 Military Posts.

Figure 6.9 West Texas forts and the Comanche Range, 1866 to 1880s.

Figure 6.13 Cattle Trails.

Figure 7.3 Major Texas Railroads to 1900.

Figure 8.3 Ethnic settlements 1880.

Figure 9.1 Oil fields of Texas and date of discovery 1894–1918.

Figure 9.17 “Wet and dry” counties of Texas 1911.

Figure 13.8 The Ogallala Aquifer, as Part of the High Plains Aquifer System.

Figure 14.4 Texas counties.

Figure 14.10 Texas today.

The sixth edition of The History of Texas presents the fascinating story of the various peoples who have inhabited the land we know as Texas. Readers of this book will gain an understanding of the forces of cause and effect that have shaped the disparate pasts of different groups within the state as well as the heritage shared by all Texans. They will also develop an appreciation for the dynamic interpretations that scholars give to historical movements and specific events.

When initially published in 1990, the textbook was innovative in several ways. First, it took a social history approach, placing ordinary Texans at the center of the story, instead of the traditional “great man” approach. It thus became the first Texas history textbook consistently and systematically to include the histories of women, Tejanos, African Americans, and working‐class people. The book was also innovative in its chronological coverage. Texas history textbooks had traditionally emphasized the nineteenth century at the expense of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and particularly of the twentieth century. This Sixth Edition devotes two‐thirds of its pages to the post‐Civil War era and nearly 50 percent to the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries.

All peoples make history; we have continued to honor that tenet by incorporating the many cultures embraced by the Texas experience. The same principle also drove our effort to give due attention to the lives of ordinary Texans, as seen in the continued coverage of topics such as agriculture, industrialization, urbanization, economic disparity, migration patterns, and demographic change. Also included are the unsung subjects who contributed to the Texas saga, among them plain white folks, women, and the leaders and members of local labor, agricultural, and other grassroots organizations. Like its predecessors, this edition also pays attention to the history of folklore, music, literature, sports, religion, and other aspects of Texas culture that help determine the flavor of Texas, past and present. Believing that the history of Texas in recent times is as significant as that of past periods, we once again provide a comprehensive, unflinching analysis of Texas history in the more modern era.

Since 1990, the authors have kept abreast of new scholarly literature, incorporating it into each new edition and keeping the book historiographically current and relevant. Here we continue this practice. We have amplified some parts of the text and streamlined others for clarity. Therefore, the sixth edition features expanded discussions on the era between 1821 and 1848, on hardships civilians experienced during the Civil War, on agricultural reform in the early twentieth century, on women and minority groups, on the modern LGBTQ‐rights movement, and on recent environmental issues. At the same time, we cut statistics where we thought them repetitious or where we felt removing them would not harm the narrative. We also dropped passages when we considered them to overlap with information covered in American history survey classes. Our intent has always been to produce a highly readable work.

Like the text, we have updated the lists of suggested readings that conclude each chapter. Space limitations permitted the mention of only a small number of titles that have informed our writing or that we think must come to the attention of serious students of the state’s past. Primary material also proved crucial to this endeavor, particularly in the final chapter, whose suggested reading list includes many of the online sources that provided information on contemporary Texas.

Finally, and like its predecessor, the sixth edition offers students and instructors a dynamic website in support of the text, making The History of Texas ideal for traditional as well as online courses.

Over the course of six editions and nearly three decades, we have accumulated more debts than we can acknowledge here. Our greatest thanks, of course, must go to the late Robert A. “Bob” Calvert, a devoted scholar, writer, and teacher who conceptualized this book in the 1980s and contributed directly to the first two editions. Over the course of his long career, Bob influenced thousands of students of Texas history, a subject to which he was ever devoted.

Other scholars who have contributed in varied and important ways include Paul D. Lack, Larry D. Hill, Fane Downs, Charles Martin, Alwyn Barr, William Childs, Jesús F. de la Teja, Walter L. Buenger, Robert Wooster, David La Vere, Randolph B. Campbell, Charldean Newell, Bernard Weinstein, James E. Crisp, Ty Cashion, George N. Green, Carl H. Moneyhon, James Smallwood, Patrick G. Williams, H. Sophie Burton, F. Todd Smith, Paul J. Sugg, Neil Carman, Karen Hadden, Barbara J. Rozek, Paul Carlson, Richard Bruce Winders, and the late Malcolm D. McLean, Dorothy DeMoss, Ben Procter, Barry A. Crouch, Stanley Siegel, Norman D. Brown, and Robert Weddle. In preparing the sixth edition, we gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Andrew J. Torget, Walter L. Buenger, and Paul J. Sugg.

We also owe a special debt of gratitude to our friend and editor for the first five editions, Andrew Davidson, who has continued his long tradition of help and support, even though he has now moved on to other enterprises. It is safe to say that this book would not exist without him.