The Shifting Shapes of Early Texas
Some Highlights from Special Collections

Like the types of primary source materials and the interpretations of Texas’ history, the physical shapes of Texas’ boundaries have shifted over time. Texas’ current boundaries are among the most recognizable geographical symbols in the world. Today, visitors to Texas are not necessarily surprised any more to see Texas-shaped waffle irons, Texas-shaped swimming pools, Texas-shaped trailer hitch covers, and similar examples of modern Texana. However, these boundaries were not always there, and, with the exceptions of the Gulf shore and the highly permeable courses of the Rio Grande, Sabine, and Red rivers, even today, for the most part, the boundaries only exist in peoples’ minds.

Early maps show different shapes for the area that became Texas. They range from maps showing the area at the beginning of the European age of exploration to the 1850s when the current shape of Texas was first adopted. These six original printed maps convey some of the shapes of the rest of the original maps in the exhibit. However, also important are some of the ideas and ideals that shaped early Texas history over the years as reflected not only in the maps but also in the original rare prints, books, and documents to follow.

“In the Beginning...” – at least in the minds of early modern Europeans – Texas “...was without form and void.” To stress a biblical analogy further, one might say that “In the Beginning, there was [not even] the Word” Texas – again at least in European minds. For example, the Nuremberg merchant-traveller Martin Behaim’s Globe of 1492-1494 does not include the Americas because Columbus’ discoveries there were not yet understood in Europe. The earliest map to show a new continent with the name “America” – believed to be Martin Waldseemuller’s 1507 Mappa Mundi or world map – hints at the possibility of a small passage west between large land masses that can be interpreted as

South and North America. Not until 1519 – the year Hernán Cortés landed on the coast of Mexico – did a Spanish expedition consisting of four ships under Alonso Álvarez de Pineda follow and chart the northern gulf coast (the coast of the area that became Texas) to determine that there was no sea outlet west through the two continents (at least in what would soon be known as the Gulf of Mexico). Pineda’s ships apparently never stopped in what became Texas, but temporarily halted farther south at the mouth of the Panuco River by what is today the city of Tampico in southeastern Tamaulipas, Mexico.

The area that became Texas gradually took shape in the minds of Europeans as reflected on their maps during the sixteenth century. As a result of the pattern of early European exploration, the whole area initially fell under the presumptuous and nominal jurisdiction of the Catholic rulers of Spain. The origins and status of the indigenous peoples of those regions were intensely debated back in Europe. The Spanish rulers, who after Cortes’ conquest of Aztec Mexico in 1519-1521, soon realized the need for a viceroy located in Mexico City and ordered a series of expeditions or entradas to enter and explore the area. The famous (and some now infamous or not so famous) Spanish explorers who

led these included Pánfilo de Narváez, Fray Marcos de Niza, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, Hernando de Soto, Luís de Moscoso Alvarado, and others. Not all these set foot on the soil that became Texas, but each directly impacted Texas history. In 1546 the Spanish discovered a mountain of silver ore at Zacatecas and soon began spreading north from central Mexico with their indigenous allies, waging war for the rest of the century upon a diverse group of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples – the Chichimecas – whom both the Aztecs and Spanish described as barbarians.

The diverse and conflicting European conceptions about the area that became Texas continued throughout the 1600s. The Spanish contributed to this speculation and ignorance in several ways: 1) through a lack of interest in this remote region during most of this period; 2) by keeping what knowledge they had to themselves; and 3) perhaps even by leaking misinformation. Their motives for this were clear: they wanted to keep the area free from other European intruders until, as they hoped, they could properly manage the area themselves. Spanish presence in neighboring areas was nevertheless already producing great changes among the indigenous peoples in Texas through the introduction of horses, cattle, manufactured trade goods and metals, and through the spread of largely invisible factors such as ideas and disease.

