Book News: War and Peace on the Rio Grande Frontier, 1830–1880

The inaugural volume of University of Oklahoma Press's New Directions in Tejano History series, Mexican historian Miguel Ángel González-Quiroga's War and Peace on the Rio Grande Frontier, 1830–1880 appears to complement as well as share a number of themes with another borderlands study, Andrew Masich's award-winning Civil War in the Southwest Borderlands, 1861–1867 (2017). Whereas Masich's book focused on the Upper Rio Grande region's interrelated 'civil wars' of the early to mid 1860s, González-Quiroga's study is more sweepingly broad, embracing five decades of international conflict and cooperation "(s)panning the Anglo settlement of Texas in the 1830s, the Texas Revolution, the Republic of Texas , the US-Mexican War, various Indian wars, the US Civil War, the French intervention into Mexico, and the final subjugation of borderlands Indians by the combined forces of the US and Mexican armies."

Certainly, both authors recognize the "parallel worlds" of the borderlands, with its "well-documented violence fueled by racial hatred, national rivalries, lack of governmental authority, competition for resources, and an international border that offered refuge to lawless men" balanced by "coexistence and cooperation among Mexicans, Anglo-Americans, ... Native Americans, African Americans, and Europeans."

More from the description: In his book, González-Quiroga "draws on national archives, letters, consular records, periodicals, and a host of other sources to give voice to borderlanders’ perspectives as he weaves their many, varied stories into one sweeping narrative. The tale he tells is one of economic connections and territorial disputes, of refugees and bounty hunters, speculation and stakeholding, smuggling and theft and other activities in which economic considerations often carried more weight than racial prejudice." Look for it in March 2020.