Unsettled Land: From Revolution to Republic, the Struggle for Texas

The Texas Revolution has long been cast as an epic episode in the origins of the American West. As the story goes, larger-than-life figures like Sam Houston, David Crockett, and William Barret Travis fought to free Texas from repressive Mexican rule. In Unsettled Land (Basic, 2022), historian Sam Haynes reveals the reality beneath this powerful creation myth. He shows how the lives of ordinary people—white Americans, Mexicans, Native Americans, and those of African descent—were upended by extraordinary events over twenty-five years. After the battle of San Jacinto, racial lines snapped taut as a new nation, the Lone Star republic, sought to expel Indians, marginalize Mexicans, and tighten its grip on the enslaved.

Questions? Email swcenter@smu.edu.

Maps and directions to SMU.

Further Reading

Here, you’ll find more resources to feed your interest in the topics covered at this event.

More from Dr. Haynes

Haynes, Sam, and Saxon, Gerald. Contested Empire: Rethinking the Texas Revolution. Texas A&M University Press, 2015.

Primary Sources

https://library.uta.edu/borderland/

https://library.uta.edu/usmexicowar/

Secondary Sources

Bowers, Riley. “Beyond a Border Conflict: Indigenous Involvement in the Mexican-American War.” *West Virginia University Historical Review 2(*1), 2021. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=wvuhistoricalreview

“Campfire Stories: African Americans.” The Bullock Museum. https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/discover/campfire-stories/african-americans

Gordon Reed, Annette. “The Tensions That Roiled Texas.” Harvard Magazine, 2021. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2021/05/montage-tensions-roiled-texas

Hooks, Christopher. “The Battle to Rewrite Texas History.” Texas Monthly, 2019. https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/battle-rewrite-texas-history/

Leza, Christina. “For Native Americans, US-Mexico border is an ‘imaginary line’.” The Conversation, 2019. https://theconversation.com/for-native-americans-us-mexico-border-is-an-imaginary-line-111043

Nazir, Milady. “History professor Omar Valerio-Jiménez uncovers the hidden figures of Texas history.” UTSA Today, 2021. https://www.utsa.edu/today/2021/10/story/Hidden-Figures-of-Texas-History.html

Siegel, Stanley. “José Antonio Navarro.” Texas State Historical Association, 2020. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/navarro-jose-antonio

Waxman, Olivia. “’The Myth Itself Becomes a Stand-in.’ What Can the Alamo’s History Teach Us About Teaching History?” Time Magazine, 2021. https://time.com/6079003/texas-history-alamo-curriculum-critical-race-theory/

Waxman, Olivia. “Fact-Checking ‘The Ballad of Davy Crockett’.” Time Magazine, 2016. https://time.com/4450210/davy-crockett-ballad-factchecking/