In Europe cartographers continued to question the general shape of the American continent. From 1625 until ca.1725, a cartographic error persisted on European maps that California was an island – this despite earlier

maps that had shown Baja California correctly as a peninsula! Also, despite maps beginning to show greater details along the Rio del Norte (northern Rio Grande) where Spanish settlement and colonization spread northward into New Mexico beginning with Juan de Oñate’s expedition in 1598, Europeans continued to believe this river flowed southwestward into the Vermillion Sea or Gulf of California. After the Spanish settlement of New Mexico, the trans-Pecos region of what became west Texas received northwest– and southeast-bound visitors and later – after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 – east-bound settlers from the west. These patterns of European settlement did not follow the westward “frontier” movement normally associated with European colonization and settlement of North America. Meanwhile, a thriving map trade, particularly in the European Low Countries, drove mapmakers to produce more and more maps that showed the area with increasingly elaborate and decorative schemes in order to satisfy a growing demand for maps among wealthy and middle-class consumers.

Events of the late 1600s shaped Texas in numerous ways, and inaccurate maps helped shape some of the events. In neighboring New Mexico, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 temporarily forced the Spanish to retreat south to “el Paso” (the Pass) where the Spanish had already begun a settlement in the 1650s at present-day Ciudad Juarez. Farther downriver on the northeast side, the refugees and their indigenous allies in 1682 established the mission and pueblo of Corpus Christi de la Isleta – the first permanent European settlement in Texas. That year also, French explorer Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle, travelled down the Mississippi from Nouvelle France (New France or Canada) and reached the Gulf of Mexico, before he returned through the continent to France by way of Montreal. Naming his discoveries “La Louisiane” after the French King Louis XIV, La Salle was soon heading back to the New World with a four-ship expedition to establish a fort at the

mouth of the great river whose location he had never properly determined.In February 1685, La Salle and his colonists overshot the Mississippi by hundreds of miles and instead landed near present-day Matagorda Bay Texas to establish their fort. After desperate attempts to locate the mighty river, one of La Salle’s men murdered him in March 1687, and the colony dispersed, many of the French being killed by, captured by, or having deserted to live among the indigenous people in the area. Meanwhile, rumors of the French colony spurred the Spanish to action; they sent several expeditions by land and sea to search for the French “intruders” in what has been termed Spain’s “Wilderness Manhunt.” Ultimately, La Salle’s misguided colony had an enormous impact upon Texas’ history because it rekindled Spanish interest in the area and led to disputed boundary claims that lasted for over a century and a half.

Lines drawn on maps of the eighteenth century represent French and Spanish claims to the area that became Texas. They were simply that and usually did not reflect actual ownership, settlement, jurisdiction, religious, military, or civil power, although they often imply otherwise. Throughout the century, Spain attempted to establish or maintain colonial control of the area through military or secular and religious means. However, Spanish officials could never find enough colonists willing to emigrate, and, with the exceptions of a few isolated pockets of Spanish missions (which often met with only limited successes) and presidios (forts) along the Rio Grande, around San Antonio, Goliad, and in east Texas, the real powerbrokers in the area that became Texas during the century were its indigenous peoples. Their understanding of land ownership and power and their concepts of mapping were quite different from the Europeans. Maps and documents often do not well represent this actual indigenous power and presence – factors that were little understood even by Europeans living and traveling along the frontier at that time.

Many of the best maps of the eighteenth century of the area that became Texas were produced by the rival French and Spanish. The latter had good mapmakers as well as access to the area that became Texas, and their maps reflect the dual role of the Catholic Church and the Spanish state. However, the Spanish rarely published maps, and, therefore, both Spanish manuscript (hand drawn) and printed maps were and are much rarer and more difficult to obtain than printed maps by other European mapmakers. Although the French had less access to the area that became Texas, French geographes (scholarly cartographers) gained some of their information through captured Spanish manuscript maps and French forays into Texas led by La Salle, St. Denis, and others. The French dominated European mapmaking for most of the eighteenth century. British, Dutch, and German mapmakers, map-publishers, and map-sellers – who started their careers as tradesmen – merely copied published maps by several of the more prominent French cartographers who often received Jesuit training and government sponsorship and subsidies.

