A History of Texas and Texans

For some years before his death in 1884 Colonel Frank W. Johnson occupied himself in collecting material for and writing a comprehensive history of Texas down to annexation. The idea of a documentary history of this period is a good one, for the reason that the colonization of Texas by emigrants from the United States, and the subsequent revolution from Mexico, have generally been misrepresented as deliberate moves in a conspiracy of southern slaveholders to wrest Texas from Mexico and annex it to the United States. No denial of this charge can be so effective as the contemporary documents themselves, which go far toward revealing the thoughts and feelings of the settlers. For this reason I have frequently added documents to which Johnson did not have access. The chapters on the period since annexation are written by Mr. E. W. Winkler of the State Library. As indicated on the title page, the work comprises, in addition to the general history of Texas, an addendum of economic and local data covering all the county divisions of the state, and also a collection of biographical articles on families and individual Texans. - Editor's preface.