Challenges from without and from within the Spanish Empire increasingly shaped the borderlands of southern North America throughout the mid- to late-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The nomadic Comanche expanded their power and influence deeper into Texas through raids, threats, and diplomacy, and the Spanish and other indigenous peoples including the Apache never found successful solutions to counter them. In 1749, the Spanish and some Apache chiefs concluded an alliance and in 1756 established Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá in central Texas; however, this angered the Comanche and their allies, which included Wichita, Kichai, Tonkawa, Bidais, and Caddo, who attacked and destroyed the mission in 1758.

Farther east, the French lost nearly all their claims in the Americas at the end of the Seven Years’ War of 1756-1763, first ceding in 1762 the Louisiana territory and New Orleans to their Spanish allies in compensation for the Spanish loss of Florida to Great Britain. However, as a result of the Treaty of Paris of 1763, all parts of the Louisiana territory east of the Mississippi as well as Florida went to Great Britain while Spain retained Luisiana west of the Mississippi. Texas was temporarily no longer on an international Europeannegotiated border, but Spain still had to determine how best to treat among the shifting indigenous alliances and administer and defend a very large area with very few people and resources.

During the American Revolution of 1776-1783, France and later Spain allied themselves with the American Continentals against the British in 1778 and 1779, respectively. In Texas, the Spanish attempted a reorganization with other provinces into a separately administered district called the Provincias Internas and sent out inspection tours. They also drove cattle from Texas to Luisiana to supply Spanish troops in one of the first recorded Texas cattle drives. At the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Spain received East and West Florida back while the newly recognized United States acquired the other lands east of the Mississippi, making it a new and expanding neighbor to the east. The American victory over Britain together with the French Revolution of 1789, the execution of French King Louis XVI in 1793,

and the successful French conscript armies created anxiety for European royalists while giving confidence to republican liberals in Europe and the Americas. Spain had to deal with these new situations and the new ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity. In addition, Spain faced the expansion of the Comanche and their indigenous allies as well as the westward and southward migration of indigenous peoples to Texas who had been driven from their traditional homes in the United States. New policies and treaties offered only temporary, if any, solutions. Moreover, despite years of Spanish activity in Texas, their available resources and cartographic knowledge of the area were surprisingly limited.

The turmoil caused by the Napoleonic Wars shaped world history, including that of Texas and the North American Borderlands where Spain’s decline created a power vacuum. In 1800 at the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso between Spain and France (since 1799 under Napoleon Bonaparte), Spain quietly agreed to the retrocession of their portion of the Louisiana territory back to France. In 1803, Napoleon, needing cash for his wars, sold it to the United States. Distant “Spanish” Texas was once again on a major international border while much of it remained under the power of its indigenous inhabitants. Soon traders from the United States sought to establish ties with the powerful Comanche and other indigenous groups in the borderlands, upsetting trading patterns and alliances that Spain had earlier crafted. In 1808, Napoleon invaded Spain. The resulting Peninsular War devastated the country and further weakened its hold on its overseas empire.

Wars of Independence flared in Spain’s Latin American colonies including Mexico where Father Miguel Hidalgo issued his famous “grito” or call for death to bad government in 1810. Violence and war quickly spread to New Spain’s northern borderlands area including Texas. There, unauthorized military expeditions or “filibustering” became common, along with an already existing illicit traffic in wild horses and cattle, as a broad array of opportunists in addition to the indigenous nations took advantage of Spanish weakness.

Nevertheless, in 1813 royalist Spanish forces under Joaquín de Arredondo slaughtered over a thousand Mexican republican and filibuster volunteers from the United States at a site just south of San Antonio. This “Battle of the Medina” was the bloodiest battle to ever occur on Texas soil. Retaliation against local collaborators was extensive and impacted the Hispanic community in Texas for years.

Meanwhile, the U.S. engaged Great Britain in the “War of 1812.” Afterwards, the British decision at the Treaty of Ghent in 1814 to abandon forts in the Ohio River Valley and a final British defeat at New Orleans in 1815 emboldened U.S. “expansionists” dreams along their western border (or Texas’ eastern border). As Spanish attention continued to focus on Mexico’s War of Independence, groups of Anglos and indigenous people from the United States quietly entered eastern Texas. A few pirates like Jean Lafitte came to the Texas coast where in 1819 even a few French veterans and refugees from Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo attempted to set up a French colony of exiles: the highly publicized “Champ d’Asile” or “Field of Asylum.” Partly as a result, that year Spanish Minister Don Luis de Onís and the U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams signed a treaty that ceded to the U.S. all Spanish claims to their former territories east of the Mississippi and created a new but controversial and little understood border stretching all the way to the Pacific.

The long Mexican War for Independence finally ended with the Plan of Iguala, an agreement whereby Mexico would become an independent constitutional monarchy under the leading royalist military commander, Agustin de Iturbide. Support for this and its defense of “the Three Guarantees” of religion (namely Catholic), independence, and unity, was widespread across Mexico, and the Spanish Viceroy signed the Treaty of Córdoba on August 24, 1821. Spanish Texas was now Mexican Texas – in name (the indigenous Comanches and others notwithstanding). Unfortunately, in Mexico City disagreements quickly erupted between those who wanted a completely centralized system and those who wanted a federal system with greater autonomy for separate states – believing in something like “states’ rights.” Distant Texas’ borders had remained quite permeable during this time as people primarily from the southern United States and of surprisingly diverse backgrounds increasingly emigrated to the area, both legally and illegally, both before and after Mexican independence.

These new emigrants included displaced indigenous groups, such as the Western Cherokees, some free Blacks and former slaves, as well as Anglos, some of whom brought enslaved people with them. The best known among the Anglos was Stephen F. Austin, a young entrepreneur from Missouri who came to Texas in July 1821 to fulfill an empresario (land agent) contract originally granted to his father by the Spanish a few months earlier to settle in Texas three hundred Anglo families from the United States within a certain time period. With the help of many of his father’s contacts, Austin successfully renegotiated his contract with the Mexican government, which passed generous colonization laws hoping to populate their territory with industrious and loyal citizens who were good Catholics. Austin succeeded in fulfilling his contract by late 1824 and soon received four additional contracts. Meanwhile, the Mexican government granted Texas lands to other would-be empresarios, some successful, others not, while in the U.S. and elsewhere there was a sort of “land rush” for Mexican Texas.

Mexican Texas experienced a shift in cultures as a large population of Anglo Protestants and enslaved people emigrated from the American South. Indigenous refugees from the United States also added to the population. The number of Mexicans migrating north never matched this. Centralist politicians began to worry that Mexico would lose all control in Texas, particularly after they read General Terán’s report that the growing Anglo population was not assimilating well and that they were not following Mexican laws, particularly Mexico’s ban on slavery. Attempts to enforce Mexican laws and to stop Anglo emigration from the U.S. altogether only added to dissatisfaction and growing discontent with the Mexican government among the Texan colonists. The Anglo-Americans found allies among the Mexican federalists who helped them smooth over differences, but the Anglos, convinced of their “inalienable rights” and familiar with self-government, wanted more autonomy in their own affairs.

For years before and after Texas independence, maps show Texas divided into land grants or colonies by the name of the empresario or land agent. Stephen F. Austin’s map of Texas, as printed and published by Henry S. Tanner of Philadelphia and issued in multiple editions between 1830 and 1840, is the prime example of these (cat. no. 97) but there are many others, some of which appeared separately or in books. Boundaries between grants were not always well-defined by surveys, and disputes arose between those with prior claims and those that arrived later, an example being the trouble resulting in the short-lived Fredonian Revolt of 1826-1827 after empresario Haden Edwards and his brother Benjamin attempted to remove prior residents within their east Texas grant around Nacogdoches. Commercial mapmakers also continued to produce regional maps for atlases that included Texas, but many other new maps were clearly promotional in purpose.

The various Mexican governments never found a solution for their growing Texas problem. All efforts to curb Anglo emigration and slavery from the United States and enforce Mexican laws just led to frustration, anger, and growing incidents of violence. Anglo-Texans, by simply forming provisional council and assemblies according to U.S. custom, aroused Mexican suspicions even when they, like Stephen F. Austin, kept trying to work through legal channels to get the ever-shifting Mexican governments to address their concerns. The Cherokees, too, remained loyal to Mexico, still hoping to get clear titles to their land. However, more recent arrivals, which included aggressive agitators like William B. Travis, became increasingly involved in “disturbances” involving customs collection, runaway slaves, or discriminatory actions against Mexicans and indigenous people that resulted in open rebellion or total disregard of Mexican laws. These radicals steadily gained influence within Texas, particularly after the moderate Austin, who had travelled to Mexico City in 1833 on behalf of the colonists, was arrested for treason on his

return trip and held for a year without trial as a prisoner in Mexico City until released in December 1834.Meanwhile, Mexican President and General of the Army Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna – at first believed to be a champion of the federalist cause and defender the Constitution of 1824 – shifted course by centralizing the government and increasingly assuming dictatorial powers.

Anglo-Texans in provisional councils and assemblies in Texas attempted to understand Mexican policies and determine what course to take. Should Texas ally itself with northern Mexican states to defend and return to the Constitution of 1824? Or should Texas free itself from Mexican rule entirely? Anglo Texans and federalist Mexican politicians passed resolutions and made declarations. Meanwhile, Tejanos and the indigenous peoples also had to determine their own path forward through dangerous political currents in a place where they were increasingly minorities.

The Texas Revolution, or Texas War for Independence, began on October 2, 1835, when rebellious colonists attacked a Mexican force that had been ordered to retrieve a cannon previously loaned by the government to the settlers of Gonzales for defense against Indians. “Come and Take It” was the Texan reply, precipitating the Battle of Gonzales. Electing Stephen F. Austin commander of the “Army of the People,” the Texans soon captured the Goliad presidio and laid siege to San Antonio de Bexar where the centralist Mexican military commander in Texas, General Cos, held out until December 11 before surrendering. Meanwhile, delegates from across Texas met at San Felipe de Austin in a “Consultation” to determine a course of action while Austin’s undisciplined volunteer army, consisting of residents from all over Texas as well as volunteers from the U.S., grew and shrank depending upon their business back home. Forces sent to assist Mexican federalists in Tampico (from New Orleans) and Matamoros (from Texas) failed miserably, neither winning the support of most Texans or earning the trust and support of the local population.

Santa Anna, incensed by this rebellion, energetically gathered a large army of over 6,000 men and rapidly marched them north to defeat the federalist, Texan, and North American rebels whom he considered to be traitors, foreigners, and pirates. His advance troops arrived in San Antonio on February 23, 1836, and for the next thirteen days besieged a small force of recent volunteers from the United States holed up in the

fortified mission there known as the Alamo while Texan delegates met at Washington-on-the-Brazos and declared Texas’ independence on March 2nd. On the morning of March 6th Santa Anna’s forces took the Alamo by direct assault, killing or executing all defenders.

Meanwhile, Santa Anna had sent another force under the highly competent Mexican General José de Urréa to sweep through Tampico and Matamoros and continue north and northeast through the Texas coastal plains. Urréa’s forces scattered and destroyed a small force of Texans near San Patricio on March 2nd and then on March 19-20 defeated a larger force of Texans and volunteers recently arrived from the United States under Colonel James Fanin who surrendered near Goliad. Despite the protestations of Urréa and others, Santa Anna ordered the execution of Fannin and over four hundred of his men in the so-called “Goliad Massacre” on March 27.

The combined disasters at San Antonio and Goliad led to a mass exodus of refugees eastward known as the “Runaway Scrape” as a regular Texan Army, now under the command of General Sam Houston, retreated eastward toward the United States border with Santa Anna and his army in pursuit. Finally, on April 21st Houston turned his army to fight at San Jacinto near present Houston, and in eighteen minutes the Texans overran the Mexican camp, killing and capturing almost the entire force and capturing the Mexican President himself.

The Texan Army’s victory at San Jacinto and capture of Santa Anna in April 1836 created unexpected opportunities, challenges, and hardships for the many peoples of Texas. On May 14, under the public and private Treaties of Velasco, Santa Anna, in exchange for his own release, promised his armies would cease hostilities, restore confiscated property, exchange prisoners, and withdraw south of the Rio Grande. Further promises made by Santa Anna became moot on May 20 when the Mexican government refused to recognize any agreements Santa Anna made while a prisoner. As more volunteers kept arriving from the United States to help fight Mexico, the Anglo-Texans continued forming what they thought would be only a temporary government or republic, and the overwhelming majority of them on September 5 elected Sam Houston president hoping that would lead to early annexation with the United States. However, the United States already faced a growing divide over the issue of slavery, and Houston’s friend President Andrew Jackson could not promote Texas annexation because many in the U.S. saw Texas more as a liability than an asset. The new Texas government had not only made sure their new constitution legalized slavery, but it also excluded citizenship to Africans, descendants of Africans, and Indians. Another slave state for the U.S. that could possibly be subdivided into more slave states that would tip the balance there in favor of slave states, Texas was heavily in debt and annexation would likely cause a war with Mexico which refused to recognize Texas’ independence.In Houston’s first term, the Texan

President attempted to keep the peace and pursue a fair Indian policy by concluding treaties with tribes that were still not convinced of Texas’ permanence, checked the influence of recent arrivals who wanted to invade Mexico by furloughing most of the Army, and sought international recognition for Texas. Limited by law to only two years, Houston stepped down, and his former Vice President Mirabeau B. Lamar easily won the October 1838 election – now for a three-y ear term – as the next President of the Republic.

Lamar differed with Houston on many issues. He completely reversed Houston’s Indian policy by waging an exterminating war on many of Texas’ indigenous peoples, driving out the Cherokees, the Caddos, and all others in east Texas. Only the Alabamas and Coushattas, who had aided Anglos during “the Runaway Scrape,” would remain. Lamar’s war against the more powerful Comanche was less successful, resulting in considerable bloodshed for both sides. Lamar was not interested in annexation but did pursue international recognition for what he considered would be a “future empire,” spending large sums to relocate the capitol to Austin, to build up the Texas Navy, and to send a trade and diplomatic expedition to Santa Fe.

Maps, rare books, pamphlets, letters, broadsides, sheet music, money, and all kinds of papers and notes document the story of the Republic of Texas. The materials here are just a few examples selected from UTA’s rich collections.

Sam Houston’s second term as Texas President had just expired in December 1844 when both House and Senate of the United States Congress finally voted to pursue the annexation of Texas. Part of the impetus for the change in attitude in the U.S. was fear that Great Britain or some other European power might attempt to seize or lure Texas within its Empire – an idea that Houston had coyly and masterfully pursued diplomatically with no real intent. Mexico still refused to acknowledge Texas’ independence, and annexation now shifted most of Texas’ defense burden to the United States. In July 1845, U.S. President Polk sent General Zachary Taylor with most of the small professional U.S. Army to south Texas to protect the new boundary. He also dispatched a diplomat with an offer to purchase California and much of what would become the American Southwest. Most Mexicans were incensed by this. Step by step neither country backed down, and when a U.S. reconnaissance patrol provoked a Mexican response just north of the Rio Grande, Polk found a way to justify aggressive action to the American Congress, which declared war on Mexico.

After two years, the United States succeeded militarily in seizing much of northern Mexico and, in one of the first amphibious assaults in U.S. history, successfully landed an army near the Gulf port of Veracruz that fought its way to the Valley of Mexico and occupied Mexico City. Meanwhile, the new state of Texas continued to grow as new waves of immigrants from the United States and Europe continued to arrive.

Thanks to Jenkins and Virginia Garrett and many others, UTA Libraries’ Special Collections can tell this history through original rare maps, prints, books, broadsides, letters, diaries, and journals better than many of the finest institutions throughout the United States, Mexico, and the World. On display is only a miniscule amount of UTA’s treasures relating to this subject. The Garretts found a focus in this war for their collecting early on, and, through generous endowments from them and others, Special Collections continues to broaden and deepen these holdings. The U.S. War with Mexico shaped Texas like no other and continues to impact this state, other states, and the two nations today.

The Texas population, not including indigenous people, grew from approximately 142,000 in 1847 to 212,295 in 1850 and 604,215 in 1860. In addition to people arriving from the American South, this also included large numbers of immigrants from Europe, particularly Germans.

Many were attracted by offers of cheap land. While politics and the economy were largely dominated by wealthy Southern slaveholders who had come to Texas with the idea of establishing cotton plantations, the Germans and other Anglos often started with subsistence farming.

Although much of Texas’ physical past has largely disappeared and is still disappearing, many of the old ideas and events of the past continue to shape Texas today. For all the short-term benefits envisioned at the time, slavery, secession, and the Civil War brought ruin upon Texas. Like all history, Texas’ Independence was a lot more complicated than the simple version many of us have carried with us since the seventh grade. Hopefully, all Texans are becoming more aware of the problems connected with racial injustices of the past and present.

And old Texan attitudes toward the environment have created a real mess. Obviously, the necessary changes are not easy. Texas never could and never will really succeed on its own if the rest of the United States, Mexico, and our neighbors around the world are in chaos. But the stories of Texas are still worth telling, and the myths are still interesting. The story of Texas will never be told or remembered like this again, and that is undoubtedly a good thing. The shape of Texas history will shift again.

Since its founding in 1967, UTA Libraries’ Special Collections has had an interest in state and local history. In 1970 the archive expanded to include state political collections. Over the years, the expertise and experience of many staff members guided and enhanced the acquisition of such materials including cartographic items. In 1974 this reached grand proportions when Fort Worth attorney Jenkins Garrett, Sr. donated a magnificent personal collection that included over 10,000 rare books, printed broadsides and newspapers, paper money, sheet music, letters and correspondence, and other documents relating primarily to Texas, Mexican political history to 1900, and the U.S. War with Mexico. Later, in 1997, his wife Virginia donated her personal collection of rare maps and atlases, many of which she had acquired because of their Texas subject matter. Others, including Murray Hudson, Ted W. Mayborn, Lewis and Virginia Buttery, Walter Wilson, and Dr. Jack Franke, to mention only a few, have also donated Texana. The Garretts and others also left endowments whereby UTA Special Collections continues to purchase materials relating to Texas. After almost fifty-five years the collection has great depth and maturity, - even though rising prices and rarity make it difficult to fill gaps for much-desired Texana.

In conjunction with the Thirteenth Biennial Virginia Garrett Lectures, the annual meeting of the International Map Collectors’ Society, and the Fall Meeting of the Texas Map Society, this exhibit attempts to highlight not only cartographic materials pertaining to Texas from UTA’s great map collections, - but also highlights other kinds of materials from other collections of Texana here at UTA. It is a daunting task to limit these items since there is such a great quantity from which to choose. The focus here on this occasion is upon the early history of Texas, but more recent events could also be told through the wealth of materials here at Special Collections.

Many people at UTA have been instrumental in the creation of this exhibit. Retired Head of Special Collections and former Manuscripts Archivist Brenda McClurkin encouraged, promoted, and offered many ideas – all while voluntarily working on arrangements for the lectures. UTA history student worker Alexander Jones provided invaluable assistance by doing all matting and framing. The staffs of Libraries Administration and Special Collections – and particularly Gretchen Trkay and Evan Spencer – have covered many duties that freed me to work on this project. If there are sections of this gallery guide that have no glaring errors, I must acknowledge those as the parts read by UTA Professors Sam W. Haynes and Gerald Saxon who, with little notice, generously offered their sage counsel. I must also thank Cathy Spitzenberger for her help in proofreading but add that she should not receive any blame for factual errors (those are mine). UTA student Justin Cole assisted with useful research. Sophia Motyka and Rodrigo Lizaola helped with book displays. Mark Cook, Ryan Nash, Nicholas Williams, and Paul Carlisle provided scans and photographs. Vaibhavi Arjunwadkar, Andrew Leverenz, and Rahul Sharma created this website. Gerardo Gibbs and Carrie Bialach of Texas Solutions put the exhibit up. Once again gallery guide designer Carol Lehman worked wonders in a short amount of time, as did Ed and Cherrie Ferguson of Premiere Printing of Arlington.

--Ben Huseman

For physical descriptions, references, and footnotes, download the complete Gallery Guide (PDF). Website background image: Image by kues1 on Freepik.